Napoleon's own conduct went far to remove all expected difficulties. No one could have played more completely into the hands of his enemies. A conspiracy was set on foot against his Government by the royalists; it was principally in the hands of Georges, the Breton leader, and of General Pichegru. At the right moment the Count of Artois was to appear upon the scene, and the Bourbons to be re-established. The police and Bonaparte obtained early information of it. Bonaparte made use of his knowledge to foster the conspiracy, and to implicate General Moreau, whom he had always regarded as his rival since the battle of Hohenlinden, and who appears to have been guilty only of having consented to be reconciled to his old friend Pichegru, from whom political differences had separated him. Although there is not the slightest proof of the truth of the fact, it was asserted that the plan included the assassination of the First Consul; and, determined to make the most of his knowledge of the conspiracy, Bonaparte sent agents, who entrapped two of our ministers abroad, Messrs. Drake and Spencer Smith, into consenting to the conspiracy. Of the real plot they knew nothing, but were led to believe in the existence of some royalist scheme and to lend it their aid. Bonaparte then charged them publicly with having joined in a plan of assassination, demanded, and ultimately (April 1804) succeeded in procuring, their expulsion from Bavaria and Wurtemburg, and sent to all the Courts of Europe a coarse and virulent attack upon the English Government. The reply of Lord Hawkesbury (April 30)—for this took place during the Addington ministry—to the effect that England had the right, and would use the right, of taking advantage of the political situation of countries with which she was at war, justified the conduct of England in the eyes of all foreign powers, and excited a strong feeling against the conduct of the Consul. The conspiracy was followed by a still more startling act of violence. Unable to secure the person of the Count of Artois, who received timely warning of the plot, and burning to strike some blow against Murder of the Duc d'Enghien. March 21, 1804. the Bourbons, Bonaparte, regardless of the neutrality of the country, sent a body of troops into Baden, there captured an innocent and unoffending Bourbon prince, the Duc d'Enghien, son of the Prince of Condé, brought him into France, had him summarily tried by a military tribunal, and immediately shot. The effect of this great crime upon the crowned heads of Europe was instantaneous, and was not decreased when Bonaparte Napoleon Emperor. May 18, 1804. threw off all mask of moderation, and gave an outward form to the despotism he had long practised by declaring himself Emperor. But there were still many difficulties to be overcome before the Courts of Europe could be brought to see the absolute necessity of forming a coalition. It required a whole year of negotiation, and of further proofs of Napoleon's character, before Pitt's object was attained.

The loss of his able Foreign Minister added fresh difficulties to his negotiations. In December 1804 Lord Harrowby was disabled by an accidental fall, and had to resign the Foreign Office. His place was supplied by Lord Mulgrave; but Pitt was made conscious of the weakness of his ministry by the severe blow that the loss of one member of it was to him. Addington, since his retirement from office, had been in open opposition to the minister; but as their views were generally similar, and the division between them had been entirely owing to the soreness arising from the manner in which Addington had lost the Addington rejoins the ministry. premiership, there seemed no reason for a further separation. Addington therefore rejoined the ministry, taking the title of Lord Sidmouth and the office of President of the Council, which the Duke of Portland was compelled by ill health to resign. Pitt's majority was thus increased, although the strength gained by the adhesion of Addington himself to his ministry was not much.

While the negotiations for a coalition were continuing, England carried on the war singlehanded, and before long such power as Spain possessed was added to that of France. To support his vast expenditure Napoleon demanded subsidies from foreign countries under his influence, and a treaty had been made with Spain, now ruled entirely by Godoy, Prince of the Peace, by which a considerable sum was annually paid to the French exchequer. Although this was virtually an act of hostility to England, the English ministry, aware of the weakness of Spain, had passed it over in silence; but at the same time our minister, in February 1804, declared that the preparation of any naval armaments in Spanish ports would be regarded as a cause of war. In September the English admiral on the coast of Spain notified the existence of such an armament in Ferrol; a strong note was written to the Spanish minister, and ultimately the English ambassador retired from Madrid in November, and in December war was declared. But already in October, before the declaration of war, the English had seized four treasure-ships, well knowing that the money would sooner or later find its way into the hands of Napoleon. The justice of the action was questioned; but, considering the declaration of the preceding February, and the known fact that Spain paid subsidies to France, the seizure seems to have been thoroughly justified.

