difficulty and danger with the same courage
as of old. The invasion seemed imminent when Buonaparte, who now assumed
the title of the Emperor Napoleon, appeared in the camp at Boulogne. A
slight experience however showed him the futility of his scheme for
crossing the Channel in open boats in the teeth of English men-of-war;
and he turned to fresh plans of securing its passage. "Let us be masters
of the Channel for six hours," he is reported to have said, "and we are
masters of the world." A skilfully-combined plan, by which the British
fleet would have been divided while the whole French navy was
concentrated in the Channel, was delayed by the death of the admiral
destined to execute it. But the alliance with Spain placed the Spanish
fleet at Napoleon's disposal, and in 1805 he planned its union with that
of France, the crushing of the squadron which blocked the ports of the
Channel before the English ships which were watching the Spanish
armament could come to its support, and a crossing of the vast armament
thus protected to the English shore.

[Sidenote: Trafalgar.]

Though three hundred thousand volunteers mustered in England to meet the
coming attack, such a force would have offered but small hindrance to
the veterans of the Grand Army, had they once crossed the Channel. But
Pitt had already found them work elsewhere. It was not merely the danger
of Britain, and the sense that without this counterpoise they would be
helpless before the new French Empire, that roused the alarm of the
Continental powers. They had been scared by Napoleon's course of
aggression since the settlement at Luneville, and his annexation of
Genoa brought their alarm to a head. Pitt's offer of subsidies removed
the last obstacle in the way of a league; and Russia, Austria, and
Sweden joined in an alliance to wrest Italy and the Low Countries from
the grasp of the French Emperor. Napoleon meanwhile swept the sea in
vain for a glimpse of the great armament whose assembly in the Channel
he had so skilfully planned. Admiral Villeneuve, uniting the Spanish
ships with his own squadron from Toulon, drew Nelson in pursuit to the
West Indies, and then suddenly returning to Cadiz, hastened to form a
junction with the French squadron at Brest and to crush the English
fleet in the Channel. But a headlong pursuit brought Nelson up with him
ere the manoeuvre was complete, and the two fleets met on the 21st of
October 1805 off Cape Trafalgar. "England" ran