that humane principle which dictated the proclamation to the inhabitants of Zealand, namely, to afford opportunity of repentance to the guilty government. On September 4, the bombardment of Copenhagen was renewed with such vigor, and produced such execution, as occasioned the commandant to offer a proposal for a truce for twenty-four hours, for the purpose of giving time for opening a negociation, which he was willing to conclude, on condition that no British troops should be admitted within the city of Copenhagen: the capitulation was not, however, signed until the 8th of September, when the British army took possession of the citadel, dock-yard, and batteries, dependent upon Copenhagen; and the whole of the Danish fleet, together with all the naval stores, were delivered up to the British Admiral, and the fleet was conveyed to England.

The bombardment of Copenhagen was dreadful in its effects, and nearly destroyed the whole of the city.

Much dissatisfaction was expressed by the members of the house of commons, in opposition to administration; it was warmly argued in the parliamentary session of 1808, that the conduct of Great Britain to Denmark, was barbarous in the extreme; and that a flagrant innovation had been made upon the rights of neutral nations. But it was ably argued in opposition to such a fallacious statement, that Denmark had been the architect of her own misfortunes, by her servile attachment to France, which had excited her to act diametrically opposite to every acknowledged principle of honor and integrity; and that Great Britain had exercised the utmost forbearance, by endeavoring to conciliate Denmark upon terms which, while they would have proved entirely satisfactory to Great Britain, would have enhanced the glory and prosperity of that misguided and ill-fated country. The false colouring given to the bombardment, could have no weight with persons of cool and deliberate judgment, or of real humanity; for, however the sufferings of individuals must justly be lamented, the necessary punishment thus inflicted, could alone be attributed to the blind prejudice, and the inhuman policy of a government which could thus sacrifice the lives of its subjects to a pertinacious adherence to the politics of a man who had enslaved, and was then endeavoring to enslave, all the nations on the continent of Europe.

The Crown Prince, in consequence of the destruction of his capital, and the loss of his fleet, was worked up to the utmost pitch of impotent rage and wild fury. It might naturally have been conjectured that the smoking ruins of Copenhagen might have operated a favorable change in his sentiments-a favorable change for the interests of his country; but when Mr. Jackson repaired to the isle of Funen, to make overtures for a negociation, the Prince would not suffer the British Ambassador to land: Mr. Merry was afterwards sent on a similar errand, but his mission also proved inefficient.

A very masterly composition was published by the British cabinet as a Declaration to all Europe, and the world, of the basis on which hostilities had been commenced with Denmark. This state paper pointed out in a very perspicuous manner, the measures which the Emperor of France was actively pursuing to establish a confederacy of the northern powers against England; this was a fact undeniable, as Bonaparte was at this time endeavoring to detach both Russia and Sweden from their connection with England; in which endeavors we shall find he was too successful: it was in the confidence which the Crown Prince of Denmark placed in the powerful arm of this confederacy, that he was stimulated to adopt the line of conduct which he pursued.

The Emperor of France was busily engaged in tampering with Russia. From the period of the peace of Tilsit, Russia had been vaccilating with respect to Great Britain. From the last years of the reign of the Empress Catherine II. there had been a strong party attached to France, and to withdraw Russia from her commercial relations with England.† Alexander, after the disastrous events which produced the treaty of Tilsit, had been influenced by the party just mentioned; and in a royal declaration he avowed that he was under the painful necessity of joining in a maritime confederacy against England, in consequence of her having harassed the trade of Russia. This was truly a flimsy pretext, but other complaints were shaped in a more plausible form. It was asserted that Great Britain had refused to accept of his mediation to effect peace with France: the seizure

+ The Albion, No. 16, December 6, 1807.

of the Danish fleet was also adroitly laid hold of as a subject which had given great offence to his Imperial Majesty; neither did the expedition of Sir Home Popham escape notice, that being numbered in the catalogue of offences which the government of Great Britain had been guilty of.

This declaration, which was penned with great asperity, annulled all preceding conventions between England and Russia; and the principles of the armed neutrality adopted by Catharine II. were rigidly to be acted upon.†

The resolute attachment of his Majesty the King of Sweden to Great Britain, was highly displeasing to Bonaparte, and he used every effort to disengage him from the cause of the allies; every stratagem and manœuvre was set on foot for this purpose. A Swedish officer of distinction had been taken prisoner by General Murat, and secret propositions were inade to him, to be communicated to his sovereign, promising an aggrandisement of territory to Gustavus, provided he would become an ally of France; but this offer was rejected by the King with disdain; but towards the close of the year 1807, Sweden appeared to be less zealously attached to the interests of Great Britain; Mr. Pierrepoint, the British minister at the court of Stockholm, arrived in London, in consequence of the existing unfriendly conduct of the Swedish government. But Gustavus was not accessary to those measures: there was a very powerful party in opposition to the King, headed by the Duke of Sudermania, the King's uncle, who openly condemned the part which Sweden had taken in the war; Gustavus was, therefore, constrained apparently, to coincide in measures which he was unable to prevent.

While the Emperor of France was thus strengthening his power in the North of Europe, he was projecting a grand revolution in the Peninsula. The imbecility of

+A weekly paper, published at this time, notorious for its hostility to the measures of administration, boldly made the following wild and extravagant assertion, the falsehood of which has since been fully demonstrated: "We will almost venture an absolute prediction, that Russia will for years remain, under the sole controul of France; that her commerce will take a new direction, and England be henceforwards ranked amongst the neutral enemies of her empire."Albion, December 6, 1807.

Charles IV. and the licentiousness of the prime favorite, Gauday, the Prince of the Peace, rendered the mission of Eugene Beauharnois successful, who was at this time the plenipotentiary from France, and was instructed to sow discord in the royal family, who were already in a state of alienation of affection one from the other. The French Ambassador proposed to the Prince of Asturias, heir apparent to the Spanish crown, a marriage with a relation of Napoleon. This prince, who inherited no greater talents than his father, was in a state of enmity with him, and was, therefore, more easily induced to listen to Beauharnois's proposition. The Prince soon became the dupe of Bonaparte's artifice; the latter set the dæmon of discord at work, and the dispute between the father and son, was carried to the greatest extremity. On November 1, 1807, the Prince of Asturias, the Duke del Infantado, the Viceroy of Pampeluna, and a great number of other persons, were arrested. Charles then convoked a grand council, at which he exposed the motives which had led him to execute this act of just severity. He declared, that the examination of some papers found at the Prince's, had furnished too clear a proof of his son's correspondence with his enemies. This declaration was proclaimed at Madrid, and sent into the provinces, where it produced the deepest sensation. The Spanish nation, enthusiastically attached to Ferdinand, suspected, and justly suspected, that the whole of this pretended conspiracy, was a diabolical machination, to cause the ruin of the heir apparent, in which the Prince of the Peace was principally concerned. The general burst of indignation which was heard from one extremity of the kingdom to the other, filled Gauday with terror; he perceived that he was become the object of general execration; he had gone too far to recede, and by the vile act he had committed, he plunged the royal family, and the whole country, into a state of the most woful calamity. To enhance the measure of his guilt, he forced Ferdinand, while in captivity, to sign a paper, as a confession of his alleged guilt; but the whole crime specified was, that of writing to Napoleon relative to the matrimonial offer made to him. The farce of the conspiracy was heightened by a solemn thanksgiving being appointed for the King's happy deliverance! A few days after, a royal edict was published at Madrid, in which it