His articulation now became difficult; but he was distinctly heard to say, "Thank God, I have done my duty." These words he repeatedly pronounced; and they were the last words which he uttered. He expired at thirty minutes after four-three hours and a quarter after he had received his wound.

LVIII.

BOMBARDMENT OF COPENHAGEN.-FYFFE.

[As the war went on, after Trafalgar, it developed more and more into a gigantic duel between the two great rivals, England and Napoleon, and was conducted on both sides with an utter disregard of the rights of neutral nations. One of the best illustrations of the outrageous treatment to which neutrals were subjected was the attack of the English fleet on Copenhagen, the capital of a neutral power, in the summer of 1807. In that year Napoleon had entered into a treaty with Alexander of Russia, the object of which was practically to divide the Continent between them.]

SUCH was this vast and threatening scheme, conceived by the man whose whole career had been one consistent struggle for personal domination, accepted by the man who, among the rulers of the Continent, had hitherto shown the greatest power of acting for a European end, and of interesting himself in a cause not directly his own. In the imagination of Napoleon the national forces of the western continent had now ceased to exist. Austria excepted, there was no state upon the main-land whose army and navy were not prospectively in the hands of himself and his new ally. The commerce of Great Britain, already excluded from the greater part of Europe, was now to be shut out from all the rest; the armies which had hitherto fought under British subsidies for the independence of Europe, the navies which had preserved their existence by neutrality or by friendship with England, were soon to be thrown without distinction against that last foe. If, even at this moment, an English statesman who had learned the secret agreement of Tilsit might have

looked without fear to the future of his country, it was not from any imperfection in the structure of continental tyranny. The fleets of Denmark and Portugal might be of little real avail against English seamen; the homes of the English people might still be as secure from foreign invasion as when Nelson guarded the seas; but it was not from any vestige of political honor surviving in the Emperor Alexander. Where Alexander's action was really of decisive importance, in his mediation between France and Prussia, he threw himself without scruple on to the side of oppression. It lay within his power to gain terms of peace for Prussia as lenient as those which Austria had gained at Campo Formio and at Lunéville; he sacrificed Prussia, as he allied himself against the last upholders of national independence in Europe, in order that he might himself receive Finland and the Danubian Provinces.

Two days before the signature of the treaty of Tilsit the British troops, which had once been so anxiously expected by the czar, landed in the island of Rügen. The struggle in which they were intended to take their part was over. Swe den alone remained in arms, and even the Quixotic pugnacity of King Gustavus was unable to save Stralsund from a speedy capitulation. But the troops of Great Britain were not destined to return without striking a blow. While the negotiations between Napoleon and Alexander were still in progress the government of England received secret intelligence of their purport. It became known in London that the fleet of Denmark was to be seized by the two emperors, and forced to fight against Great Britain. The ministry acted with the promptitude that seldom failed the British government when it could effect its object by the fleet alone. It determined to anticipate Napoleon's violation of Danish neutrality, and to seize upon the navy which would otherwise be seized by France and Russia.

On the 28th of July a fleet, with 20,000 men on board, set sail from the British coast. The troops landed in Denmark

in the middle of August, and united with the corps which had already been dispatched to Rügen. The Danish government was summoned to place its navy in the hands of Great Britain, in order that it might remain as a deposit in some British port until the conclusion of peace. While demanding this sacrifice of Danish neutrality, England undertook to protect the Danish nation and colonies from the hostility of Napoleon, and to place at the disposal of the government every means of naval and military defense. Failing the surrender of the fleet, the English declared that they would bombard Copenhagen. The reply given to this summons was such as might be expected from a courageous nation exasperated against Great Britain by its harsh treatment of neutral ships of commerce, and inclined to submit to the despot of the Continent rather than to the tyrant of the seas. "More honor," the crown-prince is reported to have answered, "is to be expected from the pirates of Barbary than from the British government. Your allies, vainly expecting your succors for an entire year, have taught us what is the worth of English friendship." Negotiations proved fruitless, and, on the 2d of September, the English opened fire on Copenhagen. For three days and nights the city underwent a bombardment of cruel efficiency. Eighteen hundred houses were leveled, the town was set on fire in several places, and a large number of inhabitants lost their lives. At length the commander found himself compelled to capitulate. The fleet was handed over to Great Britain, with all the stores in the arsenal at Copenhagen. It was brought to England, no longer under the terms of a friendly neutrality, but as a prize of war.

The captors themselves were ashamed of their spoil. England received an armament which had been taken from a people who were not our enemies, and by an attack which was not war, with more misgiving than applause.* In Europe

* Yet the House of Commons approved of the action of the ministry by a vote of more than two to one.

the seemingly unprovoked assault upon a weak neutral state excited the utmost indignation. The British ministry, who were prevented from making public the evidence which they had received of the intention of the two emperors, were believed to have invented the story of the secret treaty. The Danish government denied that Napoleon had demanded their co-operation; Napoleon and Alexander themselves assumed the air of indignant astonishment. But the facts alleged by Canning and his colleagues were correct. The conspiracy of the two emperors was no fiction. The only question still remaining open relates to the engagements entered into by the Danish government itself. Napoleon, in his correspondence of this date, alludes to certain promises made to him by the court of Denmark, but he also complains that these promises had not been fulfilled; and the context of the letter renders it almost cer ain that nothing more was promised than that the ports of Denmark should be closed to English vessels. If the British cabinet possessed evidence of the determination of the Danish government to transfer its fleet to Napoleon without resistance, the attack upon Denmark, considered as virtually an act of war, was not unjust. If no such evidence existed, the conspiracy of the emperors against Danish neutrality was no sufficient ground for an action on the part of Great Britain which went so far beyond the mere frustration of their designs. The surrender of the Danish fleet demanded by England would have been an unqualified act of war on the part of Denmark against Napoleon; it was no mere guarantee for a continued neutrality. Nor had the British government the last excuse of an urgent and overwhelming necessity. Nineteen Danish men-of-war would not have turned the scale against England. The memory of Trafalgar might well have given a British ministry courage to meet its enemies by the ordinary methods of war. Had the forces of Denmark been far larger than they actually were, the peril of Great Britain was not so ex

treme as to excuse the wrong done to mankind by an example encouraging all future belligerents to anticipate one another in forcing neutrals to take part with themselves.

LIX.

BATTLE OF WATERLOO-CREASY.

[The failure of his attempt to subjugate Spain, which was made in the year following the humiliation of Denmark by England, marked the turning-point in Napoleon's career. Fortune, indeed, did not desert him in his brilliant campaign against Austria, in 1809; but his insane invasion of Russia, in 1812, and the obstinacy with which he rejected all overtures of peace during the campaigns of 1813 and 1814 led to his downfall in the latter year, in spite of the almost superhuman activity and energy he displayed. By the treaty of Paris (1814) the island of Elba was assigned to him as a place of residence; but in the spring of 1815, while the congress of Vienna was busy in re-arranging the map of Europe, he escaped from the island. France welcomed him, Europe combined against him, and he was finally overthrown by the English and Prussian armies on the field of Waterloo. The crisis of the battle is described below.]

BETWEEN seven and eight

o'clock the infantry of the Old Guard was formed into two columns, on the declivity near La Belle Alliance. Ney was placed at their head. Napoleon himself rode forward to a spot by which his veterans were to pass; and as they approached he raised his arm, and pointed to the position of the allies, as if to tell them that their path lay there.

DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

They answered with loud cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" and descended the hill from their own side into that “valley of