c was to furnish the armies of France with recruits. Europe was
to be united in a coalition against England. The Mediterranean was to be
a French lake. Every port was to be shut against England's ships;
England's commerce was to be destroyed and her pride humbled. A quicker
means of bringing her into subjection seemed possible. On a foggy night
an army might be carried across the Channel unobserved by her fleet.
What a Norman duke had done might be done by a mighty republic, and the
English crown might be lost in a second battle of Hastings. The victors
would march on London, and be received as deliverers by a people
groaning under the oppression of "that monster Pitt". They failed to
understand that Pitt had the nation at his back, and that even the most
violent whigs would resist to the death an invasion of their country.
They formed an "army of England," and appointed Bonaparte to command it.
On his return to Paris in December, 1797, he set himself to prepare for
the invasion. Transports for over 24,000 men were soon ready at
Boulogne, Ambleteuse, Calais, and Dunkirk, and boat-builders were hard
at work. In February he made a tour of the coast from Etaples to Ostend
and heard what sailors said about the scheme. On the 23rd he told the
directors that France could not gain supremacy by sea for some years,
and that without that no operation could be more hazardous than an
invasion of England, that a surprise was possible only in the long
winter nights, and that their naval preparations were too backward for
such an attempt to be made that year.[281] He turned to other projects
of conquest which might lead to the destruction of England's commerce in
the east and of her power in India. For some while longer he ostensibly
devoted himself to preparations for invasion. The "army of England,"
which in April numbered 56,000 men, was quartered in the towns of the
north, and every port from Havre to the Texel was crowded with
transports. But by that time the army had lost its commander and the
great scheme was definitely abandoned. Nevertheless, the directors
determined to be ready if an opportunity for invasion should occur, and
maritime preparations were continued. In May a flotilla from Havre
attacked the islands of St. Marcouf, which had been seized by Sir Sidney
Smith in 1795, and was beaten back by the little garrison. Equally
feeble efforts were made by England to check the preparations for
invasion. On tidings that the tra