it impossible to raise them into insurrection, he cut his way through
several French corps, which he defeated, to Elsfleth, where he found an
English vessel waiting to receive and to convey him to England, with the
laurels he had acquired.]

This focus spread its fires and gained new partizans every day; it
attacked the power of Napoleon in the opinion of all Germany, extended
itself into Italy, and threatened its complete overthrow. It was already
easy to see that, if circumstances became unfavourable to us, there
would be no want of men to take advantage of them. In 1809, even before
the disaster of Esslingen, the first who had ventured to raise the
standard of independence against Napoleon were Prussians. He sent them
to the galleys; so important did he feel it to smother that cry of
revolt, which seemed to echo that of the Spaniards, and might become
general.

Independently of all these causes of hatred, the position of Prussia,
between France and Russia, compelled Napoleon to remain her master; he
could not reign there but by force--he could not be strong there but by
her weakness.

He ruined the country, although he must have known well that poverty
creates audacity; that the hope of gain becomes the moving principle of
those who have nothing more to lose; and finally, that in leaving them
nothing but the sword, he in a manner obliged them to turn it against
himself. In consequence, on the approach of the year 1812, and of the
terrible struggle which it was to produce, Frederick, uneasy and tired
of his subservient position, was determined to extricate himself from
it, either by an alliance or by war. In March, 1811, he offered himself
to Napoleon as an auxiliary in the expedition which he was preparing. In