ingly dragged from the gaieties of Paris, Within a few days after, a declaration, to rule over a laborious and impoverished stating the grounds of the war, was pubpeople. The new constitution which ac- lished by the Prussian cabinet. companied the king had no guarantee but The French, who had for some time been the will of its author, nor did he attempt to concentrating their forces at Bamberg, addisguise that he considered Holland as virtu- vanced in three divisions against the Prus ally a province of France. Buonaparte also sian army, which had taken a strong posistrengthened his connexion with Bavaria, tion along the north of Frankfort on the by the union of a princess of that house Maine. The campaign opened on the ninth with his step-son, Eugene Beauharnois, of October, when the left of the Prussians whom he adopted as his successor in the was turned, and they were compelled to rekingdom of Italy. He created a number of treat with considerable loss: on the tenth, dutchies in the countries conquered by the left wing of the French army, under France, and chiefly in Italy, which he con- marshal Lannes, was successful at Saalfield, ferred on those who had distinguished them- where prince Louis of Prussia was killed. selves in his service. Berthier was created The main body of the Prussians occupied prince of Neufchatel; Bernadotte, prince of Eysenach, Gotha, Erfurt, and Weimar, but Ponte Corvo; and Talleyrand, prince of the arrangements of the duke of BrunsBenevento. Many of the marshals and gen- wick, to whom, at the advanced age of severals were raised to the rank of dukes. enty-one, the chief command was confided, Buonaparte's sister, Paulina, the wife of the were suddenly changed, in consequence of prince Borghese, received the principality his right wing being unexpectedly turned of Guastalla; and his uncle, cardinal Fesch, by the French, who gained the eastern bank was appointed coadjutor and successor of of the Saal, and cut him off from his rethe archbishop of Ratisbon.

sources.

Whilst Buonaparte was carrying these On the morning of the fourteenth the projects into effect, the pressure of the great battle of Auerstadt or Jena commencFrench armies upon Germany was extreme, ed, in which two hundred and fifty thousand and a spirit of resistance was excited in a men, with seven hundred pieces of artillery, variety of publications, which soon attract- scattered death in every direction. The ed the notice of the French government. courage and discipline on each side were Orders were in consequence given for the perhaps equal; but the military skill was apprehension of various booksellers, among greatly superior on the part of the French, whom the fate of John Palm, a resident of and after a most dreadful conflict the Prus Nuremberg, an imperial town of Germany, sians were finally defeated in every quarter. possessing laws and tribunals of its own, at- Their loss in killed and wounded exceeded tracted particular notice. This person, the twenty thousand; from thirty to forty thoupublisher of a pamphlet, entitled "Germany sand were made prisoners; and three hunin the lowest state of degradation," was ar- dred pieces of cannon, with immense magarested by order of the French government, zines, were taken: among the prisoners and dragged to Braunau, charged with the were more than twenty generals; marshal publication of a libel against the French Mollendorf was wounded, and the duke of emperor. A court-martial was immediately Brunswick and general Ruchel were killed. summoned, and, after sitting for three days, The French stated their loss at from four to M. Palm was sentenced to be shot, which five thousand men: the victory, however, was carried into execution on the following was complete, and decided the fate of the day. campaign. FOURTH COALITION AGAINST FRANCE.All the principal towns in the electorate BATTLE OF JENA.-BERLIN DECREE. of Brandenburg, though strongly garrisonAr length the court of Berlin assumed a ed, surrendered almost without resistance. tone of firmness; the king of Sweden cher- Spandau and Stettin opened their gates on ished the prospect which seemed thus to be being invested, and Magdeburg, with a garafforded of checking the power of Buona- rison of twenty-two thousand men, capituparte; the Prussian vessels detained in Brit- lated to Ney, after a few bombs had been ish ports were speedily liberated; and lord thrown into the city. Berlin was entered Morpeth was dispatched to Berlin, with of- on the twenty-fifth, and the king of Prussia fers of assistance in the fourth coalition that retreated to Koningsberg, where, with scarcewas at this time forming against France. ly fifty thousand men, he awaited the arrival On the twenty-fourth of September Buona- of whatever assistance might be afforded by parte quitted Paris, to join the armies: so Russia.

