Austria having succumbed, the Court of Naples, which had been the first of the Allies to declare war, was left at the mercy of Bonaparte. Its cruelties and tyranny called for severe punishment; but the intercession of the Czar kept the Bourbons upon the throne, and Naples received peace upon no harder condition than the exclusion of English vessels from its ports. England was now left alone in its struggle with the French Republic. Nor was it any longer to be a struggle only against France and its dependencies. The rigour with which the English Government had used its superiority at sea, combined with the folly which it had shown in the Anglo-Russian attack upon Holland, raised against it a Maritime League under the leadership of a Power which England had offended as a neutral and exasperated as an ally. Since the pitiful Dutch campaign, the Czar had transferred to Great Britain the hatred which he had hitherto borne to France. The occasion was skilfully used by Bonaparte, to whom, as a soldier, the Czar felt less repugnance than to the Government of advocates and contractors which he had attacked in 1799. The First Consul restored without ransom several thousands of Russian prisoners, for whom the Austrians and the English had refused to give up Frenchmen in exchange, and followed up this advance by proposing that the guardianship of Malta, which was now blockaded by the English, should be given to the Czar. Paul had caused himself to be made Grand Master of the Maltese Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His vanity was touched by Bonaparte's proposal, and a friendly relation was established between the French and Russian Governments. England, on the other hand, refused to place Malta under Russian guardianship, either before or after its surrender. This completed the breach between the Courts of London and St. Petersburg. The Czar seized all the English vessels in his ports and imprisoned their crews (Sept. 9). A difference of long standing existed between England and the Northern Maritime Powers, which was capable at any moment of being made a cause of war. The rights exercised over neutral vessels by English ships in time of hostilities, though good in international law, were so oppressive that, at the time of the American rebellion, the Northern Powers had formed a league, known as the Armed Neutrality, for the purpose of resisting by force the interference of the English with neutral merchantmen upon the high seas. Since the outbreak of war with France, English vessels had again pushed the rights of belligerents to extremes. The Armed Neutrality of 1780 was accordingly revived under the auspices of the Czar. The League was signed on the 16th of December, 1800, by Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Some days later Prussia gave in its adhesion. [89] [Points at issue.]