e deposit of the Danish fleet; "but if this offer is
rejected now, it cannot be repeated. The captured property, public and
private, must then belong to the captors: and the city, when taken,
must share the fate of conquered places." The Danes stoutly repelled
offers and threats alike: the English batteries thereupon bombarded
the city until the gallant defenders capitulated (September 7th). The
conditions hastily concluded by our commanders were that the British
forces should occupy the citadel and dockyard for six weeks, should
take possession of the ships and naval stores, and thereupon evacuate
Zealand.

These terms were scrupulously carried out; and at the close of six
weeks our forces sailed away with the Danish fleet, including fifteen
sail of the line, fifteen frigates, and thirty-one small vessels. This
end to the expedition was keenly regretted by Canning. In a lengthy
Memorandum he left it on record that he desired, not merely Denmark's
fleet, but her alliance. In his view nothing could save Europe but a
firm Anglo-Scandinavian league, which would keep open the Baltic and
set bounds to the designs of the two Emperors. Only by such an
alliance could Sweden be saved from Russia and France. Indeed,
foreseeing the danger to Sweden from a French army acting from Zealand
as a base, Canning proposed to Gustavus that he should occupy that
island, or, failing that, receive succour from a British force on his
own shore of the Sound. But both offers were declined. The final
efforts made to draw Denmark into our alliance were equally futile,
and she kept up hostilities against us for nearly seven years. Thus
Canning's scheme of alliance with the Scandinavian States failed.
Britain gained, it is true, a further safeguard against invasion; but
our statesman, while blaming the precipitate action of our commanders
in insisting solely upon the surrender of the fleet, declared that
that action, apart from an Anglo-Danish alliance, was "an act of great
injustice."[165]

And as such it has been generally regarded, that is, by those who did
not, and could not, know the real state of the case. In one respect
our action was unpardonable: it was not the last desperate effort of a
long period of struggle: it came after a time of selfish torpor fatal
alike to our reputation and the interests of our allies. After
protesting their inability to help them, Ministers belied their own
words by the energy with which they acted against a sm