late, however, as the fifth of October, a dis- Mecklenburg was also taken possession patch was delivered from the Prussian out-of by the French; and Hanover was occuposts to the French army, which still afford- pied by general Mortier. Their next object ed an opening for amicable adjustment. was the possession of Hamburgh, where all

British property was placed under sequestra-bridge, and continued their march to the tion; the merchants and bankers were re- eastward. The emperor Alexander and the quired to exhibit their accounts, summary king of Prussia, who had been there during punishment, by martial law, being denounc- the last three weeks, retired to Memel, that ed against those who should make false re- town and its territory being all that remainturns; and the English who remained in ed in the possession of the latter sovereign. the city were put under arrest. Buonaparte entered Tilsit on the nineThese proceedings were the prelude to a teenth of June; and on the twenty-second decree issued by Buonaparte at Berlin on an armistice was concluded, by which it was the twentieth of November, which after-agreed that there should be an immediate wards became so memorable under the de- exchange of prisoners, and that plenipotensignation of the "Berlin decree." This edict tiaries should be instantly appointed to nealleged that England had violated the laws gotiate a peace. Three days afterwards an of nations, in considering every individual interview took place between the emperor belonging to a hostile state as an actual en- Alexander and Buonaparte, on a raft which emy, whether found on board vessels of mer- had been constructed upon the Niemen. chandise, or otherwise engaged in commer- The conference lasted two hours, and was cial occupations; that she had extended her attended with mutual expressions of regard. right of blockade beyond all reasonable lim- On the seventh of July the arrangements its-to places where, with all her naval su- of pacification were completed. Prussia was periority, it was impossible for her actually deprived of all her territories on the left to maintain it; that the monstrous abuse of bank of the Elbe, and of all her Polish provthis right had no other object but to aggran- inces, except those situated between Pomedize England by the ruin of the continent; rania and the Newmarke, and ancient Prusthat all who dealt in English commodities, sia, to the north of the little river Netz. might, therefore, be justly regarded as her The elector, now king of Saxony, took also accomplices; and that, as it was a right con- the title of duke of Warsaw, and was to ferred by the laws of nature and of nations, have free communication by a military road to oppose to an enemy the weapons he em- through the Prussian territory, with his new ploys against his adversary, it was decreed, dominions, which were to consist of Thorn, that till the English government should Warsaw, and the rest of Prussian Poland, abandon this system, the British isles should except that part to the north of the Bug, be placed in a state of blockade, and all cor- which was incorporated with the dominions respondence with her interdicted. This vio- of the emperor Alexander. Dantzic was in lent decree, and the apprehension of retali- future to be an independent town; East atory measures on the part of England, oc- Friesland was added to the kingdom of Holcasioned great dismay in the commercial land; a new dominion, under the designacities of the continent. tion of the kingdom of Westphalia, was formed of the provinces ceded by Prussia, OPERATIONS IN SILESIA AND SWEDISH and others in the possession of Buonaparte; and the recognition of Jerome Buonaparte AFTER the battle of Jena, Buonaparte ob- as its sovereign, also of the kings of Holtained further success over the detached and land and Naples, and of all the present and broken forces of the king of Prussia, and future members of the confederation of the over several bodies of Russian troops which Rhine, was stipulated. Prussia consented to crossed the Vistula to assist Prussia; he thus become a party in the maritime war against was enabled to overrun all Silesia, to take England; the emperor of Russia and BuoBreslau and other fortresses, and to lay naparte mutually guarantied to each other siege to the city of Dantzic; but that im- the integrity of their possessions, and of portant place did not surrender till the those of the other powers included in the twenty-seventh of May. He then penetrated treaty; the offer of a mediation to effect a into Poland, and after a series of severe con- peace between France and England was acflicts the French and Russian armies fought cepted, on the condition that England should, on the fourteenth of June the sanguinary within one month, admit it; and the emand decisive battle of Friedland, which the peror of Russia agreed to accept the mediaFrench classed among their most splendid tion of Buonaparte for the conclusion of victories. One of its immediate conse-peace with the Ottoman Porte. quences was the capture of Koningsberg, The king of Sweden refused to accede containing large stores of grain, and one to the treaty of Tilsit, and attempted the hundred and sixty thousand English mus- defence of Pomerania; but his efforts were kets, which had not yet been landed. The unavailing. He, however, succeeded in Russians retreated towards the Niemen, withdrawing his forces from Stralsund, and crossed that river at Tilsit, burned the returned into Sweden.

