So long as England was without Continental allies its warfare was limited to the seizure of colonies and the blockade of ports: on the part of France nothing could be effected against the island Power except by actual invasion. There was, however, among the communities of Germany one which, in the arguments of a conqueror, might be treated as a dependency of England, and made to suffer for its connection with the British Crown. Hanover had hitherto by common agreement been dissociated from the wars in which its Elector engaged as King of England; even the personal presence of King George II. at the battle of Dettingen had been held no ground for violating its neutrality. Bonaparte, however, was untroubled by precedents in a case where he had so much to gain. Apart from its value as a possible object of exchange in the next treaty with England, Hanover would serve as a means of influencing Prussia: it was also worth so many millions in cash through the requisitions which might be imposed upon its inhabitants. The only scruple felt by Bonaparte in attacking Hanover arose from the possibility of a forcible resistance on the part of Prussia to the appearance of a French army in North Germany. Accordingly, before the invasion began, General Duroc was sent to Berlin to inform the King of the First Consul's intentions, and to soothe any irritation that might be felt at the Prussian Court by assurances of friendship and respect. [Prussia and Hanover.] It was a moment of the most critical importance to Prussia. Prussia was the recognised guardian of Northern Germany; every consideration of interest and of honour required that its Government should forbid the proposed occupation of Hanover--if necessary, at the risk of actual war. Hanover in the hands of France meant the extinction of German independence up to the frontiers of the Prussian State. If, as it was held at Berlin, the cause of Great Britain was an unjust one, and if the connection of Hanover with the British Crown was for the future to make that province a scapegoat for the offences of England, the wisest course for Prussia would have been to deliver Hanover at once from its French and from its English enemies by occupying it with its own forces. The Foreign Minister, Count Haugwitz, appears to have recommended this step, but his counsels were overruled. King Frederick William III., who had succeeded his father in 1797, was a conscientious but a timid and spiritless being. Public affairs were in the hands of his private advisers, of whom the most influential were the so-called cabinet-secretaries, Lombard and Beyme, men credulously anxious for the goodwill of France, and perversely blind to the native force and worth which still existed in the Prussian Monarchy. [102] Instead of declaring the entry of the French into Hanover to be absolutely incompatible with the safety of the other North German States, King Frederick William endeavoured to avert it by diplomacy. He tendered his