While our enemy was thus strengthened by the open adhesion of a country which could at least assist him with ships and convenient harbours, our efforts to weaken his preparations for invasion, which were continually being pushed on, were unavailing; descents were made upon the coast and a few outlying boats captured; but the great attempt which was made in October to destroy the flotilla produced no result. The expedition is known as the Catamaran expedition. It was proposed by means of vessels filled with combustibles to burn the flotilla in Boulogne harbour, but when the fire-ships were sent in, they either failed to reach the vessels, or a passage was made for them, and they drifted harmlessly through.

It was only outside the limits of Europe that the English showed a decided superiority, and that great successes kept up the hope of both ministry and people during this fearful period, when the arrival of Bonaparte in England was daily expected, and when as yet all Europe seemed to hold aloof from our alliance. Surinam had been Success of the war in India against the Mahrattas. conquered from the Dutch, and in the year 1805 a great war was brought to a triumphant conclusion in India. After the capture in 1799 of Seringapatam, the capital of Tippoo Sahib, the ruler of Mysore, the territories of Mysore had been divided by what is known as the Tripartite Treaty between the English, the Nizam of the Deccan, and a descendant of the ancient Rajahs of Mysore, whom Hyder Ali had dispossessed. By these new acquisitions the English had come in contact with the great Mahratta power.

The great empire conquered by this warlike race, which had been founded by Sivajee in the seventeenth century, extended from Delhi in the north to the Tumbudra, a southern tributary of the Kistna on the south, and from the Bay of Bengal on the east to Gujerat in the west. The authority of the Rajah of Satara, nominal head of the race, had passed into the hands of his minister the Peishwa, who resided at Poonah, in the Western Ghauts. His authority had in turn become nominal, and the empire was broken up among five great chiefs, of whom the Peishwa may be ranked as one. The others were the Bonslah or Rajah of Berar, occupying the north and east of the Deccan, and including Cuttack and the mouths of the Mahanadi in his territories; Sindia, who occupied the north-west of the Deccan and Kandesh, and whose property extended northwards through a portion of Malwa as far as Delhi, of which he held possession, and westward into Gujerat, where he had considerable property; Holkar, who lay almost entirely in the Malwa, north of the Vindyha range of mountains, to the east of Sindia, between him and Berar; and, lastly, the Guicowar, who possessed in Gujerat all except those territories that were in the hands of Sindia. He alone of the Mahratta chiefs preserved neutrality during this great war. To the south of the Mahratta states lay that part of the Deccan which was governed by the Nizam, now tributary to the English; and south of his dominions, touching on its north-west the southern extreme of the Mahratta country, was Mysore. All three Presidencies were therefore in contact with one or other of the Mahratta states.

At the beginning of the century the Mahrattas were at war among themselves, and Holkar, in his rivalry with Sindia, had thought it advisable to expel the Peishwa from Poonah, and to set up a creature of his own there. The deposed Peishwa sought an asylum among the English in Bombay. The presence of the predatory chief Holkar in the south induced the English to occupy their northern frontier in Mysore with an army of observation. While things were in this position the Peishwa offered to enter into a perpetual treaty with the English if they would reinstate him in Poonah. Lord Wellesley Lord Wellesley's subsidiary system. was at this time Governor-General of India. He had set on foot a policy which had been much opposed by the authorities in the India House, and the support of which by Pitt had been constantly assaulted by the Opposition. This policy is known as the subsidiary system. It was found impossible, in the presence of the native powers, naturally anxious to rid themselves of the English conquerors, and certain to find ready assistance from the French, to remain in a state of inaction. On the other hand, Wellesley did not think it desirable or just to conquer and annex all the neighbouring territories, which would in fact only have enlarged the sphere of danger. He preferred to establish English influence, to oblige the native rulers to enter into permanent treaties with him, to place the political management of their provinces in the hands of a British resident, to pay for the support of an army largely officered by Europeans, while the native princes, at the same time, retained the domestic government in their own hands. It is now generally allowed that this was a wise system, but at the time the outcry against it was so great, that even after the success of the Mahratta war Wellesley had in fact to yield to it, and returned to England in 1805. While this policy, however, was uppermost, such an offer as that of the Peishwa was certain to be accepted, and at the end of 1802, by the Treaty of Bassein, the English accepted the friendship of the Peishwa, and undertook to restore him.

