Prussia, more intent on her own immediate aggrandisement, than mindful of the welfare of Europe in general, took advantage of the universal ill-will against England, to seize upon the King's continental dominions of Hanover, with peculiar breach of public faith, as she herself had guaranteed the neutrality of that country.

DEATH OF THE EMPEROR PAUL.

The consequences, with regard to the northern powers, are well known. The promptitude of the administration sent a strong fleet to the Baltic; and the well-contested battle of Copenhagen detached Denmark from the Northern Confederacy. Sweden had joined it unwillingly; and Russia altered her course of policy in consequence of the death of Paul. That unhappy prince had surmounted the patience of his subjects, and fell a victim to one of those conspiracies, which in arbitrary monarchies, especially such as partake of the Oriental character, supply all the checks of a moderate and free constitution, where the prerogative of the crown is limited by laws. In these altered circumstances, the cause of dispute was easily removed, by the right of search being subjected to equitable regulations and modifications.

Buonaparte received the news of Paul's death with much more emotion than he was usually apt to testify. It is said, that, for the first time in his life, a passionate exclamation of "Mon Dieu!" escaped him, in a tone of sorrow and surprise. With Paul's immense power, and his disposition to place it at the disposal of France, the first consul doubtless reckoned upon the accomplishment of many important plans which his death disconcerted. It was natural, also, that Napoleon should be moved by the sudden and violent end of a prince, who had manifested so much admiration of his person and his qualities. He is said to have dwelt so long on the strangeness of the incident, that Fouché was obliged to remind him, that it was a mode of changing a chief magistrate, or a course of administration, which was common to the empire in which it took place.[634]

The death of Paul, so much regretted by Buonaparte, was nevertheless the means of accelerating a peace between France and Great Britain, which, if it could have been established on a secure basis, would have afforded him the best chance of maintaining his power, and transmitting it to his posterity. While the Czar continued to be his observant ally, there was little prospect that the first consul would be moderate enough in the terms which he might have proffered, to permit the British Ministry to treat with him.

Another obstacle to peace was at this time removed, in a manner not more acceptable to Buonaparte than was the death of the Emperor Paul. The possession of Egypt by the French was a point which the first consul would have insisted upon from strong personal feeling. The Egyptian expedition was intimately connected with his own personal glory, nor was it likely that he would have sacrificed its results to his desire of peace with Great Britain. On the other hand, there was no probability that England would accede to any arrangement which should sanction the existence of a French colony, settled in Egypt with the express purpose of destroying our Indian commerce. But this obstacle to peace was removed by the fate of arms.

Affairs in Egypt had been on the whole unfavourable to the French, since that army had lost the presence of the commander-in-chief. Kleber, on whom the command devolved, was discontented both at the unceremonious and sudden manner in which the duty had been imposed upon him, and with the scarcity of means left to support his defence. Perceiving himself threatened by a large Turkish force, which was collecting for the purpose of avenging the defeat of the vizier at Aboukir, he became desirous of giving up a settlement which he despaired of maintaining. He signed accordingly a convention with the Turkish plenipotentiaries, and Sir Sidney Smith, on the part of the British, by which it was provided that the French should evacuate Egypt, and that Kleber and his army should be transported to France in safety, without being molested by the British fleet. When the British Government received advice of this convention, they refused to ratify it, on the ground that Sir Sidney Smith had exceeded his powers in entering into it. The Earl of Elgin having been sent out as plenipotentiary to the Porte, it was asserted that Sir Sidney's ministerial powers were superseded by his appointment. Such was the alleged informality on which the treaty fell to the ground; but the truth was, that the arrival of Kleber and his army in the south of France, at the very moment when the successes of Suwarrow gave strong hopes of making some impression on her frontier, might have had a most material effect upon the events of the war. Lord Keith, therefore, who commanded in the Mediterranean, received orders not to permit the passage of the French Egyptian army, and the treaty of El Arish was in consequence broken off.

Kleber, disappointed of this mode of extricating himself, had recourse to arms. The Vizier Jouseff Pacha, having crossed the desert, and entered Egypt, received a bloody and decisive defeat from the French general, near the ruins of the ancient city of Heliopolis, on the 20th March, 1800. The measures which Kleber adopted after this victory were well calculated to maintain the possession of the country, and reconcile the inhabitants to the French government. He was as moderate in the imposts as the exigencies of his army permitted, greatly improved the condition of the troops, and made, if not peace, at least an effectual truce, with the restless and enterprising Murad Bey, who still continued to be at the head of a considerable body of Mamelukes. Kleber also raised among the Greeks a legion of fifteen hundred or two thousand men; and with more difficulty succeeded in levying a regiment of Cophts.

ASSASSINATION OF KLEBER.

While busied in these measures, he was cut short by the blow of an assassin. A fanatic Turk, called Soliman Haleby, a native of Aleppo, imagined he was inspired by Heaven to slay the enemy of the Prophet and the Grand Seignior. He concealed himself in a cistern, and springing out on Kleber when there was only one man in company with him, stabbed him dead.[635] The assassin was justly condemned to die by a military tribunal; but the sentence was executed with a barbarity which disgraced those who practised it. Being impaled alive, he survived for four hours in the utmost tortures, which he bore with an indifference which his fanaticism perhaps alone could have bestowed.[636]