But the means which he adopted were just those that were destined to defeat this aim.  Where he sought to intimidate, he only aroused a more stubborn resistance:  where he should have allayed national fears, he redoubled them.  He did not understand our people:  he saw not that, behind our official sluggishness and muddling, there was a quenchless national vitality, which, if directed by a genius, could defy a world-wide combination.  If, instead of making secret compacts with the Czar and trampling on Prussia; if, instead of intriguing with the Sultan and the Shah, and thus reawakening our fears respecting Egypt and India, he had called a Congress and submitted all the present disputes to general discussion, there is reason to think that Great Britain would have received his overtures.  George III.’s Ministers had favoured the proposal of a Congress when put forward by Austria in the spring;[159] and they would doubtless have welcomed it from Napoleon after Friedland, had they not known of far-reaching plans which rendered peace more risky than open war.  This great genius had, in fact, one fatal defect; he had little faith except in outward compulsion; and his superabundant energy of menace against England blighted the hopes of peace which he undoubtedly cherished.

Long before Alexander’s offer of mediation was forwarded to London, our Ministers had taken a sudden and desperate resolution.  They determined to compel Denmark to join England and Sweden, and to hold the fleet at Copenhagen as a gauge of Danish fidelity.

That momentous resolve was formed on or just before July the 16th, in consequence of news that had arrived from Memel and Tilsit.  The exact purport of that news, and the manner of its acquisition, have been one of the puzzles of modern history.  But the following facts seem to furnish a solution.  Our Foreign Office Records show that our agent at Tilsit, Mr. Mackenzie, who was on confidential terms with General Bennigsen, left post haste for England immediately after the first imperial interview; and the news which he brought, together with reports of the threatening moves of the French on Holstein, clinched the determination of our Government to checkmate the Franco-Russian aims by bringing strong pressure to bear on Denmark.  To keep open the mouth of the Baltic was an urgent necessity, otherwise we should lose touch with the Anglo-Swedish forces campaigning against the French near Stralsund.[160] Furthermore, it should be noted that Denmark held the balance in naval affairs.  France and her allies now had fifty-nine sail of the line ready for sea:  the compact with the Czar would give her twenty-four more; and if Napoleon seized the eighteen Danish and nine Portuguese battleships, his fighting strength would be nearly equal to our own.[161] Canning therefore determined, on July 16th, to compel Denmark to side with us, or at least to observe a neutrality favourable to the British cause; and, to save her honour, he proposed to send an irresistible naval force.