In August General Wellesley left Poonah, Colonel Stevenson acting in correspondence with him further to the east. He marched direct to Ahmednuggur, which he captured, crossed the Godavery river, and arrived at Aurungabad. Meanwhile Sindia had fallen back northward, and in September the two English commanders joined their forces a little to the east of Aurungabad, and advanced to meet him. Sindia's forces, reinforced by sixteen battalions Battle of Assye. Sept. 23, 1803. officered by Frenchmen, lay not far from Assye on the river Kaitna; between them and the English extended a range of hills; to prevent their escape the English commanders separated—Stevenson marching by the eastern, Wellesley by the western end of the range. When Wellesley heard that the enemy were moving off, he determined upon an attack without waiting for Stevenson's arrival. To get at the enemy it was necessary to cross the river which was on his right; although assured by his guide that it was impassable, he conjectured the existence of a passage from the appearance of two villages immediately opposite each other on the two banks of the river. He found his conjecture was correct, and his troops, when they had crossed the river, exactly occupied the space between that and another stream on which Assye stands. His two flanks were thus covered. He there with 4500 men entirely defeated Sindia's army, numbering more than 30,000. At the close of the day he found himself in possession of nearly 100 cannon and the whole of the camp equipage. The General mentioned it afterwards as the bloodiest battle for the numbers that he ever saw; the killed and wounded among the English amounting to more than 1500, a third of their entire force. The Mahratta army separated into two divisions, one division under the Rajah of Berar retiring westward as though to attack Poonah. Leaving Stevenson, therefore, to follow the northern division under Sindia, Wellesley hastened in pursuit of the Rajah. Sindia, being close pressed by Stevenson, begged for a truce; but as it was found that his troops were still serving in the army of the Rajah of Berar, and Battle of Argaum. that the truce was merely deceptive, the pursuit was recommenced, and the enemy brought to a final engagement on the plain of Argaum, where they were again entirely defeated. The war in the Deccan was closed by the capture, by the combined armies, of Gawulgur, near the sources of the Taptee river. Two days afterwards, on the 17th of December, the Subsidiary treaties with Sindia and Berar. Rajah of Berar submitted, and before the end of the month Sindia also consented to treat. By these treaties the province of Cuttack was annexed to the English possessions, Sindia was driven entirely from the Deccan, and lost some strong places in the Douab. Both princes entered into subsidiary arrangements, and promised to admit no foreigners but English to their confidence.

These treaties were the consequence of the combined campaigns of Wellesley and Lake; for during the brilliant campaign of Assye in the Deccan, Lake had been carrying on war with equal success in the valley of the Ganges. The French province in the Douab had given but little trouble. Perron had retired from one of his fortresses, Coel, without fighting; his second stronghold, Alleghur, had been captured; his troops had indeed remained to fight, but he had himself surrendered to the English. The capture of Alleghur had been followed by a great victory over the Mahrattas within sight of Delhi. Lake had entered that capital, restored the aged Shah Allum to the Mogul throne, and attached to the English by so doing the whole Mahommedan population of India. He had won further victories at Muttra and Agra on the Jumna, and finally, on the 1st of November, at the same time that Wellesley was carrying out the pursuit which preceded the battle of Argaum, won the great battle of Laswari. The secondary attacks had been no less successful. While Murray had captured Baroach and subjugated the rest of Sindia's possessions in Gujerat, Harcourt had secured Cuttack at the mouths of the Mahanadi and the great temple of Juggernaut. The subsidiary treaties signed Conclusion of the war. 1805. at the close of the year were the consequences of this series of victories. In reward for their services Lake was raised to the Peerage and Wellesley made a Knight of the Bath. Holkar alone remained unsubdued. The following year, 1804, he was again in arms, and though thoroughly defeated by General Lake, succeeded in obtaining the support of the Rajah of Berhampoor, and prolonged the war till the close of the year 1805.

The success in India was no doubt of great importance both in sustaining the courage of the people and in cheering the last days of Pitt; but he was not destined to close his life in happiness and triumph. He lived, indeed, long enough to see the great coalition for which he had been working completed, and to receive the adhesion to it of Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Naples; he lived long enough to see the English again triumphant upon the ocean, to hear the news of the greatest victory which had ever attended their arms, and to rejoice at the dispersion of the threatening cloud which for more than a year had hung over the country. But he also lived just long enough to see, as far as his foreign policy was concerned, the whole of his careful structure dashed to pieces, and the complete triumph of his arch enemy at the battle of Austerlitz.

