However, on the 8th of March, 1803, the King sent a message to the House of Commons, acquainting them that he had judged it expedient to adopt additional measures of precaution for the security of his dominions, and, only two days later, the whole of the militia of the United Kingdom were called out and embodied. The energy and spirit of the monarch obtained an enthusiastic support from all ranks of his people; and Bonaparte, not yet quite prepared, launched forth one of his manifestoes in the form of a despatch to his ambassador at the English court, in which he disclaimed having any prepared armament except one at Helvoetsluys; adding, further, that this, though destined solely for purposes of colonisation, and ready to sail, should, in consequence of the king’s message, at once be countermanded. Very soon afterwards, however, he despatched staff-officers to Holland, Cherbourg, St. Malo, Granville, and Brest, with orders to repair all the gun-boats of his former Boulogne flotilla, and to collect in every port all craft available for the transportation of troops. He further ordered the construction of a vast number of flat-bottomed boats to carry heavy guns, and made the most formidable preparations for his cherished scheme of invading England. He also made arrangements for the occupation of Hanover, Portugal, and the gulf of Otranto (Tarentum), so as to control the Mediterranean, with the view of having thus under his command the whole continent of Europe from Denmark to the Adriatic.[257] With a similar object he collected a vast force at Bayonne to march into the Peninsula, and a second army at Faenza of ten thousand men and eighty guns to fall upon Naples; while he, at the same time, relanded the troops at Helvoetsluys, which, he had declared, were destined for Louisiana, and despatched them to Flushing. All the ports of the north of France were fortified in the strongest manner, and when, a few weeks later, he formed the celebrated camp at Boulogne, war was declared on the 18th of May, 1803, after a peace of only a year and a half.[258] [Sidenote: Joy of the shipowners.] [Sidenote: Preparations in England for defence.] [Sidenote: Captures of French merchantmen.]