t was
too late, her enterprise being chiefly concerned to open new channels
for her commerce in Egypt and in South America.

How was this leviathan, which was drawing the wealth of all Europe to
its stores, and eluding or repelling all attack on its chosen
element--how was this tyrant of the ocean to be slain? Clearly the
Americans must be so harassed and annoyed that in the end the public
spirit of the United States would be aroused to resent English
control, and bid defiance to Great Britain's assumption of maritime
supremacy. To this end the rigid enforcement of the Berlin Decree
would be well adapted in the long run, but in the interval much could
be done: if its principle could be extended to the destruction of all
smuggling, to the absolute exclusion of British commerce from the
entire Continent--not only from the seaports, but from the
markets--the end would be gained. With Russia's cooeperation alone was
this possible. Napoleon's present plan, therefore, was to secure
France and the French Empire, as far as won, by compelling the world
to a lasting peace through the immediate establishment of a
counterpoise, the French and Russian empires against Great Britain,
leaving time to do its perfect work of exasperating the rising naval
power of the United States into open hostility against the parent
land.

These, it seems, must have been the considerations which controlled
the course of affairs at Tilsit. The deliberations were both formal,
so called, and informal. At the former were present the three
sovereigns with their ministers--Talleyrand for France, Kurakin and
Labanoff for Russia, Kalkreuth and Goltz for Prussia; at the latter
were sometimes all three of the monarchs, frequently only the two
principals, for they found Frederick William a damper on their
hilarity. The generals, the staff, and the men of the two great armies
which had fought so bravely at Friedland harmonized in mutual respect;
but the unwarlike King and his suite, both military and civil, were
outsiders. Immediately after the formal and brilliant entry of
Alexander into Tilsit, Napoleon began the exchange of prisoners, and
despatched messengers commanding his forces in Germany to restore to
their sovereign the territories of Mecklenburg, whose reigning house
was kin to the Czar. For Frederick William there was scarcely a show
of kindness--nothing, in fact, but a cold condemnation of Hardenberg,
to whose influence, combined with that of the m