If the close of his life as a foreign minister was sad, a still thicker mist of misfortune hung over the last years of his home government. The man on whom he most relied in the ministry was his old friend Lord Melville, who had fairly justified his confidence by the energy and success with which he had reconstituted the navy. It was through him that the Opposition found means to inflict a deadly blow upon the minister. Lord St. Vincent, though his general administration had been weak, had been laudably anxious to improve the condition of the Admiralty, especially Naval inquiries. Feb. 1805. in regard to its expenses. He had therefore established a commission of naval inquiry, which from time to time sent in its reports. The last of these, the tenth, had been sent in in February 1805. Even before its publication it was understood to reflect upon Lord Melville's conduct as Treasurer of the Navy, an office which he had held along with several others in Pitt's first administration. On one point he had certainly shown remissness. He had allowed Mr. Trotter, Paymaster of the Navy, to pay public money to his own account at his banker's, and to use it as his own. No loss had accrued to the State in consequence; but no doubt it was a highly censurable misapplication of public funds. But beyond this, it was asserted that Lord Melville had himself acted in a similar way, and undoubtedly there were certain sums unaccounted for. Lord Melville's own account of this matter was, that since his retirement from office he had destroyed all old vouchers; but that even if he possessed them, as he at that time held various offices, and did not keep the accounts entirely separate, he would not have been able to give a satisfactory account without disclosing confidential transactions of Government. This no doubt meant that the money had been employed for some secret service; but his enemies did not scruple to say that he had appropriated it to his own uses. Upon the report Mr. Whitbread founded a parliamentary attack upon Melville, and gave notice that he would bring in a vote of censure upon the 8th of April. Government had now to determine what they would do. Pitt and his own immediate friends, entirely disbelieving the charge against Melville, resolved to withstand it openly. But there was a division in his own Cabinet. Lord Sidmouth and Melville were great enemies, and, declaring that he regarded it as impossible for Melville to clear himself, Sidmouth warned Pitt that if he persisted in defending him he should be obliged to resign. As this would have been complete ruin, Pitt yielded to a middle course, and determined to request that the inquiry might be referred to a select committee. On the 8th the Vote of censure against Melville. April 8, 1805. great debate came on. It was plain that the question would rest with the votes of the independent members, and when Wilberforce, whose character carried great weight, declared that he must support the vote of censure, those members who were pledged to neither party were induced to follow his lead. The anxious moment for division arrived, and the numbers were declared to be equal—216 having voted on either side. The Speaker was then called upon to give his casting vote. The scene is thus described by Lord Fitzharris:—"I sat wedged close to Pitt himself the night when we were 216; and the Speaker Abbot, after looking as white as a sheet, and pausing for ten minutes, gave the casting vote against us. Pitt immediately put on the little cocked hat that he was in the habit of wearing when dressed for the evening, and jammed it deeply over his forehead, and I distinctly saw the tears trickling down his cheeks. We had heard one or two, such as Colonel Wardle, say they would see 'how Billy looked after it.' A few young ardent followers of Pitt, with myself, locked their arms together and formed a circle, in which he moved, I believe unconsciously, out of the House, and neither the Colonel nor his friends could approach him." The Opposition were not content with the vote of censure; although Melville at once resigned his office, Whitbread proceeded to move an address to the King that he should be removed from the King's Councils and presence for ever. The feeling of the House did not justify so extreme a measure, and the motion was withdrawn. But before long the minister thought it necessary so far to yield to public opinion as to have Lord Melville's name withdrawn from the Privy Council.

The disagreement between Pitt and Sidmouth upon Lord Melville's conduct terminated in the withdrawal of the Lord President and his followers from the ministry. On the appointment of Sir Charles Middleton, a very old man, to the Admiralty, in which he had been the constant assistant of Melville, Sidmouth took the opportunity of expressing his displeasure and resigned. The charge against Lord Melville was pressed to impeachment. He delivered a defence before the House of Commons, but it was not regarded as satisfactory. The House of Lords were therefore called upon to decide the question, and when it subsequently came to the vote (June 12, 1806) a very large majority, on all the charges, declared the prisoner not guilty. But Pitt did not live to hear either this declaration of the innocence of his friend or to suffer from the desertion of his colleague Sidmouth. Parliament prorogued. July 12, 1805. The impeachment was not carried up to the Bar of the House of Lords till the 26th of June; on the 12th of July Parliament was prorogued, and Pitt did not live to see the opening of another session.

