1806-1807 OVERTHROW OF PRUSSIA 857 for the Spanish Bourbon, Ferdinand I., who still called himself King of the Two Sicilies. Somewhat later Napoleon made another of his brothers-Louis-king of Holland. Neither in Italy nor in the smaller states of Germany was there any feeling of offended nationality goading on the populations to resist changes which brought with them more active government and better administration. Prussia, however, still maintained her independence, and when, after offering to her Hanover, Napoleon, in the course of his negotiation with Fox, turned round and offered to restore it to the King of England, the long patience of the King of Prussia, Frederick William III., was exhausted. War between Prussia and France was declared; but the Prussian State and army were both completely inefficient, and on October 14 two Prussian armies were not merely beaten, but absolutely destroyed as military organisations, at Jena and Auerstadt. The Prussian State crumbled away, and before the end of November Napoleon was in military possession of the greater part of Prussia. 9. The End of the Ministry of All the Talents. 1807. Russia came to the aid of the now diminished Prussia. On February 8, 1807, a drawn battle was fought at Eylau. The Tzar Alexander I. anxiously looked to England for aid, thinking that if an English army were landed on the coast of the Baltic, Napoleon would be obliged to detach part of his forces to watch it, and would thereby be weakened in his struggle with Russia. The Ministry of All the Talents, however, had no capacity for war. They frittered away their strength by sending useless expeditions to the Dardanelles, to Egypt, and to Buenos Ayres, leaving themselves no troops for the decisive struggle nearer home. On March 24 they were expelled from office by the king, because, though they agreed to relinquish a project which they had formed for allowing Catholics to serve as officers in the army and navy, they refused to promise that they would never under any circumstances propose any measure of concession to the Catholics. On March 25, the day after their resignation, the royal assent was given to a bill for the abolition of the slave trade. The new Prime Minister was the inefficient Duke of Portland, who had been the nominal head of the Coalition Ministry in 1783 (see p. 801). The ablest members of the new Cabinet were Lord Castlereagh, who had managed the Irish Parliament at the time of the Union, and the brilliant George Canning, who had been one of the staunchest of the followers of Pitt. The remainder of Portland's colleagues were narrow in their views, and all were pledged to resist Catholic emancipation. A dissolution of Parlia III. 3 K ment took place before long, and it was found that the constituencies supported the king and the new ministry. The reaction against the principles of the French revolutionists was still so strong that it was difficult to obtain a hearing even for the most necessary plan of reform. 10. The Treaty of Tilsit. 1807.-Canning, who was Foreign Secretary, would readily have sent to the Baltic the forces which his predecessor had refused to the Tzar. Before, however, they could be got ready, Napoleon defeated the Russians at Friedland on June 14, and on the 25th he held an interview with the Tzar on a raft on the Niemen. Alexander was vexed at the delay of the English, and the first words he uttered to Napoleon were, "I hate the English as much as you do." The Treaty of Tilsit, signed between France and Russia on July 7, was the result of the conference. By a secret understanding, Russia was allowed to conquer Finland from Sweden, and as much of the Turkish dominions as she could get, whilst all Europe west of the Russian border was delivered over to Napoleon. He erected a new kingdom of Westphalia for his youngest brother, Jerome, and gave a great part of Poland, under the name of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, to the Elector of Saxony, whom he had recently converted into a king. The confederation of the Rhine was extended to include all the German states except Austria and Prussia. The weight of Napoleon's vengeance fell heavily on Prussia. Not only was her territory much reduced, but she was forced to support French garrisons in her fortresses, and was compelled to pay enormous sums of money to France, and to limit her army to 42,000 men. Hitherto the people of defeated states had been, on the whole, better off in consequence of their defeat. The Prussians were far worse off, and, therefore, the treatment of Prussia by Napoleon for the first time brought against him popular ill-will. II. The Colonies. 1804-1807.-Whilst Napoleon was establishing a dominion over the western and central part of the European Continent, Great Britain made use of her dominion of the sea to enlarge her colonial possessions. No one at that time thought much of the establishment in 1788 of a settlement of convicts in Botany Bay, or what afterwards came to be known as New South Wales. The two points at which British ambition aimed were the security of the sea route to India and the extension of the production of sugar in the West Indies. The first design was satisfied in 1806, by a second and permanent occupation of the Dutch territory at the Cape of Good Hope; the second, in 1804, by the taking from the Dutch of the territory on the mainland of South America, 1802-1806 WELLESLEY IN INDIA 859 afterwards known as British Guiana, and by the capture of West India Islands which had hitherto been held by the French and Dutch. 