‘ 
286 ANNUAL REGISTER, 
course of the year. Bonaparte 
endeavoured to push the effects of 
this acquisition to the utmost possi- 
ble extent, by aiming at the destruc- 
tion of the commercial navigation 
of the British merchant vessels on 
the rivers Elbe and Weser. <A 
measure which his generals excused 
by the contemptible sophistry, that 
as the fortune of war had given 
them the occupation of the king of 
England’s dominions in Hanover, 
it could not be expected that British 
ships would be allowed to pass 
within the reach of a French bat- 
tery. If this principle were ad- 
mitted, it followed that they had 
gained on the same principle a right 
to prevent British vessels from go- 
ing up to Hambureh or Bremen. 
The British government however, 
with becoming resolution, would 
by no means admit of this reason- 
ing. They laid it down as a princi- 
ple that the conduct of France in 
the invasion of Hanover was an 
unauthorized and outrageous viola- 
tion of the independence of the 
German empire; that it would be 
an act of hostility in Germany to 
permit British vessels to be fired at 
or captured, when navigating in the 
ports and rivers of Germany ; and 
therctore (retaliating in some mea- 
sure on the empire, for the not having 
defended [anover) took ampie mea- 
sures that the mouths of the Elbe 
and Weser should be strictly aie 
aded by British squadrons, and 1 
vessels allowed to pass, so long as 
British vessels were excluded trom 
their navigation, The Hanse Towns 
ef Hamburgh and Bremen were 
now placed in a most deplorable 
and distressing situation. by the 
blockade of their harbours, their 
foreign trade was cut off, while the 
~ noverian 
1803. 
neighbourhood of the French armies \ 
placed them in perpetual danger of 
military violence and exaction. Jn 
this situation they applied to the 
king of Prussia, as guarantee and 
protector of the neutrality of the 
north of Germany ; but the cabinet 
of Berlin, either entering into the 
views of France, or under the im~ 
pression of its vast and irresistible 
power, refused to interfere, and thus 
were abandoned all the smaller 
stetes of the north of Germany to 
the mercy and discretion of the 
French government! 
The terms of the convention at 
Subiingen had placed the French 
general in possession of the whole 
of the electorate of Hanover lying 
on the south side of the river Elbe, 
the Hanoverian army having retired 
across the Elbe te the duchy of 
Lauenburgh: but as this conven- 
tion was only conditional, and re- 
quired to be ratified by the British 
and French governments; so soon 
as it was known in Paris that the 
courier had arrived, announcing 
his Britannic majesty’s refusal to 
ratify it, Bonaparte sent express or— 
ders to his generals to re-commence 
the campaign. General Mortier 
thereupon sent a letter to field- 
marshal count Walmoden, the Ha- 
general, informing him 
that the refusal of his Britannic ma- 
jesty to ratily the convention, had 
rendered it null and void. He 
therefore now sent him a fresh prow 
position to surrender with his army 
prisoners of war, to be sent into 
France. he field-marshal replied, 
that those terms were so very hu- 
miliating, that his army preferred 
perishing with their arms in their 
hands; that the ry had already made 
sufficient sacrifices fer their coun- 
try ; 
