o her commerce, for there
she is most vulnerable. Our joint forces may wrest from her hands
the island of Malta. The Sicilian navy may convoy and protect the
French troops in the prosecution of such a plan, and the most happy
result may be augured to their united exertions."

Possibly the King and his spirited but whimsical consort, Queen
Charlotte, might have bent before the threats which accompanied this
alluring offer; but at the head of the Neapolitan administration was
an Englishman, General Acton, whose talents and force of will
commanded their respect and confidence. To the threats of the French
ambassador he answered that France was strong and Naples was weak;
force might overthrow the dynasty; but nothing would induce it to
violate its neutrality towards England. So unwonted a defiance aroused
Napoleon to a characteristic revenge. When his troops were quartered
on Southern Italy, and were draining the Neapolitan resources, the
Queen wrote appealing to his clemency on behalf of her much burdened
people. In reply he assured her of his desire to be agreeable to her:
but how could he look on Naples as a neutral State, when its chief
Minister was an Englishman? This was "the real reason that justified
all the measures taken towards Naples."[269] The brutality and
falseness of this reply had no other effect than to embitter Queen
Charlotte's hatred against the arbiter of the world's destinies,
before whom she and her consort refused to bow, even when, three years
later, they were forced to seek shelter behind the girdle of the
inviolate sea.

Hanover also fell into Napoleon's hands. Mortier with 25,000 French
troops speedily overran that land and compelled the Duke of Cambridge
to a capitulation. The occupation of the Electorate not only relieved
the French exchequer of the support of a considerable corps; it also
served to hold in check the Prussian Court, always preoccupied about
Hanover; and it barred the entrance of the Elbe and Weser to British
ships, an aim long cherished by Napoleon. To this we retorted by
blockading the mouths of those rivers, an act which must have been
expected by Napoleon, and which enabled him to declaim against British
maritime tyranny. In truth, the beginnings of the Continental System
were now clearly discernible. The shores of the Continent from the
south of Italy to the mouth of the Elbe were practically closed to
English ships, while by a decree of July 15t