While misfortune was thus following the minister in Parliament, his great plans of European policy had been continued and had at last met with success. In fact, in this matter Napoleon had been his best ally, and had been gradually forcing the great powers of Europe into hostility. The ill feeling which had arisen between the Emperor Alexander and Bonaparte in the preceding year had been increased by subsequent events, and the Czar had been gradually taking up a position of more defined hostility. On the 24th of May 1804, he contracted a defensive alliance with Prussia, though not intending immediate war if it could be avoided. The murder of the Duc d'Enghien and the violation of neutral territory had forced him further in the same direction. So strongly had he resented this act, that it was through his representations to the Diet of Ratisbon (July) that Austria and Prussia, who would otherwise have passed it over in silence, were induced to take any notice of it, and at length, finding his indirect action through the German powers of no avail, he had remonstrated directly with France and withdrawn his ambassador from Paris (Aug. 18). Prussia, which pursued throughout a weak and vacillating policy, also expressed its disapprobation of Napoleon's conduct by a change of ministry, which removed Haugwitz, a constant friend of France, from office. But instead of seeking to allay its fears, Napoleon still further excited its jealousy by intriguing with the smaller States of Germany, and making a violent inroad into the territory of Hamburg (Oct. 25), to carry off thence the English minister. Austria too, though restrained by her weakness from overt action, in November contracted a treaty with Russia similar to that of Prussia. Very little was wanted to bring all three powers into open hostility with France.

The character of Alexander gave indeed to Napoleon an opportunity which he ought to have seized. He was full of high-flown notions for the regeneration of Europe, for the more equitable division of states, and some generally established system of public law. With some such scheme his minister Nowosiltzoff came to England in 1805. Pitt speedily modified his views, and proved to him that before so grand a scheme could be realized the practical work to be done was to insist upon the establishment of the terms of the treaties of Lunéville Treaty of St. Petersburg. April 11, 1805. and Amiens. Accordingly, on the 11th of April, the Treaty of St. Petersburg was signed. The two countries pledged themselves to support a general European league, for the purpose of demanding the evacuation of Hanover, Italy, and Elba, the real independence of Holland and Switzerland, and the complete establishment of the kingdom of Naples: they especially pledged themselves not to interfere with the internal government of France, and to close all questions by a general European congress. As England refused to evacuate Malta, the Czar declined to ratify the treaty, and determined to make one more effort singlehanded to avoid war. For this purpose he despatched an ambassador with much more favourable terms than those implied in the late treaty. But Napoleon declined to see him for two months, and in those two months he had had himself declared King of Italy (May 26), had accepted the offer of the Doge of Genoa to comprise the Ligurian Republic in his Italian kingdom (June 3), had created Lucca into a principality for the husband of his sister Eliza (July 21), and had received an ambassador from the Court of Naples with the most stinging threats and insults. The Russian ambassador was therefore recalled, and, though without declaration of war, the coalition was in fact in existence, and arrangements for a general attack The coalition practically formed. Sept. 1805. upon France began. The coalition was thus the fruit rather of Napoleon's conduct than of Pitt's diplomacy; the occupation of Hanover, the violation of the neutral territory of Baden, the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, the establishment of the kingdom of Italy, the annexation of Genoa and Lucca, and virtually of Holland and of Switzerland, supplied ample reasons to excite the alarm of Europe and to drive the powers into coalition.

But while the coalition was forming, and Napoleon seemed wantonly to be insulting Europe and ignoring the danger of exciting fresh enemies, he was in fact urging on with all rapidity his schemes for the invasion of England, which he probably hoped might be so successful as to paralyse all action on the part of the European powers. The constantly repeated representations of his naval officers had forced him, much against his will, to believe that his descent upon England would be impracticable unless secured by the presence of his fleet. In spite of the general voice of those who knew the condition of the French navy, he determined to act with his fleet on the same principles as he would have acted with his army; a gigantic combination of various squadrons was to be effected, and a fleet great enough to destroy all hope of opposition to sweep the Channel. For this purpose the eighteen ships of the line at Brest under Admiral Gantheaume, the squadron at Rochefort under Villeneuve, and the Toulon fleet under Latouche-Tréville, were to unite. The last mentioned admiral was intrusted with the chief command. Sailing up the coast of France, he was to liberate from their blockade the squadrons of Rochefort and Brest, and with their combined fleets appear before Boulogne. But Latouche-Tréville died, and Napoleon intrusted his plans to Villeneuve. Those plans, all of them arranged without regard to the bad condition of the French ships, or to the uncertainty of the weather, were frequently changed; at one time Villeneuve from Toulon, and Missiessy, his successor, at Rochefort, were to proceed to the West Indies, drawing the English fleet thither; then Gantheaume was to appear from Brest, throw troops into Ireland, and thus cover the flotilla. At another time, all the fleets were to assemble at the West Indies, and, joining with the Spanish fleet at Ferrol, appear in the Straits of Calais.

