History of the English People, Volume VIII / Modern England, 1760-1815

by John Richard Green

The Peace of Amiens.

Bitter as was the anger with which the First Consul received the news of this surrender, it only strengthened his resolve to suspend a war of which Britain only could now reap the fruits, and whose continuance might in the present temper of Russia and its Czar disturb that peace of the Continent on which all his plans against England rested. It was to give time for such an organization of France and its resources as might enable him to reopen the struggle with other chances of success that the First Consul opened negotiations for peace at the close of 1801. His offers were at once met by the English Government. In the actual settlement of the Continent indeed England saw only an imperfect balance to the power of France, but it had no means of disputing the settlement, as France had no means of disturbing its supremacy at sea. If Buonaparte wished to husband his resources for a new attack all but the wilder Tories were willing to husband the resources of England for the more favourable opportunity of renewing it which would come with a revival of European energy. With such a temper on both sides the conclusion of peace became easy; and the negotiations which went on through the winter between England and the three allied Powers of France, Spain, and the Dutch, brought about in March 1802 the Peace of Amiens. The terms of the Peace were necessarily simple; for as England had no claim to interfere with the settlement of the Continent, which had been brought about by the treaties of its powers with the French Republic, all that remained for her was to provide that the settlement should be a substantial one by a pledge on the part of France to withdraw its forces from Southern Italy, and to leave to themselves the republics it had set up along its border in Holland, Switzerland, and Piedmont. In exchange for this pledge England recognized the French government, restored all the colonies which they had lost, save Ceylon and Trinidad, to France and its allies, acknowledged the Ionian Islands as a free republic, and engaged to restore Malta within three months to its old masters, the Knights of St. John.

Buonaparte.

There was a general sense of relief at the close of so long a struggle; and for a moment the bitter hatred which England had cherished against France seemed to give place to more friendly feelings. The new French ambassador was drawn in triumph on his arrival through the streets of London; and thousands of Englishmen crossed the Channel to visit a country which had conquered the world, and to gaze on the young general who after wonderful victories had given a yet more wonderful peace to Europe. But amidst all the glare of success, shrewd observers saw the dangers that lay in the temper of the First Consul. Whatever had been the errors of the French Revolutionists, even their worst attacks on the independence of the nations around them had been veiled by a vague notion of freeing the peoples whom they invaded from the yoke of their rulers. But the aim of Buonaparte was simply that of a vulgar conqueror. He was resolute to be master of the Western world, and no notions of popular freedom or sense of national right interfered with his resolve. The means at his command for carrying out such a design were immense. The political life of the Revolution had been cut short by his military despotism, but the new social vigour which the Revolution had given to France through the abolition of privileges and the creation of a new middle class on the ruins of the clergy and the nobles still lived on; and while the dissensions which tore the country asunder were hushed by the policy of the First Consul, by his restoration of the Church as a religious power, his recall of the exiles, and the economy and wise administration that distinguished his rule, the centralised system of government that had been bequeathed by the Monarchy to the Revolution and by the Revolution to Buonaparte enabled him easily to seize this national vigour for the profit of his own despotism. On the other hand, the exhaustion of the brilliant hopes raised by the Revolution, the craving for public order, the military enthusiasm and the impulse of a new glory given by the wonderful victories France had won, made a Tyranny possible; and in the hands of Buonaparte this tyranny was supported by a secret police, by the suppression of the press and of all freedom of opinion, and above all by the iron will and immense ability of the First Consul himself.

His designs.

