tion of Ferdinand of Naples, for which Nelson was
largely responsible, caused some embarrassment to the English
government, and Grenville anxiously assured Thugut that England was not
responsible for it.[297] At the same time it hastened the formation of
the second coalition. A treaty of close alliance with Naples was signed
by Russia on November 29, and another by the Porte on December 23, to
which Great Britain acceded on January 2.[298] England further made a
treaty with Russia on December 29 by which the tsar agreed to furnish
45,000 men to act against France in co-operation with Prussia, and
England promised a subsidy of L225,000 for initial expenses and L75,000
a month afterwards. Thomas Grenville was sent to Berlin to act with
Count Panin in persuading Frederick William to join the coalition. The
king refused; the treaty with Russia was modified by a mutual agreement
that the Russian troops should be employed as seemed most advantageous
to both powers, and the English government suggested that they should
act with the Austrians in Switzerland.[299] Austria was soon forced to
abandon her temporising policy. A corps of 25,000 Russians was encamped
on the Danube. France demanded their expulsion from Austrian territory,
and that, as Thugut said, meant war.[300] On February 28 Jourdan crossed
the Rhine with 40,000 men. The second coalition of which England was the
soul was a direct result of the battle of the Nile.

England was successful alike in arms and diplomacy. She had crushed a
long-threatened rebellion and had been unharmed by attempts at invasion.
Her fleet had vindicated her naval supremacy in the Mediterranean;
Bonaparte's great design against her commerce and power in the east had
utterly failed, and she had succeeded for the second time in forming a
coalition against the common enemy. Though she was burdened with
taxation and debt, and suffering from the evils of a prolonged war, her
commerce was increasing and sedition was virtually extinct. In one
quarter only is an almost insignificant failure to be recorded. The
attempt to conquer San Domingo with insufficient forces, in which the
government had persevered since 1793, was abandoned. Animated by
republican sentiments, the negroes raised a large army under a former
slave, Toussaint l'Ouverture. The small British force at Port-au-Prince
could make no head against them, and was withdrawn in 1798. France
shortly afterwards withdrew her forces, and Toussaint