A letter from Sir James Craig to Lord Castlereagh, of August 4th, gives the possible reason why he delayed equipping Cuthbert's company, and shows that the prejudices he had formed thirty years before were still strong. He says: "The militia have hitherto been only contemplated in theory, except in the town of Quebec. Lord Dorchester could not assemble any in 1775. In the following year I commanded the largest body ever brought together, but I was then in pursuit of a flying enemy. Since then no attempt to assemble them has been made. The Canadians of to-day are not warlike; they like to make a boast of their militia service, but all dislike the subordination and constraint. If the seigneurs possessed their old influence it might be different. Lawyers and notaries have now sprung into notice, and with them insubordination. The members returned to the new House consist of fifteen lawyers, fourteen farmers, and only seven seigneurs. In the event of having to contend with a French force no help is to be expected from this province. On the contrary, arms in their hands would be dangerous. They are French at heart yet."
From the time of his arrival Sir James Craig was possessed with the idea that the French Canadians, their leaders especially, were hostile to British suzerainty, and were to be distrusted in all things. At his elbow was the partisan secretary, always magnifying local disputes, and increasing his suspicion of hidden conspiracies. However, at the opening of parliament in January, 1808, the governor's address was conciliatory. He spoke warmly of the zeal and the loyalty of the militia, and said that all appearances gave promise that if the colony were attacked it would be defended in such a manner "as was to be expected of a brave race who fight for all that is dear to it." The session was taken up with the question of Jews and judges sitting in parliament. A resolution was passed excluding the former, and by a vote of twenty-two to two the assembly passed a bill excluding judges as well. This bill was rejected by the legislative council, and a hostile feeling arose between the governor and the assembly, whose speaker, M. Panet, he looked on with special aversion as a shareholder in Le Canadien.
The dismissals
The first session of Sir James Craig's administration was the last of the fourth parliament, and a new election took place in May. Shortly afterwards the governor took the impolitic step of dismissing from the militia Lieutenant-Colonel Panet (the speaker), Captains Bédard and Taschereau, Lieutenant Borgia and Surgeon Blanchet. The letter of dismissal to each, signed by H. W. Ryland, stated that the reason of the dismissal was that His Excellency could place no confidence in the services of a person whom he had good ground for considering as one of the proprietors of a seditious and libellous publication.
As to the opinion expressed by Brock in his letter of July, 1808, that war with the United States was now out of the question, it may be well to glance at the condition of affairs in Europe, and to find out what had produced the change of feeling in America. Russia, in 1807, had vainly struggled to free herself from the power of France, but after an unsuccessful campaign had concluded the Treaty of Tilsit with Napoleon. By its secret articles France allowed Russia to take Finland from Sweden, and Russia, on her part, promised to close her ports against British vessels. Napoleon's Berlin decrees had not really gone into force until the summer of 1807, when he ordered them to be executed in Holland, and in August a general seizure of neutrals took place at Amsterdam. From that time trade with the continent ceased. The seizure of their vessels had been a severe blow to the United States, and had roused in that country a feeling of distrust in Napoleon's friendship. Then followed the British orders-in-council, by which all neutral trade was prohibited from Copenhagen to Trieste. No American vessel was to enter any port of Europe from which the British were excluded, unless it had first cleared from a British port. Truly, neutrals were in a very difficult position.
In July, 1807, England sent a large naval expedition to Copenhagen under command of Lord Gambier, with transports containing twenty-seven thousand troops under Lord Cathcart. This expedition was sent with a peremptory request to the Prince Regent to deliver up the Danish fleet. From September 1st to the 5th, Copenhagen was bombarded. Scarcely any resistance was offered, and the fleet was surrendered, while Danish merchant vessels worth ten millions of dollars were confiscated. These arbitrary measures were taken in order to protect British trade and to defeat the designs of Napoleon to form a powerful navy. In consequence, the Russian fleet was shut up at Cronstadt, and the Baltic remained under the control of Great Britain. The naval combination carefully prepared by Napoleon in the Treaty of Tilsit utterly failed.
Napoleon's activity
Late in 1807, Napoleon had stripped the elector of Hesse Cassel of his dominions on the plea that he had not joined him in the war against Prussia, and had done the same to the Duke of Brunswick on the ground that the duke had joined Prussia against him. Out of these domains the arch dictator had created the kingdom of Westphalia, and had bestowed it upon his brother, Jerome Bonaparte. Soon after, because the Prince Regent of Portugal had refused to enforce the Berlin decrees against England, Napoleon sent Junot with thirty thousand men to take possession of Portugal, and announced in the Moniteur that the House of Braganza had ceased to reign in Europe. Junot entered Lisbon without opposition, to find that the Prince Regent and the court had embarked for Brazil, taking with them the ships that Napoleon coveted.
Then Tuscany was seized and added to France, and the Pope was ordered to declare war against England. Having refused to do this on the plea that he was a sovereign of peace, the French general, by Napoleon's orders, entered Rome in February, 1808, occupied the Castle St. Angelo, and took the papal troops under his own command.
Napoleon's next move was against Spain. The government there was in a most corrupt state, but up to this time the country had been the humble and submissive ally of France. Napoleon, still in the guise of friendship, took possession of her strongest fortresses, and having by a ruse got the king and queen and the heir Ferdinand into his power at Bayonne, he induced the old King Carlos IV. to resign his Crown in favour "of his friend and ally the Emperor of the French."