save her honour, he proposed
to send an irresistible naval force.

"Denmark's safety," he wrote on July 16th, "is to be found, under
the present circumstances of the world, only in a balance of
opposite dangers. For it is not to be disguised that the influence
which France has acquired from recent events over the North of
Europe, might, unless balanced by the naval power of Great
Britain, leave to Denmark no other option than that of compliance
with the demands of Bonaparte."[162]

_A balance of opposite dangers!_ In this phrase Canning summed up his
policy towards Denmark. Threatened by Napoleon on the land, she was to
be threatened by us from the sea; and Canning hoped that these
opposite forces would, at least, secure Danish neutrality, without
which Sweden must succumb in her struggle against France. That some
compulsion would be needed had long been clear. In fact, the use of
compulsion had first been recommended by the Russian and Prussian
Governments, which had gone so far as to include in the Treaty of
Bartenstein a proposal of common action, along with England, Austria
and Sweden, _to compel Denmark to side with the allies against
Napoleon_.[163] To this resolve England still clung, despite the
defection of the Czar. In truth, his present conduct made the case for
the coercion of Denmark infinitely more urgent.

As to the reality of Napoleon's designs on Denmark, there can be no
doubt. After his return to France, he wrote from St. Cloud, directing
Talleyrand to express his displeasure that Denmark had not fulfilled
her _promises_: "Whatever my desire to treat Denmark well, I cannot
hinder her suffering from having allowed the Baltic to be violated [by
the English expedition to Stralsund]; and, if England refuses Russia's
mediation, Denmark must choose either to make war against England, or
against me."[164] Whence it is clear that Denmark had given Napoleon
grounds for hoping that she would declare the Baltic a _mare clausum_.

The British Government had so far fathomed these designs as to see the
urgency of the danger. Accordingly it proposed to Denmark a secret
defensive alliance, the chief terms of which were the handing over of
the Danish fleet, to be kept as a "sacred pledge" by us till the
peace, a subsidy of L100,000 paid to Denmark for that fleet, and the
offer of armed assistance in case she should be attacked by France.
This offer of defensive alliance was repulsed, and