hant beyond reach of attack. While Europe
resounded with battles and marches, America lived in contented
isolation, free from the cares of unhappy nations living under the
ancient ideals.

{189}

CHAPTER X

THE SECOND PERIOD OF COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM, 1805-1812

In the year 1805, the happy era of Republican prosperity and complacency
came suddenly and violently to an end, for by this time forces were in
operation which drew the United States, in utter disregard of Jefferson's
theories, into the sweep of the tremendous political cyclone raging in
Europe. In 1803, Napoleon forced England into renewed war, and for two
years endeavoured by elaborate naval manoeuvres to secure control of the
Channel for a sufficient time to permit him to transport his "Grand Army"
to the British shore. In 1805, however, these plans broke down; and the
crushing defeat of the allied French and Spanish navies at Trafalgar
marked the end of any attempt to challenge British maritime supremacy.
The great military machine of the French army was then turned eastward
against the armies of the coalition which England, under Pitt, was
forming; and in a series of astonishing campaigns it was used to beat
down the Austrians in 1805 at Austerlitz; to overwhelm the Prussians in
1806 at Jena and Auerstadt; and to force the Russians, after {190} a
severe winter campaign in East Prussia, to come to terms in 1807.
Napoleon and the Tsar, Alexander, meeting on the bridge at Tilsit, July
7, divided Europe between them by agreeing upon a policy of spheres of
interest, which left Turkey and the Orient for Russian expansion and all
the beaten western monarchies for French domination. The Corsican
captain, trampling on the ruins both of the French monarchy and the
French Republic, stood as the most terrible and astounding figure in the
world, invincible by land, the master of Europe.

But the withdrawal of the French from any attempt to contest the sea left
England the equally undisputed master of all oceans, and rendered the
French wholly dependent upon neutral nations for commerce. As French
conquests led to annexations of territory in Italy and in Germany, these
regions also found themselves unable to import with their own vessels,
and so neutral commerce found ever-increasing markets dependent upon its
activity. Now the most energetic maritime neutral power was the United
States, whose merchantmen hastened to occupy the field left vacant by the
p