neutral vessels trading between them to be good prize.

[Sidenote: Fall of the Grenville Ministry.]

Such a step however, though it arbitrarily shut neutral vessels out from
the coasting trade of most of Europe, was far from satisfying the
British merchants, for it left the whole trade between Europe and other
countries, which virtually included the colonial trade, untouched; and
this passed as of old into American bottoms. But their appeal was no
longer to Lord Grenville. The work which his ministry had set itself to
do was to continue the double work of Pitt, his resolute maintenance of
English greatness, and his endeavour to carry on even amidst the stress
of the fight that course of philanthropic and political progress which
was struggling back into renewed vigour after its long arrest through
the French Revolution. But the forces of ignorance and bigotry which had
been too strong for Pitt were too strong for the Grenville ministry,
weakened as it was by the death of Fox at the close of the previous
year. Its greatest work, the abolition of the slave-trade, in February
1807, was done in the teeth of a vigorous opposition from the Tories and
the merchants of Liverpool; and in March the first indication of its
desire to open the question of religious equality by allowing Catholic
officers to serve in the army was met on the part of the king by the
demand of a pledge not to meddle with the question. On the refusal of
this pledge the Ministry was dismissed. Its fall was the final close of
that union of parties in face of the war with France which had brought
about the junction of the bulk of the Whig party with the Tories, and
which had been to some extent renewed after the temporary breach in
Pitt's last ministry by the junction of Lord Sidmouth and a large body
of the Tories with the Whigs. The union had been based on the actual
peril to England's existence, and on the suspension of all home
questions in face of the peril. But with the break-up of the camp at
Boulogne and the victory of Trafalgar the peril of invasion had
disappeared. England again broke into the party that called for progress
and the party that resisted it.

[Sidenote: The Portland Ministry.]

The last was still the stronger: for in the mass of the nation progress
was still confounded with the destruction of institutions, the passion
for war absorbed public attention, and the Tories showed themselves most
in earnest in the prosecution of the war.