line, carrying a
considerable body of troops under the orders of Earl Cathcart, appeared
before the capital of Denmark in the middle of August, and found the
government wholly unprepared for defence. The high spirit of the Crown
Prince, however, revolted against yielding to a demand which imperious
necessity alone could have rendered justifiable on the part of England:
nor, unfortunately, were these scruples overcome until the Danish troops
had suffered severely in an action against the British, and the capital
itself had been bombarded during three days, in which many public
buildings, churches and libraries perished, and the private population
sustained heavy loss both of life and property. The fleet being at
length surrendered, the English withdrew with it in safety; and the rage
of Napoleon--ill disguised in lofty philippics about the violations of
the rights and privileges of independent nations--betrayed how
completely he had calculated on the use of this marine, and how little
he had anticipated a movement of such vigour from the cabinet of St.
James's.

The Emperor of Russia is said to have signified, through a confidential
channel, that, though for the present he found himself compelled to
temporise, he approved and admired the procedure of the English
government. If this be true, however, his public and open conduct bore a
very different appearance. The British ambassador was dismissed from St.
Petersburg, and a general coalition of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and
Denmark, against the commerce of England being speedily afterwards
formed, the decrees of Berlin--still further strengthened by other
decrees, issued by Napoleon on the 7th December, 1806, at Milan--were in
fact announced as part and parcel of the universal law of the continent.
Alexander of Russia marched a large army into Finland, and took
possession of that great Swedish province--the promised booty of Tilsit.
His fleet in the Mediterranean gained a signal victory over the Turks,
and terms of amity between the courts of St. Petersburg and
Constantinople were at length arranged under the mediation or dictation
of Napoleon. Everything seemed to point to a state of universal
tranquillity or submission throughout the continent, and to a steady
devotion of all the resources of the European monarchies to the service
of the French Emperor and the destruction of his last and greatest
enemy.

That enemy was ere long, in consequence of a new and unforeseen