the stupid King's refusal to honor his Minister's pledges of
equal rights to the Irish Catholics, was recalled by the
universal voice ot the nation to organize the resistance.
Napoleon had assembled immense armaments upon the Channel coast
of France for a descent on England, and had created a vast
flotilla to transport the force to Kent. Great Britain trembled
with excited apprehension. Three hundred thousand volunteers
offered their services to the government. But, as often in the
past, Britain's best defense was her wooden walls, and the
sagacity, seamanship, and valor of her sailors, who out-
manoeuvered the combined fleets of France and Spain, crushed
their power at Trafalgar (October, 1805), and secured the Channel
against the invader. Pitt's gold had called into existence a
third coalition (England, Russia. Austria, and Sweden), only to
see Napoleon hurl it to the ground on the field of Austerlitz
(December, 1805). England's isolation seemed as complete as the
Emperor's victory. Russia, Austria, and Prussia made humiliating
peace with the victor, who carved his conquests into new states
and kingdoms. Pitt, who, at the news of Austerlitz, had pointed
to the map of Europe with the words "Roll up that map, there will
be no use for it these ten years," survived the calamity scarcely
a month.

Unable to meet, as yet, the English troops in battle on the land
as he had met and defeated those of the Continent, and unequal to
England on the seas, Napoleon devised a more insidious plan of
campaign. Believing that a "nation of shop-keepers" might be
attacked through its trade, he issued from the Prussian capital,
in 1806, the famous Berlin Decree, which was the first note of
that "Continental System," which was intended to close the ports