12. The Overthrow of the Mahrattas. 1802-1806.-Since the destruction of Tippoo Sahib in 1799, Lord Mornington (see p. 838), recently created Marquis Wellesley, had discovered that Sindhia, one of the Mahratta chiefs, had a large force organised by a Frenchman, Perron. He therefore attempted to introduce a subsidiary system, compelling native rulers to pay the expenses of troops under British officers which could be used against them if they were not submissive. In 1802, the Peishwah having been driven from Poonah by Holkar (see p. 802), Wellesley entered into a compact to restore him on condition of his agreeing to a subsidiary treaty. Two other great Mahratta chiefs, Sindhia and the Bhonsla, who was Rajah of Berar, joined Holkar against the English, and in 1803 Wellesley sent against the confederacy his brother Arthur Wellesley. On September 23, 1803, Arthur Wellesley at the head of 4,500 men defeated Sindhia's 30,000 at Assaye, whilst Lake defeated Perron's force on August 29 at Alighur, and after various successes crushed Sindhia himself on November 1, in a hard-contested battle at Laswaree. On November 29 Wellesley again defeated the united forces of Sindhia and the Bhonsla at Argaum. On this, both chiefs made their submission, ceding territory to the English, and to the allies of the English, the Nizam, and Shah Alum, who held nominal rule at Delhi as the Great Mogul. Holkar, who was again joined by Sindhia, held out till January 1806, at one time gaining no inconsiderable successes, though all three, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla, were in the end compelled to submit. 13. Wellesley's Recall. 1805.-In 1805, before Holkar had submitted, Lord Wellesley was recalled. His wars had been expensive, and the East India Company never liked expense. No one now doubts that Wellesley was right. The Mahratta chiefs were freebooters on a large scale, and freebooting was incompatible with the peace and civilisation which it was the glory of British statesmen to introduce into India. Wellesley, when he landed in 1798, found the British occupying certain portions of India. When he left the country in 1805, almost the whole of the South had passed under British administration, what are now the NorthWestern Provinces had been annexed, and the military predominance of the Mahrattas had been brought to an end. 14. The Continental System. 1806-1807.-In the meanwhile Napoleon, hopeless of overpowering Britain at sea, attempted to subjugate her in another way. On November 21, 1806, soon after his victory at Jena, he issued the Berlin Decree, closing all European ports under his influence-that is to say, almost all the ports from the Vistula to the Adriatic-against British commerce. All British ports were declared in a state of blockade, though Napoleon could not watch any one of them with a single vessel, and all goods coming from Great Britain or her colonies were to be destroyed. On November 11, 1807, Great Britain retaliated by Orders in Council declaring all ports of France and her allies to be in a state of blockade, and all vessels good prize which attempted to enter them unless they had previously touched at a British harbour. To this, on December 17, 1807, Napoleon replied by the Milan Decree, declaring all neutral vessels liable to seizure if they touched at any British ports before attempting to land their cargoes in any part of Europe under the control of France. The Berlin and Milan Decrees together established what is known as Napoleon's Continental System. 15. Effects of the Continental System. 1807.-Ultimately the effects of the Continental System were most injurious to Napoleon. As the British fleet controlled the sea, no colonial goods could be obtained except through British vessels. A gigantic system of smuggling sprang up, and the seizure and destruction of British goods only served to raise the price of those which escaped. Sugar, coffee, and calico grew dear, and the labourer soon discovered that, in consequence of the Continental System, he had to pay more for the coffee which he drank and for the shirt which he A strong feeling opposed to Napoleon manifested itself for the first time amongst the conquered populations. wore. 16. The Bombardment of Copenhagen. 1807. At sea Englishmen were almost as high-handed as Napoleon by land. They searched neutral vessels for goods destined for France, confiscating them in accordance with decisions of their own admiralty court in a fashion which would not be tolerated now. Shortly after the Treaty of Tilsit Canning learnt that Napoleon meant to seize the fleet of Denmark, which was at that time neutral, and to employ it against Great Britain. A British fleet and army were sent to Copenhagen, and the Crown Prince of Denmark (see p. 845) was asked to deliver up the Danish fleet on a promise that it should be restored at the end of the war. On his refusal, Copenhagen was bombarded till at last the Danes gave way. The fleet was surrendered, and the British Government, on the plea that it had been driven to use force, refused to be bound by its offer to restore the ships ultimately |