HISTORY OP GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



concluded with France. By this peace, Britain 

 gave up all her colonial conquests except Ceylon 

 and Trinidad, and agreed to restore Egypt to 

 Turkey, Malta to the Knights of St John, and the 

 Cape of Good Hope to Holland. 



WAR RENEWED WITH FRANCE, 1803 SUBSE- 

 QUENT EVENTS. 



It was soon manifest that Bonaparte did not 



i relish peace. By taking undue advantage of 

 several points left loose in the treaty, he provoked 

 Great Britain to retaliate by retaining possession 

 of Malta ; and the war was accordingly recom- 

 menced in May 1803. Britain immediately em- 

 ployed her superior naval force to seize the French 

 West India colonies ; while France took posses- 

 sion of Hanover, arrested all the English travellers, 

 10,000 in number, in France, and excluded British 



I commerce from Hamburg. Bonaparte collected 

 an immense flotilla at Boulogne, for the avowed 

 purpose of invading England ; but so vigorous 

 were the preparations made by the whole British 

 population, 400,000 men enrolling themselves as 

 volunteers, and so formidable the fleet under 

 Lord Nelson, that he never found it possible to 

 put his design in execution. In the year 1804, 

 he took the title of Emperor of the French. In 

 April of the same year, the Addington admin- 

 istration was exchanged for one constructed by 

 Mr Pitt. 



In 1805, under the influence of Great Britain, a 

 new coalition of European powers, consisting of 

 Russia, Sweden, Austria, and Naples, was formed 

 against Napoleon. He, on the other hand, had 

 drawn Spain upon his side, and was making great 

 exertions for contesting with Britain the empire of 

 the sea. A fleet of thirty-three sail, partly French 

 and partly Spanish, under Admiral Villeneuve, met 

 a British fleet of twenty-seven, under Nelson, 

 off Cape Trafalgar, October 21, 1805, and was 

 completely beaten, though at the expense of the 

 life of the great commander. At this time, how- 

 ever, Napoleon had carried all before him on the 

 continent. By a sudden, rapid, and unexpected 

 movement, he conducted an army into Germany, 

 where the Austrians were already making aggres- 

 sions upon neutral territory. He entered Vienna, 

 and pursuing the royal family, and the allied 

 armies of Russia and Austria, into Moravia, he 

 gained, 2d December 1805, his greatest victory, 

 that of Austerlitz, which put an end to the coalition, 

 and rendered him the dictator of the continent. 

 This series of events caused much gloom in the 

 British councils, and with several other painful 

 circumstances, among which was the impeach- 

 ment of his colleague, Lord Melville, for mal- 

 practices in the Admiralty, proved a death-blow 

 to Mr Pitt, who expired on the 23d of January 

 1806, completely worn out with state business, at 

 the early age of forty-seven, half of which time he 

 had spent in the public service. 



Mr Pitt's ministry was succeeded by one com- 

 posed of Lord Grenville, Mr Fox, and their friends ; 

 it was comprehensively called Whig, although 

 Lord Grenville was in every respect a Tory, except 

 in his advocacy of the claims of the Catholics for 

 emancipation. In the course of 1806, the new 

 cabinet made an attempt to obtain a peace from 

 France, which now threatened to bring the whole 

 world to its feet. But the Grenville administra- 



tion encountered serious difficulties from the king, 

 who never could be induced to look with the least 

 favour on the Catholic claims, or those who advo- 

 cated them. Exhausted by his useless labours, 

 Mr Fox died, September 13, 1806. 



A new coalition, excluding Austria, but involving 

 Prussia, had been subsidised by Britain, and was 

 now preparing to act. With his usual decision, 

 Napoleon led what he called his ' Grand Army ' 

 by forced marches into Prussia ; gained, on the 

 I4th of October, the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, 

 which at once deprived that country of her army, 

 her capital, and her fortresses ; and then pro- 

 claimed the famous ' Berlin Decrees,' by which he 

 declared Great Britain in a state of blockade, and 

 shut the ports of Europe against her merchandise. 

 The king of Prussia, Frederick- William III. took 

 refuge with his court in Russia, which now was 

 the only continental power of any importance that 

 remained unsubdued by France. 



Towards that country, Napoleon therefore bent 

 his steps. After a series of skirmishes and battles 

 of lesser importance, he met the Russian army in 

 great strength (June 14, 1807), at Friedland, and 

 gave it a total overthrow. He might now have 

 easily reduced the whole country, as he had done 

 Austria and Prussia ; but he contented himself 

 with forming a treaty called the Treaty of Tilsit, 

 from the place where it was entered into by 

 which Russia agreed to become an ally of France, 

 and entered into his views for the embarrassment 

 of Britain by the exclusion of her commerce from 

 the continental ports. 



The Grenville administration was displaced in 

 the spring of 1807, in consequence of the differ- 

 ence between its members and the king on the 

 subject of the Catholic claims, which had long 

 been urged by the Whig party, with little support 

 from the people. The next ministry was headed 

 by the Duke of Portland, and included Lords 

 Hawkesbury and Castlereagh (afterwards Earl of 

 Liverpool and Marquis of Londonderry), and Mr 

 Canning, as secretaries ; Mr Spencer Perceval 

 being Chancellor of the Exchequer. One of the 

 first acts of the ministry was the despatch of a 

 naval-armament to Copenhagen to seize and bring 

 away the Danish fleet, which, it was suspected, 

 was to be employed in subserviency to the designs 

 of France, and for the injury of Britain. The end 

 of the expedition was easily obtained. 



FIRST PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN SUBSEQUENT 

 EVENTS. 



The amazing successes of Napoleon had now 

 inspired him with the idea of universal empire ; 

 and so great was the influence he had acquired 

 over the French, and so high their military spirit, 

 that the attainment of his object seemed by no 

 means impossible. He was now, however, looked 

 upon as the enemy of freedom and humanity, and 

 any opposition that was offered was much more 

 desperate than it had been before. It was in 

 Spain, the crown of which Napoleon had given to 

 his elder brother Joseph, that the first revolt took 

 place ; and the Spanish patriots appealed to 

 Britain for help. In terms of a treaty entered 

 into with a provisional government, a small army 

 was landed, August 8, 1808, in Portugal, which 

 had been recently taken possession of by the 

 French. Sir Arthur Wellesley, who afterwards 



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