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 said, that Paul was the trunk of the
many-limbed tree, it was yet more true that Bonaparte's deft cajoling
of the Czar, and the inducements astutely suggested by him to Prussia,
were the vitalizing forces which animated the two principal parties in
the coalition, in whose wake the weaker states were dragged. Through
the former he hoped to effect a combination of the Baltic navies
against the British; through the latter he looked to exclude Great
Britain from her important commerce with the Continent, which was
carried on mainly by the ports of Prussia, or by those of North