The eyes of the best-informed men in Britain were now open to the disadvantageous and timid policy, of conducting this momentous war by petty expeditions and experimental armaments, too inadequate to the service to be productive of any thing but disappointment. The paltry idea of making war for British objects, as it was called, that is, withholding from the general cause those efforts which might have saved our allies, and going in search of some petty object in which Britain might see an individual interest, was now universally acknowledged; although it became more difficult than ever to select points of attack where our limited means might command success. It was also pretty distinctly seen, that the plan of opening a market for British manufactures, by conquering distant and unhealthy provinces, was as idle as immoral. In the latter quality, it somewhat resembled the proceedings of the surgeon mentioned in Le Sage's satirical novel, who converted passengers into patients by a stroke of his poniard, and then hastened, in his medical capacity, to cure the wounds he had inflicted. In point of profit, we had frequently to regret, that the colonists, whom we proposed to convert by force of arms into customers for British goods, were too rude to want, and too poor to pay for them. Nothing deceives itself so willingly as the love of gain. Our principal merchants and manufacturers, among other commercial visions, had imagined to themselves an unlimited market for British commodities, in the immense plains surrounding Buenos Ayres, which are, in fact, peopled by a sort of Christian savages called Gauchos, whose principal furniture is the skulls of dead horses, whose only food is raw beef and water, whose sole employment is to catch wild cattle, by hampering them with a Gaucho's noose, and whose chief amusement is to ride wild horses to death.[298] Unfortunately, they were found to prefer their national independence to cottons and muslins.
Two several attempts were made on this miserable country, and neither redounded to the honour or advantage of the British nation. Buenos Ayres was taken possession of by a handful of British troops on the 27th June, 1806, who were attacked by the inhabitants and by a few Spanish troops; and, surrounded in the market place of the town, under a general and galling fire, were compelled to lay down their arms and surrender prisoners of war. A small remnant of the invading forces retained possession of a town on the coast, called Maldonado. In October, 1806, an expedition was sent out to reinforce this small body, and make some more material impression upon the continent of South America, which the nation were under the delusion of considering as a measure extremely to the advantage of British trade. Monte Video was taken, and a large body of troops, under command of General Whitelocke, a man of factitious reputation, and who had risen high in the army without having seen much service, marched against Buenos Ayres. This person proved both fool and coward. He pushed his columns of attack into the streets of Buenos Ayres, knowing that the flat roofs and terraces were manned by excellent though irregular marksmen; and, that the British might have no means of retaliation, they were not permitted to load their muskets—as if stone walls could have been carried by the bayonet. One of the columns was obliged to surrender; and although another had, in spite of desperate opposition, possessed themselves of a strong position, and that a few shells might have probably ended the sort of defence which had been maintained, Whitelocke thought it best to conclude a treaty with the enemy for recovery of the British prisoners, and so to renounce all further attempts on the colony. For this misconduct he was cashiered by the sentence of a court-martial.[299]
An expedition against Turkey and its dependencies, was as little creditable to the councils of Britain, and eventually to her arms, as were her attempts on South America. It arose out of a war betwixt England and the Porte, her late ally against France; for, so singular had been the turns of chance in this extraordinary conflict, that allies became enemies, and enemies returned to a state of close alliance, almost before war or peace could be proclaimed between them. The time was long past when the Sublime Ottoman Porte could regard the quarrels and wars of Christian powers with the contemptuous indifference with which men look on the strife of the meanest and most unclean animals.[300] She was now in such close contact with them, as to feel a thrilling interest in their various revolutions.
The invasion of Egypt excited the Porte against France, and disposed them to a close alliance with Russia and England, until Buonaparte's assumption of the Imperial dignity; on which occasion the Turks, overawed by the pitch of power to which he had ascended, sent an embassy to congratulate his succession, and expressed a desire to cultivate his friendship.
CONSTANTINOPLE.
Napoleon, whose eyes were sometimes almost involuntarily turned to the East, and who besides desired, at that period, to break off the good understanding betwixt the Porte and the Cabinet of St. Petersburgh, despatched Sebastiani as his envoy to Constantinople; a man well known for his skill in Oriental intrigues, as was displayed in the celebrated Report which had so much influence in breaking through the peace of Amiens.
The effect of this ambassador's promises, threats, and intrigues, was soon apparent. The Turks had come under an engagement that they would not change the Hospodars, or governors, of Moldavia and Wallachia. Sebastiani easily alarmed Turkish pride on the subject of this stipulation, and induced them to break through it. The two Hospodars were removed, in defiance of the agreement made to the contrary; and although the Turks became aware of the risk to which they had exposed themselves, and offered to replace the governors whom they had dismissed, Russia, with precipitate resentment, declared war, and invaded the two provinces in question. They overran and occupied them, but to their own cost; as an army of fifty thousand men thus rashly engaged against the Turks, might have been of the last consequence in the fields of Eylau, Heilsberg, or Friedland.
In the meanwhile, Great Britain sent a squadron, under Sir Thomas Duckworth, to compel the Porte to dismiss the French ambassador, and return to the line of politics which Sebastiani had induced them to abandon. Admiral Duckworth passed the Dardanelles in spite of the immense cannon by which they are guarded, and which hurled from their enormous muzzles massive fragments of marble instead of ordinary bullets. But if ever it was intended to act against the Turks by any other means than intimidation, the opportunity was suffered to escape; and an intercourse by message and billet was permitted to continue until the Turks had completed a line of formidable fortifications, while the state of the weather was too unfavourable to allow even an effort at the destruction of Constantinople, which had been the alternative submitted to the Turks by the English admiral. The English repassed the Dardanelles in no very creditable manner, hated for the threats which they had uttered, and despised for not having attempted to make their menaces good.[301]
Neither was a subsequent expedition to Alexandria more favourable in its results. Five thousand men, under General Fraser, were disembarked, and occupied the town with much ease. But a division, despatched against Rosetta, was the cause of renewing in a different part of the world the calamity of Buenos Ayres. The detachment was, incautiously and unskilfully on our part, decoyed into the streets of an Oriental town, where the enemy, who had manned the terraces and the flat roofs of their houses, slaughtered the assailants with much ease and little danger to themselves. Some subsequent ill-combined attempts were made for reducing the same place, and after sustaining a loss of more than a fifth of their number, by climate and combat, the British troops were withdrawn from Egypt on the 23d of September, 1807.
It was no great comfort, under these repeated failures, that the British were able to secure the Dutch island of Curaçoa. But the capture of the Cape of Good Hope was an object of deep importance; and the more so, as it was taken at a small expense of lives. Its consequence to our Indian trade is so great, that we may well hope it will be at no future time given up to the enemy. Upon the whole, the general policy of England was, at this period, of an irresolute and ill-combined character. Her ministers showed a great desire to do something, but as great a doubt what that something was to be. Thus, they either mistook the importance of the objects which they aimed at, or, undertaking them without a sufficient force, failed to carry them into execution. If the wealth and means, more especially the brave troops, frittered away in the attempts at Calabria, Buenos Ayres, Alexandria, and elsewhere, had been united with the forces sent to Stralsund, and thrown into the rear of the French army before the fatal battle of Friedland, Europe might, in all probability, have escaped that severe, and, for a time, decisive blow.