Brune’s hands (August 20th); and the Swedes, unable even to hold Ruegen, were forced to give up that island also.  Sick in health and weary of a world that his chivalrous instincts scorned, Gustavus withdrew his forces into Sweden.  Even there he was menaced.  The hostilities which Denmark forthwith commenced against England and Sweden exposed his southern coasts; but he now chose to lean on the valour of his own subjects rather than on the broken reed of British assistance, and awaited the attacks of the Danes on the west and of the Russians on his province of Finland.

The news from Copenhagen also furnished the Czar with a good excuse for hostilities with England.  For such an event he had hitherto been by no means desirous.  On his return from Tilsit to St. Petersburg he found the nobility and merchants wholly opposed to a rupture with the Sea Power, the former disdaining to clasp the hand of the conqueror of Friedland, the latter foreseeing ruin from the adoption of the Continental System; and when Napoleon sent Savary on a special mission to the Czar’s Court, the Empress-Mother and nobles alike showed their abhorrence of “the executioner of the Duc d’Enghien.”  In vain were imperial favours lavished on this envoy.  He confessed to Napoleon that only the Czar and the new Foreign Minister, Romantzoff, were favourable to France; and it was soon obvious that their ardour for a partition of Turkey must disturb the warily balancing policy which Napoleon adopted as soon as the Czar’s friendship seemed assured.

The dissolution of this artificial alliance was a task far beyond the powers of British statesmanship.  To Alexander’s offer of mediation between France and England Canning replied that we desired first to know what were “the just and equitable terms on which France intended to negotiate,” and secondly what were the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit.  That there were such was obvious; for the published treaty made no mention of the Kings of Sardinia and of the two Sicilies, in whom Alexander had taken so deep an interest.  But the second request annoyed the Czar; and this feeling was intensified by our action at Copenhagen.  Yet, though he pronounced it an act of “unheard-of violence,” the Russian official notes to our Government were so far reassuring that Lord Castlereagh was able to write to Lord Cathcart (September 22nd):  “Russia does not show any disposition to resent or to complain of what we have done at Copenhagen....  The tone of the Russian cabinet has become much more conciliatory to us since they heard of your operations at Copenhagen."[166] It would seem, however, that this double-dealing was prompted by naval considerations.  The Czar desired to temporize until his Mediterranean squadron should gain a place of safety and his Baltic ports be encased in ice; but on 27th October (8th November, N.S.) he broke off all communications with us, and adopted the Continental System.