Great Britain was neither crushed nor intimidated. She had flung off the fear of invasion; and her ships triumphantly ranged the seas, attacking sea-board forts, fighting vessels double their own size and tonnage, capturing prizes, making prisoners, in all directions. At this date there were some thirty thousand French prisoners in England; and before the close of the Peninsular War their number had risen to ninety thousand.
In 1807 Britain had as yet been less successful on land than at sea. Many a battle indeed had been gained, many a deed of splendid valour had been done; but while one expedition after another had been despatched hither and thither, with intent to undermine and weaken the enormous power of Napoleon, most of these had failed to administer any serious check to his advances. At that date England seems to have had an army inadequate to her needs, if not in numbers, at least in military equipment; and the expeditions sent were usually far too small for the work they were intended to do.
All this while the inner life of the nation flowed on. Taxes were heavy, food was dear, much suffering existed, yet the spirit of the people neither failed nor faltered. They were cheery and full of courage, looking forward with high hope to a better state of things. In a little while, surely, justice would be meted out, and the cause of liberty would prevail.
Even in England Napoleon was not without his enthusiastic admirers. There are always some whose party feeling is stronger than their patriotism; and there are commonly a few also who will sentimentally put a man upon a pedestal, with regard to his intellect only, apart from questions of character. This they did with Napoleon, adoring his genius, worshipping his success, ignoring his selfishness and the darker shades which belong to his history. But though such people made a good deal of noise with their opinions, after the fashion of excitable minorities, they were in numbers small. The mass of the people was in deadly earnest. The nation as a whole was ready to fight Buonaparte to the last coin in its purse, the last warm drop of blood in its body.
One more tragic story had yet to be told! One more apparent failure, which contained in itself the heroic germ of coming victory, had yet to be lived through. One more great Englishman was to die, in the very moment of a success, which at the moment could only be read as a defeat. Then the ebb of the tide would have begun.
(To be continued.)
“‘YOUR PARDON, SIR. MY NAME IS MISS KEENE, AS YOU ARE AWARE.’”