POMERANIA.-TREATY OF TILSIT.

EGYPT.

WAR WITH TURKEY AND RUSSIA.-EX-force of five thousand men, under the comPEDITION TO CONSTANTINOPLE AND mand of major-general Mackenzie Fraser, sailed from Messina, and having effected a TOWARDS the close of the year 1806, war landing near Alexandria, speedily compelled had been declared by Turkey against Rus- that city to capitulate. Ulterior operations sia; and to oblige the Turks to accede to against Rosetta and Rhamanie were unsucterms of accommodation, by which a force cessful, and the troops retreated, fighting all would be released from this southern war- the way to Alexandria, where they remained fare, and enabled to swell the Russian army till September, when general Fraser, unable in Poland, a British fleet, under the com- to cope with the enemy, entered into a neinand of Sir J. T. Duckworth, advanced gotiation; and having obtained the restorathrough the Dardanelles on the nineteenth tion of the British prisoners, consented to of February, with orders to bombard Con- evacuate Egypt. stantinople, if certain terms were not ac- CAPTURE OF MONTE VIDEO-UNSUCceded to. In passing between Sestos and CESSFUL ATTACK ON BUENOS AYRES. Abydos they sustained a heavy fire, which -GENERAL WHITELOCKE CASHIERED. they retaliated very severely, and the Turk- SOME hopes were entertained that the ish squadron was driven on shore and burnt reverses in the Mediterranean would be by Sir Sidney Smith. The English then an- compensated by successes in South America. chored near the Prince's Isles, about eight In October, 1806, ministers had sent out a miles from Constantinople; and a proposal reinforcement to the river Plate, under the was made to spare the city on condition that command of Sir Samuel Auchmuty, and the Turkish fleet should be surrendered, convoyed by Sir Charles Stirling, who was which was of course rejected, and defensive appointed to supersede Sir Home Popham in measures being pursued with the greatest the naval command on that station. On arriactivity, Sir J. T. Duckworth prepared for ving at Maldanado, Sir Samuel determined his departure while the passage of the Dar- to attack the strong fortress of Monte Video, danelles was still practicable. On the first the key of the river Plate; and on the of March he repassed the castles, in which eighteenth of January the troops, amounting he sustained considerable loss, and thus, in- to about four thousand men, were landed stead of producing accommodation between near the place, and repulsed a superior force Russia and the Porte, a new power was which had been ordered out against them. added to the list of England's enemies. The A battery was erected, which, though exBritish agents and settlers in the Turkish posed to the incessant fire of the enemy, territories were exposed to considerable an- effected a practicable breach on the second noyance; the seizure and sequestration of of February; and orders were issued that English property at Smyrna, Salonica, and the assault should be made next morning, an other places, were ordered by the Porte, hour before daybreak. The enemy, in the with a promptitude which precluded all op- mean time, had so barricaded the breach with portunity for precaution; the power of hides, that the head of the assailing column France over the divan became materially could not in the darkness distinguish it from strengthened; and Sebastiana, the French the untouched wall; and the men remained ambassador at Constantinople, was consulted under a galling fire for a quarter of an hour, on almost every emergency. In this war when it was at length discovered by captain between Russia and the Porte, the former Renny, who fell gloriously as he mounted it; was, however, generally successful; and, to the gallant soldiers then forced their way add to the disasters of the Turks, an insur- into the town, overturning the cannon which rection arose during its progress, owing to had been placed at the head of the principal some new regulations in the dress and dis- avenues, and clearing the batteries and the cipline of the troops, which terminated in streets with their bayonets. By sunrise all the deposition of the grand seignior, Selim was in possession of the British except the the third, and the proclamation of Mustapha citadel, which soon surrendered; and early the fourth. By sea, the Russians were in the morning, highly to the credit of the equally successful as by land; and in an en- troops, all was perfectly quiet. gagement between the Russian and Turkish When intelligence arrived in England of fleets, fought on the 1st of July, near the the recapture of Buenos Ayres by the entrance to the Dardanelles, the latter, con- Spaniards, orders were sent by a fast-sailing sisting of eleven sail of the line, was nearly vessel to direct general Craufurd, who had annihilated. been sent against Chili with four thousand The failure of the weak and injudicious two hundred men, accompanied by a naval attempt on Constantinople was followed by force under admiral Murray, to proceed the disappointment of another expedition with his armament to the river Plate. On which was sent against another seat of the the fourteenth of June, he reached Monte Ottoman power. On the sixth of March, a| Video, where he found general Whitelocke,

