ish cabinet. I shall not now say from what
authority they came; but the confidence was spontaneous, and the effect
decisive. Those Articles contained the outline of a plan for combining all
the fleets of subject Europe, and pouring the final vengeance of war on
our shores. The right wing of that tremendous armament was to be formed of
the Danish and Russian fleets. This confederacy must be broken up, or we
must see a hundred and eighty ships of the line, freighted with a French
and Russian army, at the mouth of the Thames. There was not a moment to be
lost, if we were to act at all; for a French force was already within a
march of the Great Belt, to garrison Denmark. The question was debated in
council, in all its bearings. All were fully aware of the hypocritical
clamour which would be raised by the men who were lending themselves to
every atrocity of France. We were not less prepared for the furious
declamation of that professor of universal justice and protector of the
rights of neutral nations--the French Emperor. But the necessity was
irresistible; the act was one of self-defence; and it was executed
accordingly, and with instant and incomparable vigour. A fleet and army
were dispatched to the Baltic. An assault of three days gave the Danish
fleet into our hands. The confederacy was broken up by the British
batteries; and the armament returned, with twenty sail of the enemy's
line, as trophies of the best planned and boldest expedition of the war.

Napoleon raged; but it was at finding that England could show a
promptitude like his own, sanctioned by a better cause. Denmark complained
pathetically of the infringement of peace, before she had "completed her
preparations for war;" but every man of political understanding, even in
Denmark, rejoiced at her being disburdened of a fleet, whose subsistence
impoverished her revenues, and whose employment could only have involved
her in fatal hostilities with Britain. Russia was loudest in her
indignation, but a smile was mingled with her frown. Her statesmen were
secretly rejoiced to be relieved from all share in the fearful enterprise
of an encounter with the fleets of England, and her Emperor was not less
rejoiced to find, that she had still the sagacity and the courage which
could as little be baffled as subdued, and to which the powers of the
North themselves might look for refuge in the next struggle of diadems.

This was but the dawning of the day; the sun was soon to