Just let us glance for one moment at the social position of England at that time. For the first three months of the year the quartern loaf was 1_s._ 3_d._; in April it fell to 10_d._: in June it rose to 11_d._; in September it fell to 8¼_d._; at which it remained all the year. There was a surplus of revenue over expenditure of over twenty-three millions, which must have gratified the Chancellor of the Exchequer; the exports exceeded those in 1795 by 1,781,297_l._, and the London Brewers brewed 142,700 more barrels of porter than the previous year; 3 per cent. Consols varied from 71 in January (the highest price) to 56-3/8 in December (nearly their lowest). CHAPTER VIII. NAPOLEON DESPOILS ITALY OF HER WORKS OF ART--THE SIEGE OF MANTUA--WÜRMSER’S SURRENDER--EARLIEST ENGLISH CARICATURE OF NAPOLEON--INVASION OF ENGLAND--LANDING IN PEMBROKESHIRE--NELSON’S RECEIPT TO MAKE AN OLLA PODRIDA--‘THE ARMY OF ENGLAND.’ Such a subject as the spoliation of Italian works of art was not likely to go a-begging among caricaturists, so George Cruikshank illustrated the poet Combe. [Illustration: SEIZING THE ITALIAN WORKS OF ART.] As Nap (for his extortions fam’d), Of livres twenty millions claim’d; Which sum, we also understand, Pope Pius paid upon demand; And sixteen million more, they say, Was bound in two months’ time to pay With these exactions not content, To further lengths our hero went; A hundred paintings, and the best, Were, we are told, his next request. At his desire, the precious heaps came, (It was indeed a very deep scheme), Loretta’s statues so pleased Boney, They instantly packed up _Madona_: These relics then, without delay, To Paris Boney sent away; And there they formed an exhibition As proof of Papal superstition. At the siege of Mantua, Würmser sent his aide-de-camp Klenau to Napoleon to treat for terms of peace. G. Cruikshank depicts the scene. Klenau is brought in blindfolded, and Bonaparte, surrounded by his guard, strikes a melodramatic attitude, worthy of a pirate captain at a transpontine theatre. [Illustration: NAPOLEON AND HIS GUARD.] The real facts are thus described by Horn. ‘Mantua was now without hope of relief. The hospitals were crowded, the provisions exhausted; but Würmser still held out. Napoleon informed him of the rout and dispersion of the Austrian army, and summoned him to surrender. The old soldier proudly replied that “he had provisions for a year;” but a few days afterwards he sent his aide-de-camp, Klenau, to the head-quarters of Serrurier to treat for a surrender.