but how could he look on Naples as a neutral State, when its chief
Minister was an Englishman? This was "the real reason that justified
all the measures taken towards Naples."[269] The brutality and
falseness of this reply had no other effect than to embitter Queen
Charlotte's hatred against the arbiter of the world's destinies,
before whom she and her consort refused to bow, even when, three years
later, they were forced to seek shelter behind the girdle of the
inviolate sea.

Hanover also fell into Napoleon's hands. Mortier with 25,000 French
troops speedily overran that land and compelled the Duke of Cambridge
to a capitulation. The occupation of the Electorate not only relieved
the French exchequer of the support of a considerable corps; it also
served to hold in check the Prussian Court, always preoccupied about
Hanover; and it barred the entrance of the Elbe and Weser to British
ships, an aim long cherished by Napoleon. To this we retorted by
blockading the mouths of those rivers, an act which must have been
expected by Napoleon, and which enabled him to declaim against British
maritime tyranny. In truth, the beginnings of the Continental System
were now clearly discernible. The shores of the Continent from the
south of Italy to the mouth of the Elbe were practically closed to
English ships, while by a decree of July 15th _any vessel whatsoever_
that had cleared from a British port was to be excluded from all
harbours of the French Republic. Thus all commercial nations were
compelled, slowly but inevitably, to side with the master of the land
or the mistress of the seas.

In vain did the King of Prussia represent to Napoleon that Hanover was
not British territory, and that the neutrality of Germany was
infringed and its interests damaged by the French occupation of
Hanover and Cuxhaven. His protest was met by an offer from Napoleon to
evacuate Hanover, Taranto and Otranto, only at the time when England
should "evacuate Malta and the Mediterranean"; and though the special
Prussian envoy, Lombard, reported to his master that Napoleon was
"truth, loyalty, and friendship personified," yet he received not a
word that betokened real regard for the susceptibilities of Frederick
William III. or the commerce of his people.[270] For the present,
neither King nor Czar ventured on further remonstrances; but the First
Consul had sown seeds of discord which were to bear fruit in the Third
Coalition.

Having quartered