(Aug. 28), forced Mack to surrender at Ulm on the very day before Trafalgar (Oct. 20), occupied Vienna (Nov. 13), pursued the Austrians and Russians into Moravia, and there gained the great victory of AUSTERLITZ on the anniversary of his coronation, a day which became marked in his calendar like the 3rd of September in Cromwell's (Dec. 2, 1805). The news was Pitt's death-blow. Roll up that map of Europe," he said; "it will not be wanted these ten years." His weak constitution, worn out with the cares of office now gave way, but he worked on to prepare for the opening of parliament up to the very day of its meeting (Jan. 22), and then expired at the age of forty-six (Jan. 23, 1806).* His great rival did not long survive him. Fox, called to the government as foreign secretary, under lord GRENVILLE, finding that Napoleon would only consent to peace on terms dishonourable to England, had resolved to prosecute the war with vigour, when he fell ill from an attack of dropsy. In July he was too unwell to transact business, and he died on Sept. 13, in his fifty-eighth year. On the 10th of October he was buried close to Pitt in Westminster Abbey.

The government of lord Grenville was called the Ministry of all the Talents. It comprised lord ERSKINE and lord HowICK (who, as earl GREY, carried the Reform Bill of 1832); and one of its subordinate offices was filled by lord HENRY PETTY, now the marquis of LANSDOWNE. They had the honour, which Pitt had sought in vain, of abolishing the African slave-trade, after an agitation of twenty years, conducted by GRANVILLE SHARP, THOMAS CLARKSON, and WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. In the conduct of the war they had little success. Their income-tax of 10 per cent. was very unpopular; and though the brilliant victory of sir John Stuart at MAIDA (July 4, 1806) raised the prestige of the British arms, the expeditions of sir John Duckworth to Constantinople and general Frazer to Egypt proved unsuccessful, and caused Turkey to declare war (1807). In March, 1807, a bill brought in by lord Howick to enable Roman Catholics to serve in the army gave George III. a pretext for dismissing the government. They were succeeded by the ministry of the duke of Portland, in which GEORGE CANNING was foreign secretary, lord CASTLEREAGH secretary for war and the colonies, SPENCER PERCEVAL chancellor of the exchequer, and lord ELDON lord chancellor. Viscount PALMERSTON, then 23 years old (b. 1784), was a junior lord of the Admiralty.

Meanwhile Napoleon was in the full tide of success. After Austerlitz he formed the lesser states of Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine. Mutual provocations led to war with Prussia, which

It is only this year (1862) that Pitt has found a worthy biographer in earl STANHOPE.

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was laid at his feet by the battle of JENA (Oct. 14, 1806). On the 25th he entered Berlin, whence he dated his first decree against all commercial intercourse with Great Britain. (The second was issued from Milan in 1809.) The victories of EYLAU and FRIEDLAND led to his interview with the emperor Alexander, with whom he formed a close alliance at TILSIT (July 7, 1807). To prevent the fleets of the northern powers from falling into the hands of Napoleon, a powerful force was sent to demand the surrender of the Danish navy, which was only given up after the bombardment of Copenhagen by Admiral Gambier (Sept. 7, 1807).

The

The same autumn Napoleon began his schemes of conquest in the Spanish peninsula. An army under Junot overran Portugal, and entered Lisbon on Nov. 30, the royal family fleeing to Brazil. Napoleon then decoyed the imbecile Charles IV. of Spain, and his worthless son Ferdinand, to Bayonne, and obtained from them a renunciation of the throne of Spain, which he conferred on his brother JOSEPH' BONAPARTE, who entered Madrid July 20, 1808. Spaniards had meanwhile risen and established a "Junta" at Seville, which proclaimed Ferdinand VII. king, and Joseph was driven out of Madrid in a fortnight. The British government sent an expedition to Portugal under sir ARTHUR WELLESLEY, who had earned great distinction in India, where he defeated the Mahrattas at ASSAYE, and had served in the expedition against Copenhagen. He defeated Junot at VIMIERA (Aug. 21, 1808); but was superseded by sir Harry Burrard and sir Hew Dalrymple, who, by the shameful Convention of Cintra, permitted Junot to evacuate Portugal (Aug. 30). Then came the advance of sir JOHN MOORE into the north of Spain to co-operate with the Spaniards, and his disastrous retreat to Corunna, where he fell in the battle which he fought and gained to secure the embarkation of his troops (Jan. 17, 1809). His burial at night, on the ramparts of Corunna, forms the subject of one of the most touching odes in our language.

