e
renewed. Many changes have taken place in Europe; many governments
have been destroyed. The cause is to be found in the uneasiness and
the sufferings occasioned by the stagnation of maritime commerce.
Greater changes still may take place, and all will be unfavorable to
the politics of England. Peace, therefore, is at the same time the
common cause of the nations of the continent and of Great Britain. We
unite in requesting your majesty to lend an ear to the voice of
humanity, to suppress that of the passions, to reconcile contending
interests, and to secure the welfare of Europe and of the generations
over which Providence has placed us."

The only notice taken of this letter was in a communication to the
ministers of France and Russia, in which it was stated that the
"English ministers could not reply to the two sovereigns, since one of
them was not recognized by England." A new coalition was soon formed,
and Austria commenced another march upon France, which led to the
campaign of Wagram, in which Austria was humbled as never before.
Austria was now compelled, in conjunction with France and Russia, and
most of the other European powers, to take part in the continental
blockade. Alexander, shackled by his nobles, had not been able to
render Napoleon the assistance he had promised in this war. Loud
murmurs and threats of assassination were rising around him, and
instead of rigorously enforcing the exclusion of English goods, he
allowed them to be smuggled into the country. This was ruinous to
Napoleon's system. Remonstrances and recriminations ensued. At length
English goods were freely introduced, provided they entered under
American colors. Napoleon, to put a stop to this smuggling, which the
local authorities pretended they could not prevent, seized several of
the principal ports of northern Germany, and incorporated the
possessions of the Duke of Oldenburg, a near relative of Alexander,
with France.[30]

[Footnote 30: Colonel Napier, in his "Peninsular War," very justly
observes, "The real principle of Napoleon's government, and secret of
his popularity, made him the people's monarch, not the sovereign of
the aristocracy. Hence Mr. Pitt called him 'the child and the champion
of democracy,' a truth as evident as that Mr. Pitt and his successors
'were the children and the champions of aristocracy.' Hence also the
_privileged_ classes of Europe consistently turned their natural and
implacable hatred of the French