who had arrived on the ninth of May from discontinued; and that within two months England, with a reinforcement of sixteen from that date, Monte Video, and the other hundred men, and to whom was intrusted stations on the river Plate, occupied by the the chief command of the British forces in English troops, should be evacuated. He South America, with orders to reduce the added that the exasperation of the populace whole province of Buenos Ayres. Having, against the English prisoners was unbounded; after fatiguing marches, nearly surrounded and that if hostilities were continued, it the town, he ordered a general attack to be would be impossible to insure their safety. made on the fifth of July, each corps to enter These terms were no sooner proposed than by the streets opposite to it, and all with they were yielded to by general Whiteunloaded muskets. The service was exe-locke, whose conduct called forth the most cuted with great intrepidity, but with the severe reprehension; and on his return to loss of two thousand five hundred men, in England he was tried by a court-martial, killed, wounded, and prisoners. No mode cashiered, and declared totally unfit and unof attack could have been so ill adapted worthy to serve his majesty in any military against a town consisting of flat-roofed houses, capacity.

disposed in regular streets, intersecting each CAPTURE OF CURACOA-INSURRECTION other at right angles. Volleys of grape-shot

IN INDIA.

were poured on our columns in front and in AGAINST these misfortunes, the solitary flank as they advanced; and they were as- acquisition of the Dutch island of Curaçoa sailed also from the house-tops with hand- is to be recorded. On the first of January, grenades and other destructive missiles. Sir 1807, the capture was effected with inconSamuel Auchmuty succeeded in making siderable loss, by a squadron of four frigates himself master of the Plaza de Toros, where under the command of captain Brisbane. he took eighty-two pieces of cannon and an The tranquillity of British India was inimmense quantity of ammunition. General terrupted in July, 1806, by an insurrection Craufurd with his brigade was cut off from of the sepoys or native troops in the pay of all communication with the other columns, the company, who attacked the European and was obliged to surrender; as was also barracks at Vellore, and massacred one lieutenant-colonel Duff, with a detachment hundred and sixty-four men before they under his command. On the following morn- were quelled. A rumor, that it was the ing, general Liniers offered to deliver up the wish of the British government to convert prisoners taken on this occasion, and also the sepoys by forcible means to Christianity, those taken from general Beresford, on con- was the cause of this disaffection. dition that the attack on the town should be

