t had learned to look upon herself as unconquerable. Pitt,
who hated war, was destined to play the uncongenial part of a War
Minister, with one short interval, for the rest of his life, and to
devote his genius and his energy to a life-and-death struggle with the
soldier of fortune who was yesterday the hero of Italy, to-day First
Consul, to-morrow to be Emperor of the French. The story of Pitt's
life, for the rest of Pitt's life, is the story of a struggle against
Napoleon, a struggle maintained under difficulties and disadvantages
that might well have {333} broken a strong man's heart, and that seemed
to end in disaster when the strong man's heart was broken.

It looked for long enough as if nothing could withstand the military
genius or sate the ambition of Napoleon. On his sword sat laurel
victory, and smooth success was strewn before his feet. He overran
Egypt, and dreamed of rivalling the Eastern conquests of Alexander.
The Kingdoms of Europe crumpled up before him. On land he seemed to be
little less than invincible. England was only safe from him because
England held the supremacy of the sea. When the war with France began
England was blessed with an effective navy, and England's fleet was
England's fortune in the days when the conqueror of a continent was the
nightmare of an island. A monstrous regiment of caricaturists were
painting themselves into fame by fantastic and ferocious presentations
of the man who was so fiercely hated because he was so greatly dreaded.
Some of these caricatures are pitifully ignoble, some in their kind are
masterpieces; all are animated by a great fury that is partly the
outcome of a great fear. For years that fear was always present; for
years it was always well within the bounds of possibility that the fear
might be realized in a great national catastrophe. In every coast town
of England men volunteered and drilled and manned defences, and scanned
with anxious eyes the horizon for the sails that were to fulfil a
menace more terrible than the menace of the Armada. England's military
fame had dwindled on the battle-fields of Europe; England's strength at
home was as nothing compared to the strength that France could employ
against her if once France could obtain a landing on her shores.
Napoleon had declared scornfully that the country with the few millions
of men must give way to the country with many millions of men. All
that he needed to reduce England, as he had redu