Once chosen Consul for life, he felt himself secure at home, and turned restlessly to the work of outer aggression. The pledges given at Amiens were set aside. The republics established on the borders of France were brought into mere dependence on his will. Piedmont and Parma were actually annexed to France; and a French army occupied Switzerland. The temperate protests of the English Government were answered by demands for the expulsion of the French exiles who had been living in England ever since the Revolution, and for its surrender of Malta, which was retained till some security could be devised against a fresh seizure of the island by the French fleet. Meanwhile huge armaments were preparing in the French ports; and a new activity was seen in those of Spain. Not for a moment indeed had Buonaparte relinquished his design of attacking Britain. He had made peace because peace would serve his purpose, both in strengthening the tranquillity of the Continent, which was essential to his success in any campaign across the Channel, and in giving him time to replace by a new combination the maritime schemes which had broken down. Beaten as it had been, the Spanish fleet was still powerful; and a union with the French fleet which the First Consul was forming might still enable it to dispute the command of the sea. All that he wished for was time; and time was what the Peace gave him. But delay was as dangerous to England, now that it discerned his plans, as it was profitable to France; and in May 1803 the British Government anticipated his attack by a declaration of war.

The Camp at Boulogne.

The breach only quickened Buonaparte's resolve to attack his enemy at home. The difficulties in his way he set contemptuously aside; "Fifteen millions of people," he said, in allusion to the disproportion between the population of England and France, "must give way to forty millions"; and the invasion was planned on a gigantic scale. A camp of one hundred thousand men was formed at Boulogne, and a host of flat-bottomed boats gathered for their conveyance across the Channel. The peril of the nation forced Addington from office and recalled Pitt to power. His health was broken, and as the days went by his appearance became so haggard and depressed that it was plain death was drawing near. But dying as he really was, the nation clung to him with all its old faith. He was still the representative of national union; and he proposed to include Fox and the leading Whigs in his new ministry, but he was foiled by the bigotry of the king; and the refusal of Lord Grenville and of Windham to take office without Fox, as well as the loss of his post at a later time by his ablest supporter, Dundas, left him almost alone. But lonely as he was, he faced difficulty and danger with the same courage as of old. The invasion seemed imminent when Buonaparte, who now assumed the title of the Emperor Napoleon, appeared in the camp at Boulogne. A slight experience however showed him the futility of his scheme for crossing the Channel in open boats in the teeth of English men-of-war; and he turned to fresh plans of securing its passage. "Let us be masters of the Channel for six hours," he is reported to have said, "and we are masters of the world." A skilfully-combined plan, by which the British fleet would have been divided while the whole French navy was concentrated in the Channel, was delayed by the death of the admiral destined to execute it. But the alliance with Spain placed the Spanish fleet at Napoleon's disposal, and in 1805 he planned its union with that of France, the crushing of the squadron which blocked the ports of the Channel before the English ships which were watching the Spanish armament could come to its support, and a crossing of the vast armament thus protected to the English shore.

Trafalgar.

Though three hundred thousand volunteers mustered in England to meet the coming attack, such a force would have offered but small hindrance to the veterans of the Grand Army, had they once crossed the Channel. But Pitt had already found them work elsewhere. It was not merely the danger of Britain, and the sense that without this counterpoise they would be helpless before the new French Empire, that roused the alarm of the Continental powers. They had been scared by Napoleon's course of aggression since the settlement at Lunéville, and his annexation of Genoa brought their alarm to a head. Pitt's offer of subsidies removed the last obstacle in the way of a league; and Russia, Austria, and Sweden joined in an alliance to wrest Italy and the Low Countries from the grasp of the French Emperor. Napoleon meanwhile swept the sea in vain for a glimpse of the great armament whose assembly in the Channel he had so skilfully planned. Admiral Villeneuve, uniting the Spanish ships with his own squadron from Toulon, drew Nelson in pursuit to the West Indies, and then suddenly returning to Cadiz, hastened to form a junction with the French squadron at Brest and to crush the English fleet in the Channel. But a headlong pursuit brought Nelson up with him ere the manœuvre was complete, and the two fleets met on the 21st of October 1805 off Cape Trafalgar. "England" ran Nelson's famous signal, "expects every man to do his duty"; and though he fell himself in the hour of victory, twenty French sail had struck their flag ere the day was done. The French and Spanish navies were in fact annihilated. From this hour the supremacy of England at sea remained unquestioned; and the danger of any invasion of England rolled away like a dream.