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A new Parliament-The late Negotiations-Finance-Abolition of the Slave TradeChange of Administration-Dissolution of Parliament-New Election-New Military Plan-Bill respecting Ireland-Reversions—Prorogation-Expedition against Copenhagen-Capture of the Danish Fleet-War with Denmark-With RussiaRestrictions on Commerce-Action between a British and American Frigate-Capture of the Danish West India Islands-The French enter Portugal-The Royal Family embark for Brazil-Affairs of Spain-Buonaparte's efforts to place his Brother on the Throne-Expedition to Portugal-Convention of Cintra-Advance of the British forces into Spain, under Sir John Moore-His retreat—Battle of Corunna, and death of Sir John Moore.

NEW PARLIAMENT. THE LATE NEGO- for its object to provide the means of mainTIATIONS.-FINANCE. taining the honor and independence of the Ar the meeting of the new parliament on British empire during the necessary continthe fifteenth of December, 1806, the royal uance of the war, without perceptibly inspeech animated the nation to exertions creasing the burdens of the country, and with against the enemy. On the second of Jan- manifest benefit to the interest of the public uary, 1807, the subject of the late negotia- creditor. This plan was adapted to meet a tion with France for the restoration of a scale of expenditure nearly equal to that of general peace was brought under considera- 1806; and assumed that, during the war, the tion. On this occasion Canning condemned annual produce of the permanent and temthe policy of breaking with Prussia for the porary revenue would continue equal to the sake of Hanover. Prussia had, in the first produce of that year. Keeping these preminstance, accepted the transfer of that elec- ises in view, it was proposed that the war torate from France, on condition that the loans for the years 1807, 1808, and 1809, possession should not be considered as valid should be twelve million pounds annually; until a general peace should be concluded, for 1810, fourteen million pounds; and for or until the consent of the king of Great each of the ten following years, sixteen milBritain should be obtained. Buonaparte ac- lion pounds. Those several loans were to be quiesced for a time; but no sooner was he made a charge on the war taxes, which were relieved from anxiety respecting the Russian estimated to produce twenty-one million armies, than he insisted that the occupation pounds annually: this charge to be at the should be absolute, and Prussia had then no rate of ten per cent. on each loan; five per choice but war, or compliance at the risk of cent. for interest, and the remainder as a war with England: she saw this risk, but sinking fund, which, at compound interest, could not avoid it; and we fell into the snare. would redeem any sum of capital debt in Buonaparte had apprehended the union of fourteen years. The portions of war taxes Prussia with the two great surviving powers thus successively liberated, might, if the war of the confederacy, and wished to have her should still be prolonged, become applicable at his mercy. In the space of three months in a revolving series, and be again pledged he beheld her at war with England, and for new loans; it was, however, material, England and Russia separately negotiating that the property-tax should, in every case, for peace. He found means to continue this cease on the sixth of April next, after the state of things until the arrangements for ratification of a definitive treaty of peace. the overthrow of Prussia were matured: In the result therefore of the whole meathen the farce was ended, and he hastened sure, there would not be imposed any new to the field of battle. taxes for the first three years from this time. Parliament, after providing for an aug- New taxes of less than three hundred thoumentation of the sea and land forces, direct- sand pounds, on an average of seven years, ed its attention to the improvement of the from 1810 to 1816, both inclusive, were all revenue. Lord Henry Petty, having stated that would be necessary, in order to procure the total amount of the supplies for the year for the country the full benefit of the plan 1807 at forty million five hundred and twen- here described, which would continue for ty-seven thousand sixty-five pounds eleven twenty years; during the last ten of which shillings and eight pence, and the ways and again no new taxes would be required. After means at forty-one million one hundred repeated discussions the plan was agreed to, thousand pounds, brought forward a perma- and the funds advanced considerably, which nent plan of finance, which professed to have gave the minister an opportunity of negoti