Napoleon took part in this campaign; but before its end he was called away (Jan. 1) by danger on the side of Austria, which declared war (March, 1809). With his wonted rapidity he marched upon Vienna, and, after the doubtful battle of Aspern, gained a decisive victory at WAGRAM, and dictated terms of peace at Schönbrunn (Oct. 14). During this campaign he declared the States of the Church annexed to the French empire, and sent pope Pius VII. a prisoner, first to Grenoble and then to Fontainebleau. An expedition, which the British government sent to the Scheldt during Napoleon's advance into Austria, came to a disastrous end at the island of Walcheren (Nov. 1809). The discussions on this affair in the house led to the committal of sir FRANCIS BURDETT to the Tower,

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and to riots in his cause (April 1810). Disputes arising out of it also caused a duel between Canning and Castlereagh, who had long been at variance, and had both resigned. Spencer Perceval soon afterwards became prime minister, the marquis WELLESLEY foreign secretary, and lord LIVERPOOL secretary for war, with lord PALMERSTON as under secretary.

Napoleon was now master of Europe. Russia was his ally; Prussia and Austria almost his vassals; Germany at his feet. The boundaries of France itself reached from the mouth of the Scheldt to the frontiers of Naples, the throne of which kingdom was held by his brother-in-law, JOACHIM MURAT; while his brothers Joseph and Louis reigned in Spain and Holland. The latter country was soon afterwards added to France. To perpetuate his dynasty he divorced his loving and beloved wife JOSEPHINE, and married MARIA LOUISA, daughter of the emperor Francis II. (April 2, 1810). His hopes were crowned (March 20, 1811) by the birth of an heir, NAPOLEON, whom he named KING OF ROME, and who was afterwards called duke of Reichstadt. And here we mark the hand of Divine Providence. While Maria Louisa deserted Napoleon at his fall, and his son died childless at Vienna in 1832, the descendants of Josephine by her first husband, general Beauharnais, are allied to most of the royal families of Europe, and her grandson, CHARLES LOUIS BONAPARTE, the son of her daughter Hortense and Louis Bonaparte, reigns in France as NAPOLEON III.

Already, however, the "little cloud" had arisen in the West. The English government, and Canning in particular, had resolved not to abandon the peninsula after the retreat of sir John Moore. Sir ARTHUR WELLESLEY again landed at Lisbon (April 22, 1809), and, at the head of about 25,000 British and Portuguese, he crossed the Douro in face of Soult's army, whom he drove out of Oporto; and then, advancing into Spain, he defeated marshals Victor and Sebastiani at TALAVERA (July 28), and gained the title of viscount WELLINGTON. The utter failure of his Spanish allies, and the vast forces of the French, who had 200,000 men in the peninsula, compelled him to retire to Portugal; while the Spanish junta were shut up in Cadiz, and remained so till August 1812. Napoleon poured in fresh troops, and sent MASSENA to drive the English leopards into the sea." Wellington prepared the wonderful lines of TORRES VEDRAS, from the Tagus to the sea, in front of Lisbon, and retired behind them, after checking the pursuit of Massena at BUSACO (Oct. 1810). In the spring he advanced from those lines, before which Massena had worn out his men during the winter, to pursue a course of conquest, slow but sure, and with only one serious check (the retreat from Burgos), till he crossed the Pyrenees. The me

salient events of this great Peninsular War are the victories of Fuentes de Oñoro (May 3, 1811) and Albuera (won by marshal Beresford May 15); the taking of Ciudad Rodrigo (Jan. 19, 1812), which made Wellington a Spanish duke and an English earl; the horrible storming of Badajoz (April 6); his decisive victory over Marmont at SALAMANCA (July 2), followed by the occupation of Madrid; his advance to Burgos, and retreat thence to Ciudad Rodrigo for the winter; his final advance in the next spring, crowned by the decisive victory over king Joseph and marshal Jourdan at VITTORIA (June 21, 1813); the occupation of the passes of the Pyrenees (July); the taking of St. Sebastian (Aug. 31) and Pampluna (Oct. 31); the entrance on French soil, and forcing of the position of the Nivelle (Nov. 10), after which Soult, who had bravely defended the frontier, went into winter quarters at Bayonne.

