Paul, the Russian tsar, was deeply offended by the capture of Malta, for he had a romantic predilection for the order of St. John, of which he constituted himself the protector. The eastward advance of the French seemed to threaten the spread of republicanism to his dominions and the revival of trouble in Poland. Encouraged by Nelson's victory, he incited the Porte to declare war on France, sent ships to act with the British and Portuguese squadrons in the Mediterranean, and formed a defensive alliance with the Turks to which England acceded.[290] He tried in vain to induce the courts of Berlin and Vienna to combine against France, and appears to have made a secret treaty with Austria concerning the passage of troops, for some 60,000 Russians were soon marching towards the Danube.[291] Pitt eagerly took advantage of the tsar's disposition. Grenville promised a subsidy if the tsar would enter on the war as a principal,[292] and on November 16 bade Sir Charles Whitworth, the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, propose a coalition between England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia to support Naples, re-establish Austria in Italy, drive the French from Holland, the Belgian Netherlands, Switzerland, and Savoy, and join the Netherlands to Holland to form a strong barrier state.[293] Frederick William III., who succeeded his father in 1797, would not be moved from his neutrality. Russia was only waiting for the arrangement of a subsidy. With Austria there were difficulties. The emperor, disgusted with the greediness of France, was fully determined on war, but wanted a loan of £2,000,000. As England had lost by former transactions with Austria, Pitt would make no further promise until existing obligations had been fulfilled.[294] Besides, the imperial minister Thugut was anxious for delay; he hoped that the directory would be crushed by its own difficulties, and in any case was unwilling to move without the co-operation of Prussia, or before Russia could enter on the campaign. He had formed a defensive alliance between Austria and the Two Sicilies, or Naples, on May 19, but declared that Austria would only support Naples if France was the aggressor, and would give no help if Naples began the war.[295]
His plans were disconcerted by the action of Ferdinand IV. of Naples. After the battle of the Nile the British fleet in the Mediterranean was broken up and employed in different directions. Nelson himself sailed to Naples, was received as its deliverer, and was ensnared by the charms of Emma, the wife of Sir William Hamilton, the British minister. She was a woman of low birth, and in her youth had entered on an immoral life. Though grown stout she was still beautiful, and her considerable natural talents had been improved by Charles Greville, under whose protection she had lived. He passed her over to Hamilton, who married her in 1791. Queen Maria Caroline made a favourite of her, and used her for political ends, for the queen was anxious for British help against the French and the Neapolitan republicans. Under court and female influences, Nelson, who had been ordered to protect Naples, came to consider its fortunes as of the first importance. The queen, far bolder and more energetic than her husband, was bent on war. Mack, the Austrian strategist, took command of the army, and by Nelson's advice Ferdinand declared war on France. Nelson assisted the operations by carrying troops to Leghorn. Ferdinand entered Rome in triumph on November 29. His triumph was short-lived; the Neapolitans were routed by the French, and Naples was threatened. On December 23 the king and queen and their court took refuge on board Nelson's ship, the Vanguard, and her companions, and Nelson conveyed them to Palermo and remained with them there. The French occupied Naples and the Parthenopean republic was established on the mainland of the Two Sicilies. Among other operations in the Mediterranean a small British force took Minorca from the Spaniards in November without the loss of a man, and British and Portuguese ships blockaded Valetta and compelled the surrender of Gozo. In order to avoid offending the tsar, or exciting the jealousy of the Austrian or Neapolitan courts, England renounced all desire for conquest either as regards Malta, where she proposed that the knights should be re-established, or the Adriatic, where Turkish and Russian ships were attacking the French in the former possessions of Venice.[296]
THE SECOND COALITION.
The ill-advised action of Ferdinand of Naples, for which Nelson was largely responsible, caused some embarrassment to the English government, and Grenville anxiously assured Thugut that England was not responsible for it.[297] At the same time it hastened the formation of the second coalition. A treaty of close alliance with Naples was signed by Russia on November 29, and another by the Porte on December 23, to which Great Britain acceded on January 2.[298] England further made a treaty with Russia on December 29 by which the tsar agreed to furnish 45,000 men to act against France in co-operation with Prussia, and England promised a subsidy of £225,000 for initial expenses and £75,000 a month afterwards. Thomas Grenville was sent to Berlin to act with Count Panin in persuading Frederick William to join the coalition. The king refused; the treaty with Russia was modified by a mutual agreement that the Russian troops should be employed as seemed most advantageous to both powers, and the English government suggested that they should act with the Austrians in Switzerland.[299] Austria was soon forced to abandon her temporising policy. A corps of 25,000 Russians was encamped on the Danube. France demanded their expulsion from Austrian territory, and that, as Thugut said, meant war.[300] On February 28 Jourdan crossed the Rhine with 40,000 men. The second coalition of which England was the soul was a direct result of the battle of the Nile.
England was successful alike in arms and diplomacy. She had crushed a long-threatened rebellion and had been unharmed by attempts at invasion. Her fleet had vindicated her naval supremacy in the Mediterranean; Bonaparte's great design against her commerce and power in the east had utterly failed, and she had succeeded for the second time in forming a coalition against the common enemy. Though she was burdened with taxation and debt, and suffering from the evils of a prolonged war, her commerce was increasing and sedition was virtually extinct. In one quarter only is an almost insignificant failure to be recorded. The attempt to conquer San Domingo with insufficient forces, in which the government had persevered since 1793, was abandoned. Animated by republican sentiments, the negroes raised a large army under a former slave, Toussaint l'Ouverture. The small British force at Port-au-Prince could make no head against them, and was withdrawn in 1798. France shortly afterwards withdrew her forces, and Toussaint remained virtually master of the island. England's failure entailed no real loss. She acknowledged the neutrality of San Domingo, and Toussaint opened its ports to her commerce and prevented France from using them for privateering purposes.
FOOTNOTES:
[281] Desbrière, Projets de Débarquement, i., 387-90.
[282] Gordon, Hist. of the Rebellion, pp. 166-67, 378-80; Lecky, Hist., viii., 103.
[283] Gordon, u.s., p. 140.
[284] Lecky, Hist., viii., 286.