XIV
The period just cited was marked by our interference in Spain, our attack on Copenhagen, and that expedition to the Scheldt, which hung during two years over the debates in Parliament, like one of the dull fogs of that river.
Our foreign policy, though not always fortunate, could no longer at least be accused of want of character and vigour. As to the intervention in Spain, though marked by the early calamity of Sir John Moore, it was still memorable for having directed the eye of our nation to the vulnerable point in that Colossus whom our consistency and perseverance finally brought to the ground.
The Danish enterprise was of a more doubtful character, and can only be judged of fairly by carrying our minds back to the moment at which it took place. That moment was most critical; every step we took was of importance. Before the armies of France, and the genius of her ruler, lay the vanquished legions of the north and south of Germany. From the House of Hapsburg the crown of Charlemagne was gone; while the throne of the Great Frederick was only yet preserved in the remote city of Königsberg. In vain Russia protracted an inauspicious struggle. The battle of Friedland dictated peace. There remained Sweden, altogether unequal to the conflict in which she had plunged: Denmark protected by an evasive neutrality, which it was for the interest of neither contending party to respect. On the frontiers of Holstein, incapable of defence, hung the armies of France. Zealand and Funen, indeed, were comparatively secure, but people do not willingly abandon the most fertile of their possessions, or defy an enemy because there are portions of their territory which will not sink before the first attack.
Ministers laid some stress on their private information, and it is said that Sir R. Wilson, returning, perhaps it may be said escaping, with extraordinary diligence from Russia after the Peace of Tilsit, brought undeniable intelligence as to the immediate intentions of our new allies. But private information was useless. We do not want to know what a conqueror intends to do, when we know what his character and interests imperatively direct him to do. It would have been absurd, indeed, not to foresee that Napoleon could not rest in neutral neighbourhood on the borders of a country, the possession of which, whether under the title of amity or conquest, was eminently essential to his darling continental system, since through Tonningen were passed into Germany our manufactures and colonial produce. Had this, indeed, been disputable before the famous decree of the 21st of November,115 that decree removed all doubts.
Denmark, then, had no escape from the mighty war raging around her, and had only to choose between the tyrant of the Continent or the mistress of the seas. If she declared against us, as it was likely she would do, her navy, joined to that of Russia, and, as it soon would be, to that of Sweden, formed a powerful force—not, indeed, for disputing the empire of the ocean; there we might safely have ventured to meet the world in arms; but for assisting in those various schemes of sudden and furtive invasion which each new continental conquest encouraged and facilitated—encompassed, as we became, on all sides by hostile shores. But if the neutrality of the Danes was impossible, if their fleet, should they become hostile to us, might add materially to our peril, was it wrong to make them enter frankly into our alliance, if that were possible, or to deprive them of their worst means of mischief, if they would not?
After all, what did we say to Denmark?—“You cannot any longer retain a doubtful position; you must be for us, or we must consider you against us. ‘If a friend, you may count on all the energy and resources of Great Britain.’” Denmark had offered to sell a large portion of her marine to Russia, and we offered to purchase it manned. It was required, she said, to defend Zealand; we offered to defend Zealand for her.
But our negotiation failed, and finally we seized, as belonging to a power which was certain to become an enemy, the ships with which she refused to aid us as an ally. A state must be in precisely similar circumstances before it can decide whether it ought to do precisely a similar thing.
Some blamed our conduct as unjust, whilst others praised it as bold. What perhaps may be said is, that if unjust at all, it was not bold enough. War once commenced, Zealand should have been held; the stores and supplies in the merchant docks not left unnoticed; the passage of the Sound kept possession of. In short, our assault on Copenhagen should have been part of a permanent system of warfare, and not suffered to appear a mere temporary act of aggression.
Still it showed in the Minister who planned and stood responsible for it, three qualities, by no means common: secrecy, foresight and decision.