To complete this last measure Villeneuve set sail from Toulon on the 30th of March 1805, joined Gravina at Cadiz, and reached Martinique on the 13th of May with twenty-eight ships and seven frigates. His voyage was so slow that Missiessy had returned from Nelson's pursuit of Villeneuve. May 1805. the West Indies to France, and the junction failed. In hot pursuit of Villeneuve, Nelson, who had at length found out his destination, had hurried. At Martinique Gantheaume, with the Brest fleet, should have joined Villeneuve; unfortunately for him Admiral Cornwallis blockaded his fleet. Villeneuve therefore had to return to Europe alone, sailing for Ferrol to pick up a squadron of fifteen ships. He was then, at the head of thirty-five ships, ordered to appear before Brest, liberate Gantheaume, and appear in the Channel. Back again in pursuit of him Nelson sailed, but supposed that he would return to the Mediterranean and not to Ferrol; he therefore again missed him; but as he had found means to inform the English Government that Villeneuve was returning to Europe, Calder, with a fleet of fifteen ships, was sent to intercept him. The fleets encountered off Cape Finisterre. The French had twenty-seven vessels, Calder but fifteen, and after an indecisive battle, in which two Spanish ships were taken, he was afraid to renew the engagement, and Villeneuve was thus enabled to reach Ferrol in safety. However, all the operations towards concentration had led to absolutely nothing, and the English fleets, which the movements towards the West Indies were to have decoyed from the Channel, were either still off the coast of France or in immediate pursuit of the fleet of Villeneuve. Nelson returned to Gibraltar, and as soon as he found out where Villeneuve was, he joined his fleet to that of Cornwallis before Brest, and himself returned to England.

The day before Calder had also left nine ships with Cornwallis, who had thus a fleet of thirty-five vessels. He divided them into two equal parts, sending one to Ferrol, and keeping the other to guard Gantheaume in Brest. Meanwhile Villeneuve had not been able to get ready for sea till the 11th of August. Had he then sailed he would probably have encountered with his own nineteen ships Cornwallis' fleet of thirty-five vessels off Brest. Had he indeed postponed his sailing for a few days he would have found Cornwallis' fleet separated, but even then it was improbable that he would have escaped one or other of its divisions. But in fact he did not know of its division, and therefore, acting in the belief of the union of the great fleet off Brest, he was afraid to venture northwards, and with the full approbation of his Spanish colleague Gravina, determined to avail himself of a last Failure of Napoleon's schemes. Aug. alternative which Napoleon had suggested, and sailed to Cadiz. This was a fatal blow to the gigantic schemes of Napoleon. Up till the 22nd of August he still believed that Villeneuve would make his appearance, and in fact wrote to him that day at Brest, closing his letter with the words, "England is ours." As the time for his great stroke drew near he grew nervously anxious, constantly watching the Channel for the approach of the fleet, and at last, when his Minister of Marine, Decrès, told him that the fleet had gone to Cadiz, he broke forth in bitter wrath against both his minister and Villeneuve, whom he accused of the most shameful weakness.

But Napoleon was not a man who let his success be staked upon one plan alone. Though studiously hiding from his people the existence of the coalition, and not scrupling to have recourse to forged letters and fabricated news for the purpose, he was fully aware of its existence. He knew too of the movements of the armies of Austria and Russia, and had already taken some steps to meet them. Without much difficulty, therefore, he at once resigned his great He changes his plan and marches against Austria. plans upon England, and directed his army towards the eastern frontier, determined to wipe out by a great campaign, in which the chances were all in his favour, the disgrace and ridicule of his long-threatened but abortive attack upon England. The largest and best part of the Austrian army was in Italy under the Archduke Charles. On the Inn there were barely 80,000 men, commanded by General Mack. The Russians had yet far to go before they could form a junction with the Austrian troops, and Napoleon, when he first changed his plan on the 25th of August, intended to march by the most direct route to meet the Austrians, and if possible prevent them from crossing the Inn. For this purpose he could bring, counting the army of occupation of Hanover, nearly 200,000 men into the field. The passage of the Rhine was open to him; it was no longer necessary as of old to fight his way through the Black Forest. By pursuing a direct course he would be able to pick up the troops who were in Hanover on his way, and bring his whole army to bear at once upon the Inn. The Austrians, however, little calculating on the rapidity of his movements, believing that the army was engaged on the northern coast, and desirous of securing the assistance of the Bavarian army of 25,000 men, rashly crossed the Inn on the 7th of September, and advanced to Ulm. Their movements were accurately known to Napoleon, who had sent Murat in disguise into Bavaria to watch them; and when he heard that they had taken up their position so far in advance of their base of operations, he formed his great plan for surrounding and capturing the whole army at Ulm.

