This defeat did not really harm the Northern Powers; for, though they liked their own shipping to do all the oversea trading it could, they were much better off with the British, who _could_ take their goods to market, than with Napoleon, who could _not_. Besides, the British let them use their own shipping so long as they did not let Napoleon use it; while Napoleon had to stop it altogether, lest the British, with their stronger navy, should turn it to their advantage instead of his. In a word: it was better to use the sea under the British navy than to lose it under Napoleon's army. Both sides now needed rest. So the Peace of Amiens was signed in March 1802. With this peace ended Napoleon's last pretence that he was trying to save the peoples of the world from their wicked rulers. Some of them did need saving; and many of the French Revolutionists were generous souls, eager to spread their own kind of liberty all over Europe. But British liberty had been growing steadily for a good many hundreds of years, and the British people did not want a foreign sort thrust upon them, though many of them felt very kindly toward the French. So this, with the memory of former wars, had brought the two countries into strife once more. All might then have ended in a happy peace had not Napoleon set out to win the overlordship of the world, like Philip and Louis before him and the German Kaiser since. France, tired of revolutionary troubles and proud of the way her splendid army was being led to victory, let Napoleon's dreams of conquest mislead her for twelve years to come. Hence the new war that began in 1803 and ended on the field of Waterloo. Napoleon had used the peace to strengthen his navy for a last attempt to bring the British to their knees. Villeneuve, the admiral who had escaped from the Nile, was finally given command of the joint fleets of France and Spain in the south, while Napoleon himself commanded the great army of invasion at Boulogne, within thirty miles of England. "Let us," said Napoleon, "be masters of the Channel for six hours and we shall be the masters of the world." But he knew that the only way to reach London was to outwit Nelson. Napoleon's naval plans were wonderfully clever, like all his plans. But they were those of a landsman who failed to reckon with all the troubles of bringing the different squadrons of the French and Spanish fleets together in spite of the British blockade. Moreover, they were always changing, and not always for the better. Finally, toward the end of August, 1805, when he saw they were not going to work, he suddenly began a land campaign that ended with his stupendous victory over the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz early in December.