As defenders of Germany, both Prussia and Austria had been found wanting. The latter Power seemed to have reaped in Italy the reward of its firmness in prolonging the war. Bonaparte ridiculed the men who, in the earlier spirit of the Revolution, desired to found a freer political system in Europe upon the ruins of Austria's power. "I have not drawn my support in Italy," he wrote to Talleyrand (Oct. 7), "from the love of the peoples for liberty and equality, or at least but a very feeble support. The real support of the army of Italy has been its own discipline, ... above all, our promptitude in repressing malcontents and punishing those who declared against us. This is history; what I say in my proclamations and speeches is a romance.... If we return to the foreign policy of 1793, we shall do so knowing that a different policy has brought us success, and that we have no longer the great masses of 1793 to enrol in our armies, nor the support of an enthusiasm which has its day and does not return." Austria might well, for the present, be left in some strength, and France was fortunate to have so dangerous an enemy off her hands. England required the whole forces of the Republic. "The present situation," wrote Bonaparte, after the Peace of Campo Formio, "offers us a good chance. We must set all our strength upon the sea; we must destroy England; and the Continent is at our feet." [Battles of St. Vincent, Feb. 14, 1797, and Camperdown, Oct. 6.] It had been the natural hope of the earlier Republicans that the Spanish and the Dutch navies, if they could be brought to the side of France, would make France superior to Great Britain as a maritime Power. The conquest of Holland had been planned by Carnot as the first step towards an invasion of England. For a while these plans seemed to be approaching their fulfilment, Holland was won; Spain first made peace, and then entered into alliance with the Directory (Aug. 1796). But each increase in the naval forces of the Republic only gave the admirals of Great Britain new material to destroy. The Spanish fleet was beaten by Jarvis off St. Vincent; even the mutiny of the British squadrons at Spithead and the Nore, in the spring and summer of 1797, caused no change in the naval situation in the North Sea. Duncan, who was blockading the Dutch fleet in the Texel when his own squadron joined the mutineers, continued the blockade with one ship beside his own, signalling all the while as if the whole fleet were at his back; until the misused seamen, who had lately turned their guns upon the Thames, returned to the admiral, and earned his forgiveness by destroying the Dutch at Camperdown as soon as they ventured out of shelter. [Bonaparte about to invade Egypt.]