r been made known--that the
French intended to invade Holstein and force Denmark to close the
Sound to British commerce. The danger seemed imminent: the Danish
fleet contained no fewer than twenty ships of the line, eighteen
frigates, nine brigs, and a number of gunboats. Such a reinforcement
of the French navy would put it again on a war footing. The English
ministry, therefore, offered to defend Denmark, guarantee her
colonies, and give her every means of defense, naval, military,
pecuniary, if only she would surrender her fleet to England, to be
restored in the event of peace. The Danish regent was already
committed to France, and did not accept. Accordingly the English army
under Cathcart landed, and laid siege to Copenhagen, while the fleet
bombarded it for three days, until the government agreed to their
stipulations. This shameful deed of high-handed violence must be laid
at Canning's door. It was the first step in the humiliation of a fine
people, to their loss of Norway, and ultimately of Schleswig and
Holstein. Moreover, it was impolitic in the highest degree, making the
Czar a bitter enemy of England for four years. The wretched country,
in distraction, threw itself into the arms of Bernadotte. Christian
VII had long been an imbecile, and his son, Frederick VI, though
energetic and well-meaning, turned Denmark into another vassal state
of France by the treaty of Fontainebleau, signed October thirtieth,
1807.

[Footnote 14: See discussion of this question by J. H. Rose,
"A British Agent at Tilsit," in English Historical Review,
Oct., 1901.]

In none of their many sovereignties had the incapacity of the Bourbons
been more completely demonstrated than in Spain. With intermittent
flickerings, the light of that famous land had been steadily growing
dimmer ever since Louis XIV exultingly declared that the Pyrenees had
ceased to exist. Stripped of her colonial supremacy, shattered in
naval power, reduced to pay tribute to France, she looked silently on
while Napoleon trafficked with her lands, mourning that even the
memory of her former glories was fading out in foreign countries. The
proud people themselves had, however, never forgotten their past; with
each successive humiliation their irritation grew more extreme, and
soon after Trafalgar they made an effort to organize under the crown
prince against the scandalous regime of Godoy. Both parties sought
French support, and the quarrel