The public mind in England was wound up to the highest pitch of excitement by the publication, in the official Moniteur, of the “Acts of the Republic.” Nor did the love of peace, the desire of a commercial people to preserve an uninterrupted intercourse with the continent, or the dread of fresh burthens, allay their indignation. All the independent portion of the English press poured forth a ceaseless torrent of abuse of the French despot, thereby accelerating the crisis; nay, even the government journals, which had previously observed a guarded silence, now joined the chorus of national indignation. The English ministers had sent orders to the Cape of Good Hope to surrender that colony; and some of its forts had been actually given up to the Dutch government. The commander-in-chief, however, learning from England the critical state of affairs, repossessed himself with adroitness of the places given up, relanded his troops, and held possession of the settlement until counter-orders arrived.
In the meantime Bonaparte was with the utmost secresy preparing the most formidable preparations in Holland, and had already conceived and partly matured his grand design for the invasion of England. Yet even then, so completely were ministers unprepared or unconscious of his proceedings, that one of the Lords of the Admiralty said, in the course of a debate in Parliament, that only a few miserable fishing-boats existed in the Dutch ports; while, so late as the 23rd of February, the Prime Minister declared the country to be in a state of profound peace.
The King’s message.
The invasion of England determined upon.
War declared, 18 May, 1803.
However, on the 8th of March, 1803, the King sent a message to the House of Commons, acquainting them that he had judged it expedient to adopt additional measures of precaution for the security of his dominions, and, only two days later, the whole of the militia of the United Kingdom were called out and embodied. The energy and spirit of the monarch obtained an enthusiastic support from all ranks of his people; and Bonaparte, not yet quite prepared, launched forth one of his manifestoes in the form of a despatch to his ambassador at the English court, in which he disclaimed having any prepared armament except one at Helvoetsluys; adding, further, that this, though destined solely for purposes of colonisation, and ready to sail, should, in consequence of the king’s message, at once be countermanded. Very soon afterwards, however, he despatched staff-officers to Holland, Cherbourg, St. Malo, Granville, and Brest, with orders to repair all the gun-boats of his former Boulogne flotilla, and to collect in every port all craft available for the transportation of troops. He further ordered the construction of a vast number of flat-bottomed boats to carry heavy guns, and made the most formidable preparations for his cherished scheme of invading England. He also made arrangements for the occupation of Hanover, Portugal, and the gulf of Otranto (Tarentum), so as to control the Mediterranean, with the view of having thus under his command the whole continent of Europe from Denmark to the Adriatic.[257] With a similar object he collected a vast force at Bayonne to march into the Peninsula, and a second army at Faenza of ten thousand men and eighty guns to fall upon Naples; while he, at the same time, relanded the troops at Helvoetsluys, which, he had declared, were destined for Louisiana, and despatched them to Flushing. All the ports of the north of France were fortified in the strongest manner, and when, a few weeks later, he formed the celebrated camp at Boulogne, war was declared on the 18th of May, 1803, after a peace of only a year and a half.[258]
Joy of the shipowners.
Preparations in England for defence.
Captures of French merchantmen.
The shipowners and merchants of London, after what had taken place, heard the news of the formal declaration of war with tumultuous exultation; indeed war seemed then more acceptable than peace had been eighteen months before. Nelson was appointed to take charge of the Channel fleet, and a force of volunteers was speedily embodied, sufficient to convince Bonaparte that the invasion of England was not so easy as he had anticipated, even “although all France rallied around the hero which it admired.”[259] The English government, not waiting for the formal declaration of war, seized upon all the French merchant vessels they could meet with. Indeed, the news reached Paris, just after Lord Whitworth left that capital, that two English frigates had captured in the bay of Audierne some French merchantmen which were endeavouring to get into Brest. The intelligence of other captures soon followed. There had been an agreement between France and the United States on the subject of such captures (30th of September, 1800); but, strangely enough, the treaty of Amiens was silent upon this subject; hence the English government, viewing the prodigious military preparations of Bonaparte on land, retaliated in the only way they could retaliate effectively, by claiming the supremacy of the ocean. In seizing the French merchantmen before war had been formally declared, England adhered to her invariable practice when war, though unproclaimed, existed de facto. But the ruler of France was unprepared for this blow, and, in the first impulse of his resentment, he issued a decree arresting as prisoners of war all Englishmen then travelling in France. Nor was he induced till after long solicitation to limit the action of this decree to persons holding the king’s commission.[260]