the
Mediterranean. On March 21, 1801, the French army was defeated at the
battle of Alexandria by the British force sent out under Sir Ralph
Abercromby, who was himself mortally wounded on the field. His
successor, General Hutchinson, completed his work by taking Cairo,
before the arrival of General Baird, who had led a mixed body of British
soldiers and sepoys from the Red Sea across the desert to the Nile. The
capitulation of Alexandria soon followed. In September the French
evacuated Egypt, the remains of their army were conveyed to France in
English ships, and Bonaparte's long-cherished dreams of eastern conquest
faded away for ever--not from his own imagination, but from the
calculations of practical statesmanship.

French arms, and French diplomacy supported by armed force, were more
successful elsewhere. The treaty of Luneville was only the first of a
series of treaties, by which France secured to herself a political
position commensurate with her military glory. By the treaty of Aranjuez
between France and Spain, signed on March 21, Spain ceded Louisiana to
France, reserving the right of pre-emption, and undertook to wage war on
Portugal in order to detach it from the British alliance. Spain and
Portugal were both lukewarm in this war, and on June 6 signed the treaty
of Badajoz, by which Portugal agreed to close her ports to England, to
pay an indemnity to Spain, and to cede the small district of Olivenza,
south of Badajoz. Bonaparte was intensely irritated by this treaty,
which deprived him of the hope of exchanging conquests in Portugal for
British colonial conquests in any future negotiations; he declared that
Spain would have to pay by the sacrifice of her colonies for the
conquered French colonies which he still hoped to recover. A French army
was despatched to Portugal and enabled Bonaparte to dictate the treaty
of Madrid, signed on September 29, whereby Portugal ceded half Guiana to
France and undertook, as at Badajoz, to close her ports against
England.

[Pageheading: _INFLUENCES MAKING FOR PEACE._]

This last condition was equally imposed on the King of the Two Sicilies
by the treaty of Florence, concluded on March 28, and before the end of
the year France had established friendly relations with the Sultan of
Turkey and the new Tsar of Russia. More important still, as
consolidating Bonaparte's power at home, was the concordat signed by him
and the pope on July 15 recognising Roman Catholicism as the