Nelson sent to the Sound, 1801.
Bombardment of Copenhagen.
Although Mr. Pitt had retired about ten days from office when he delivered those opinions, his successors made prodigious efforts to maintain the policy he had so long pursued. Nelson, who had already gained immortal fame by the battle of the Nile (August 1st, 1798), was despatched, second in command to Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, to the Sound, with the double object of overawing Denmark and of preventing the junction of the fleets of the coalitionists. The details of Nelson’s extraordinary exploit are too well known to be here recapitulated. Practically assuming the chief command, he, amid the difficult navigation of the shoals which protect Copenhagen, bombarded the three Crown batteries of the Danes (April 2nd, 1801), attacked their fleet with signal success, and, when their determined resistance placed his squadron in the extremity of danger, and Admiral Sir Hyde Parker made the signal to discontinue the action, placing the glass to his blind eye, he exclaimed, “I really do not see Parker’s signal for leaving off action.”
After a terrible bombardment the Danes, who had suffered most severely, allowed their fire to slacken, and at length to cease. The captured vessels would not, however, yield up possession, so that an irregular firing was still partially kept up; and, in spite of their heavy losses, the Danes declined to withdraw from the confederacy of the neutral powers, or to open their ports to English merchant shipping, until that great confederacy[248] was broken up by the death of Paul I. of Russia. When his successor, Alexander I., ascended the throne, the 24th of March, 1801, his first step was to remove the embargo on merchant shipping, which had been so unjustifiably imposed by his predecessor; he had, indeed, no desire to wage a war of principles against France, and still less against England. The effects of this wise policy were soon apparent throughout Europe. England at once made peace with Russia[249] and the northern powers, and secretly entered into negotiations for the settlement of preliminaries of peace with France.
Peace of Amiens, and its terms.
Both nations were indeed by this time anxious for peace, Napoleon having in view the consolidation of his own personal power, while the English ministry sought repose for the country after a ten years’ war; and the people themselves were equally anxious with their rulers that war should cease. By the treaty it was agreed that England should restore to France, and to the other powers of Europe, all the maritime conquests she had made, with the exception of those parts of India which she had definitively acquired, embracing Ceylon, captured from the Dutch, and Trinidad, wrested from the Spaniards. She proposed, however, to restore the Cape of Good Hope, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo and Surinam to the Dutch; Martinique to the French; Minorca to the Spaniards; and to assign Malta to the still surviving members of the order of St. John of Jerusalem. England also evacuated Porto Ferrajo, which, with the island of Elba, was to be given back to the French. As an equivalent, the French were to evacuate the territory of Naples, that is, the gulf of Otranto, and Egypt, which France has ever been anxious to obtain, was restored to the Porte.
The preliminaries of this important treaty were signed on the night of the 1st of October, and a courier was despatched to Paris, with a view to make the public announcement simultaneously to the people on both sides of the Channel. The public joy both in France and England was of the most exciting character, as the negotiations, which had been carried on during nine months, had been kept profoundly secret up to the last moment. Napoleon and his colleagues, the other two consuls, Cambacérès and Lebrun, received the news at a cabinet council, and they embraced each other with undisguised delight. In this moment of satisfaction Cambacérès remarked, “Now that we have made peace with England, we have only to conclude a treaty of commerce, and all cause for future dissension between the two countries will be removed.”
Bonaparte’s opinion of free-trade.
“Not quite so fast,” rejoined the First Consul, with some energy. “A political peace is concluded; so much the better, let us enjoy it. As regards a commercial peace, we will make one if we can. But I will not on any consideration whatever sacrifice French industry. I remember the distress of 1786.”[250]
Treaties of peace were now formed between all the nations of the continent, and peace caused deeper public emotion in all ranks of people throughout Europe than perhaps any event which had happened for many centuries.