ct hard terms from a power whose credit and
whose prestige at sea had grievously suffered. Nevertheless, the
mistake, if mistake it was, is venial when compared with the
unstatesmanlike arrogance of the French Directors, who, when an
advantageous and brilliant peace was within their reach, chose to open
up a new cycle of war. Of late France had made use of the pretext that
she must gain her "natural frontiers"--the Rhine, the Alps, the
Pyrenees, and the Ocean--for the sake of security against the old
dynasties. By rejecting Pitt's overtures, her leaders now proclaimed
their resolve to dominate Italy and Germany and to secure supremacy at
sea. Their intrigues with British malcontents and the United Irishmen
also showed their determination to revolutionize our institutions. Thus
England was to be abased and insulted, while France lorded it over all
her neighbours and prepared to become mistress of the seas. The war
therefore ceased to be in any sense a war of principle, and became for
France a struggle for world-wide supremacy, for England a struggle for
national existence; and while democratic enthusiasm waned at Paris, the
old patriotic spirit revived everywhere in Great Britain. The newspapers
were full of appeals for unanimity; and on 20th November appeared the
first number of that bright and patriotic paper, the "Anti-Jacobin,"
under the editorship of Canning and Hookham Frere, which played no small
part in arousing national ardour. On the next day the French Directory
issued an appeal to France to bestir herself to overthrow the British
power, and to dictate peace at London.

There was need of unanimity; for while France was stamping out revolt,
and Great Britain felt increasingly the drag of Ireland, Pitt
encountered an antagonist of unsuspected strength. Over against his
diffuse and tentative policy stood that of Bonaparte, clear-cut, and for
the present everywhere victorious. While Pitt pursued that will o' the
wisp, a money-bought peace, the Corsican was bullying the Austrian
negotiators at Udine and Campo Formio. Finally his gasconnades carried
the day; and on 17th October Austria signed away her Netherlands to
France and her Milanese and Mantuan territories to the newly created
Cisalpine Republic. Bonaparte and the Emperor, however, agreed to
partition the unoffending Venetian State, the western half of which went
to the Cisalpines, the eastern half, along with Venice, Istria, and
Dalmatia, to the Hapsburgs. T