In England, meanwhile, George III. finally succumbed to his mental malady in 1810, and the prince of Wales governed as REGENT during the nine last years of his father's reign (Jan. 1811-Jan. 1820). Mr. Perceval was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons by one Bellingham, whose petitions had been rejected (May 11, 1812); and lord LIVERPOOL became premier, with lord Castlereagh as foreign secretary, and Mr. VANSITTART (afterwards lord Bexley) as chancellor of the exchequer. Just at this time the United States declared war against Great Britain in consequence of various commercial and maritime disputes. An attack on Canada was repulsed, but our over-confidence on the sea led to the capture of several frigates by stronger American cruisers.

It was now that Napoleon undertook his gigantic expedition to chastise Russia for resistance to his Berlin and Milan decrees. He set in motion the vast forces of his empire, with those of Germany and Austria, over a base which stretched from the Baltic to the Alps; and, after gaining the battle of BORODINO, he reached Moscow, Sept. 15, 1812. But Alexander refused to treat; the winter set in early; and finally the conflagration of Moscow forced Napoleon to that awful retreat in which, pursued by winter and the Cossacks, he left nearly HALF A MILLION of men dead upon the route. He himself hurried from Smolensko to Paris to prepare for one last effort; and he fought the campaign of 1813 in Germany, against the combined armies of all Europe, till he lost the decisive BATTLE OF LEIPZIG (Oct. 16-18, 1813). Still he rejected even the offer of the frontier of the Rhine and the Alps; and after a campaign in France, which is reckoned among the most skilful that Napoleon ever made, the vast armies of the allied sovereigns put them in possession of Paris. Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau (April 11, 1814), and retired to Elba, retaining his imperial title,

while Louis XVIII., brother of Louis XVI., was proclaimed king. His first act was to sign the Peace of Paris (May 30), by which England, after all her conquests and expenses, gained little more than Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, and a few islands in the West Indies. Hanover was made a kingdom, with succession in the male line. During these events lord Wellington had renewed the campaign against Soult (Feb. 1814), who lost the battle of TOULOUSE on Easter Sunday (April 10). A convention was signed on the 18th; and, after the conclusion of the Peace of Paris, Wellington went to Madrid, and tried to reconcile the Spaniards to their restored king, Ferdinand VII. Thence he returned home to receive fresh honours. He was created DUKE OF WELLINGTON; and, in addition to former grants, 500,000l. were voted for the purchase of an estate, which is held by a tenure similar to Blenheim (See p. 265). In the rejoicings which followed, the duke divided the applauses of the people with the prince Regent and his guests, the emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia.

Many of the veterans of the Peninsula were sent to reinforce our armies in America, where two more attempts on Canada had failed (1813 and 1814); and our navy had regained its prestige. One most brilliant action was the capture of the frigate Chesapeake by captain BROKE of the Shannon in fifteen minutes, off Boston harbour (June 1, 1813). On Aug. 15, 1814, general Ross took Washington, and barbarously burnt the Capitol and other public buildings, besides the arsenal and dockyards. He was repulsed and killed in an attack on Baltimore, and a still more disastrous defeat was suffered at New Orleans in December. This unnatural war was concluded by the Peace of Ghent (Dec. 24, 1814).

The congress of European powers, which assembled at Vienna in January 1815, was startled by the news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and landed at Cannes in the south of France (March 1, 1815). They voted him a public enemy, and agreed to put him down with all their forces. In the mean time he advanced on Paris, welcomed by all the troops that were sent to take him, and entered the Tuileries on April 20, whence Louis XVIII. had fled to Lille the night before. His reception was cold, except from the soldiers, and he soon raised six armies to meet the allies, who were advancing on all sides with 1,000,000 of armed men. The post of honour was held in Belgium by the English and Prussians under Wellington and Blücher; and against them Napoleon hastened at the head of his veteran troops. He crossed the frontier on June 14th, by Charleroi, and engaged the allies on the 16th, with a view to separate them and advance to Brussels. Blücher was defeated at Ligny, and thrown off, as Napoleon supposed, to