The throne of the King of England, the opulence of her bishops, and the enormous estates of her nobles were perhaps dependent upon the issue of this conflict. The demolition of all exclusive privileges, and the establishment of perfect equality of rights among all classes of men in France, must have shaken the throne, the aristocracy, and the hierarchy of England, with earthquake power. The government of England was mainly in the hands of the king, the bishops, and the lords. Their all was at stake. In a temptation so sore, frail human nature must not be too severely censured. For nearly ten years, the princes of France had been wandering houseless fugitives over Europe. The nobles of France, ejected from their castles, with their estates confiscated, were beggars in all lands. Bishops who had been wrapped in ermine, and who had rolled in chariots of splendor, were glad to warm their shivering limbs by the fire of the peasant, and to satiate their hunger with his black bread. To king, and bishop, and noble, in England, this was a fearful warning. It seemed to be necessary for their salvation to prevent all friendly intercourse between England and France, to hold up the principles of the French Revolution to execration, and above all, to excite, if possible, the detestation of the people of England, against Napoleon, the child and the champion of popular rights. Napoleon was the great foe to be feared, for with his resplendent genius he was enthroning himself in the hearts of the _people_ of all lands. But no impartial man, in either hemisphere, can question that the _right_ was with Napoleon. It was not the duty of the thirty millions of France to ask permission of the fifteen millions of England to modify their government. The kings of Europe, led by England, had combined to force with the bayonet, upon France, a rejected and an execrated dynasty. The inexperienced Republic, distracted and impoverished by these terrific blows, was fast falling to ruin. The people invested Napoleon with almost dictatorial powers for their rescue. It was their only hope. Napoleon, though conscious of strength, in the name of bleeding humanity, pleaded for peace. His advances were met with contumely and scorn, and the trumpet notes of defiant hosts rang from the Thames to the Danube. The ports of France were blockaded by England's invincible fleet, demolishing the feeble navy of the Republic, and bombarding her cities. An army of three hundred thousand men pressed upon the frontiers of France, threatening a triumphant march to her capital, there to compel, by bayonet and bomb-shell, the French people to receive a Bourbon for their king. There was no alternative left to Napoleon but to defend his country. Most nobly he did it.