While Napoleon was thus hurrying off to destroy the Austrian troops, Nelson, having heard of the destination of Villeneuve, and feeling that the fleet he had so long pursued was his fair prey, offered his services to Government. They were gladly accepted, and on the 13th of September he left his home for the last time to take command of the fleet off Cadiz. Thus, each on its own element, the two great nations of Europe, commanded by the two great leaders of the day, were engaged almost simultaneously in undertakings of the last importance, and almost simultaneously the results of those undertakings became known. On the 19th of Capitulation of the Austrian army at Ulm. Oct 19. October, Mack, finding himself surrounded and cut off from Vienna, with all hope of relief gone, capitulated at Ulm, and his whole army of 30,000 men laid down their arms before the enemy. On the 21st of the same month the English and French fleets encountered just within sight of Cape Trafalgar, outside the Straits of Gibraltar.

The fleet of the English numbered twenty-seven vessels, Villeneuve had the command of thirty-three, without reckoning five frigates and two smaller ships. In other respects, in ability of seamanship, and in knowledge of the management of guns, the English were undoubtedly superior. Some days before the battle Nelson had conceived and made known his plan of action. The assault was to be made in two lines; at the head of one Nelson was himself to break the line in the centre, while Collingwood led the second to the attack of the rear squadron. The French were formed in one line, and were sailing in a south-easterly direction. Nelson's plan was therefore calculated not only to destroy the enemy, but also to cut off his retreat from Cadiz and the north. This part of his plan Villeneuve saw through and avoided. He changed the direction of his line, so that the rear squadron became the leading squadron, and the road to Cadiz was kept open. In this order, in full sail, with the wind in their favour, the English attacked and broke the French line. All the advantages of this well-known manœuvre were gained, and by half-past five in the evening, of the thirty-three vessels of the enemy eighteen were in the hands of the English, eleven with difficulty retreated towards Cadiz, and four others, which had formed the leading squadron of the French, were standing out to sea, only to be captured a few days afterwards by another fleet. But the victory was dearly won. Nelson, who had appeared as usual with his orders on his coat, had formed a mark for the riflemen with whom the rigging of the French ships was filled. He fell early in the action, but lived long enough to hear of his complete victory. He died thanking God he had done his duty, and even to the last, mindful of the safety of his fleet, giving orders that it should at once anchor to await a gale whose approach he had foreseen. The storm came as he had expected; a considerable part of our prizes was lost, and three of the French fugitives were wrecked before they reached the port of Cadiz. Of the whole fleet eight vessels alone escaped, which remained blockaded in Cadiz till they fell a prey to the Spanish insurgents.

But though the sea thus passed entirely under the command of the English, though all chance of invasion had disappeared, a crushing blow upon the Continent shattered for the time all hope of permanent opposition to the advance of Napoleon. The catastrophe at Ulm was followed by a rapid advance upon Vienna. The wisdom Napoleon had shown in concentrating his troops for one great and decisive blow at once bore fruit. The army of Italy was obliged to retreat before the advance of Massena, in time to defend if possible Austria itself. It was too late even for that, and it was compelled to withdraw into Hungary, for the Emperor, desirous of saving the Viennese from the horrors of a siege, had withdrawn with his troops into Moravia, in the hopes of there meeting the main body of the Russians whom Alexander was bringing to his succour. Thither Napoleon pursued him, and there, with his back to the citadel of Brünn, not far from Olmutz, he brought on the great battle of Austerlitz, and before the close of the day the forces of the coalition were completely beaten, losing upon the field 27,000 killed and wounded, 20,000 prisoners, and 133 pieces of cannon.

