ty,--a measure intended to support his
demand for the restitution of the island to him.

On the 16th of December a treaty was signed at St. Petersburg by
Russia and Sweden, to which Denmark and Prussia promptly adhered,
renewing the Armed Neutrality, for the support of their various
claims. The consenting states bound themselves to maintain their
demands by force, if necessary; but no declaration of war was issued.
Great Britain, in accepting the challenge, equally abstained from acts
which would constitute a state of war; but she armed at once to
shatter the coalition, before it attained coherence in aught but
words. From first to last, until the Armed Neutrality again dissolved,
though there was hard fighting, there was not formal war.

The relation of these occurrences to the life of Nelson will not be
fully understood, unless the general state of Europe be recalled, and
the master hand of Bonaparte be recognized, underlying and controlling
previous changes and present conditions. After the Battle of the Nile,
and up to a year before this, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain had
been united in arms against France; and, in addition to the undisputed
control of the sea by the British Navy, they were pressing in
overpowering numbers upon her eastern frontiers, from the North Sea to
the Mediterranean. Blunders of their own had arrested the full tide of
success, and the return of Bonaparte from Egypt reversed the current.
Russia withdrew in anger, and Austria, beaten upon field after field,
in Italy and Germany, by Bonaparte and Moreau, had finally consented
to peace after the disastrous defeat of Hohenlinden, on the 3d of
December, 1800. Great Britain was left without an ally; and Russia was
added to the list of her active enemies by the skilful political
manipulation of Bonaparte, who played upon the impulses and weaknesses
of the half-mad Czar, releasing with distinguished marks of respect
all Russian prisoners, and offering the vain gift of Malta, the French
garrison of which was even then clutched by the throat in the iron
grip of the British sea-power.

The renewal of the Armed Neutrality was thus, primarily, the work of
Bonaparte. He alone had the keenness to see all the possibilities in
favor of France that were to be found in the immense combination, and
he alone possessed the skill and the power to touch the various
chords, whose concert was necessary to its harmonious action. Although
it was true, as Nelson s