The only method of counteracting the consolidation of French power all over Germany, seemed to be that of creating another confederacy in the northern circles, capable of balancing the league of the Rhine.  The Elector of Saxony, however, perceived that Napoleon was not likely to acquiesce in the realisation of this scheme; and his Minister at Berlin continued to decline acceding to the Northern alliance.  The Prince of Hesse-Cassel took a similar view of the case; but acted with a degree of vacillation worthy of the late conduct of Prussia herself, refusing on the one hand to embrace the confederation proposed by the Cabinet of Berlin, and yet declining, on the other, to form part of the Rhenish league, to which effect Buonaparte had frequently and urgently invited this elector.  In the reluctance, however, of these princes, Prussia saw nothing but the determination of Napoleon to suppress, in the beginning, any such confederation of the Northern German States as had been contemplated; and irritation and jealousy from day to day increased.

The relations of France and Prussia continued in this dubious state, until the Cabinet of Berlin learned some particulars of a negotiation between Napoleon and the English Government, which took place in the summer of 1806.

Mr. Pitt, who despaired of opposing Buonaparte on the continent after Marengo, did not long survive the disastrous intelligence of Austerlitz.  Worn out and broken by the endless anxieties of his situation, not even the glorious tidings of Trafalgar could revive the sinking spirit of this great minister.  He died on the 23rd of January, 1806, and was succeeded in the government by Mr. Fox, the same statesman who had, throughout every variety of fortune, arraigned his conduct of the war as imbecile and absurd, and who all along professed his belief that in the original quarrel between Great Britain and revolutionised France, the blame lay with his own country, and above all with Mr. Pitt.

The personal intercourse which took place between Fox and Napoleon, during the peace of Amiens, has already been alluded to.  It was calculated to make all men regard the chances of a solid peace between France and England as increased by the event which transferred the reins of government, in the latter country, into the hands of the illustrious opponent of Mr. Pitt.  But the peculiar feelings of English politicians have seldom been understood by foreigners—­never more widely misunderstood than by Buonaparte.  When Fox visited him, as First Consul, at the Tuileries, he complained that the English Government countenanced the assassins who were plotting against his life.  Mr. Fox, forgetting all his party prejudice when the honour of his country was assailed, answered in terms such as Napoleon’s own military bluntness could not have surpassed—­“Clear your head of that nonsense.”  And now, in like manner, Mr. Fox, once placed in the responsible management of his country’s interests, was found, not a