The death of Pitt was followed by the break-up of his Cabinet, which was not so constituted as to be able to stand without him. The King did indeed attempt to continue it under the leadership of Lord Hawkesbury; but upon his refusal to accept the responsibilities of the Premiership, the King was obliged to have recourse to the Opposition, and to summon Lord Grenville to his Councils. The admission of Grenville to the ministry implied the admission of Fox; the close political alliance they had formed, the determination they had already expressed, when rejecting Pitt's offers, never to join in any separate arrangements, rendered it quite impossible for either to accept office without the other. In spite, therefore, of the King's anger and dislike, he was compelled to admit his old enemy Fox to the ministry. The basis on which Grenville and Fox had been united in opposition was the strong belief which both felt that in the present crisis a ministry of a broad and national character was required. On this principle they formed their new administration, which was known by the name of "the Ministry of all the talents." Lord Grenville became First Lord of the Treasury; Earl Spencer and Mr. Windham, members of Pitt's first administration, Secretaries for the Home and War departments; Fox became Foreign Secretary, and his friends Earl Fitzwilliam and Grey (now Lord Howick), the one Lord President of the Council, and the other First Lord of the Admiralty. Lord Moira, Master-General of the Ordnance, represented the friends of the Prince of Wales; while Lord Sidmouth became Lord Privy Seal, and as he insisted on bringing one friend with him into the Cabinet, introduced with questionable wisdom Lord Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice. It has since this time been generally held that such a position is incompatible with high judicial duties. Lord Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before the ministry went out all due honour had been paid to the late minister; a public funeral and monument had been voted, together with the sum of £40,000 for the payment of his debts.

The character of Fox as a statesman was now upon its trial. After thirty years of exclusion from office, in perpetual opposition to the King and the general feeling of the upper classes, Fox had at length an opportunity of proving the justice of the reliance which men of liberal opinions had always placed in him. Large-hearted, with great warmth of personal affection, and general love of the human race, he had uniformly opposed war, had constantly declared that either the mismanagement or ill-will of the ministers had been the main obstacle to peace: he had believed devoutly in the excellence of the Revolution, traced its excesses to the wanton opposition of the crowned heads of Europe, and still persisted in believing that straightforward and friendly negotiations would bring about a right understanding with Napoleon. The brief period which elapsed between his acceptance of office in January and his death on the 13th of September, sufficed to prove to him the futility of his hopes; and the ministry found itself obliged to take up identically the same position as that of their predecessors. Like his great rival, he closed his life in the midst of the unutterable sadness caused by the complete frustration of those plans on which, according to his view, the welfare of his country rested, with this additional bitterness in his cup that upon him was forced the conviction, not only that circumstances were too strong for him, but that the optimism which had been the very breath of his political life rested upon no solid ground, and that the work to which he had devoted himself, and the maintenance of which had perpetually debarred him from a share in the government of the country, had been wholly misdirected. That destruction of illusions which comes to most men in their youth fell upon him when he was already breaking with age and disease, and when he must have been conscious that no time was left him to correct the errors into which he had been led. It is difficult to conceive a sadder close to a noble political career than that which fell upon the minister as he discovered too late that the practical logic of facts contradicted all those high aspirations which had throughout guided his conduct. So complete, however, was the proof afforded him by his short ministry of the futility of his hopes, that his friend Lord Howick, after just a year of office, was compelled to declare of the late negotiations that "there never was any opportunity of procuring any such terms as would have been adequate to the just pretensions and consistent with the honour and interests of this country; 'one thing is clear, the progress of Bonaparte has never yet been stopped by submission, and our only hope therefore is in resistance, as far as we can resist his ambitious projects.'"

The negotiations of which Lord Howick thus confessed the disastrous conclusion were opened by Fox almost immediately after his accession to office. A few days after his appointment an unknown person called upon him, and disclosed a plan for the assassination of the Emperor. With natural indignation, Fox caused the man to be apprehended, and while warning Bonaparte that the law of England prevented his lengthened detention, he promised that it should be long enough to enable the Emperor to provide against the nefarious plan. It is not improbable that the whole conspiracy was devised by Napoleon himself for the purpose of opening a negotiation with Fox, in whom he believed he had a sincere well-wisher, and on whose simple-hearted optimism he believed he could play. He caused a copy of a speech to reach Fox in which he expressed his willingness to make peace with England on the stipulations of the Treaty of Amiens. This led to a direct negotiation between Fox and Talleyrand, in which the English minister, in accordance with his views, attempted, as he said, to act upon the assumption that the countries would treat as two great powers, despising any idea of chicane. But this was not at all Napoleon's view of negotiation. His diplomacy constantly assumed the same form—separate treaties with different members of the coalition, and the hurried continuance of aggression during the time that negotiations were pending, so as to compel the treating power either to accept the aggressions or to break off the treaty. This had been his plan before the Treaty of Amiens, and this he had just repeated after the battle of Austerlitz.