It was a year of note for England. War was going on in the East and in the West, and success had attended the English arms in both. Europe was bristling with armed men, whom the genius and the dread of Napoleon had produced; and in England alone, besides a gigantic regular army, 325,000 volunteers had rallied to protect the soil against a not improbable invasion. The cost of the army that year was over fourteen millions, in addition to which over four millions were voted for the Ordnance; and no less than four and a half millions more for the support of the militia and volunteers fell upon the groaning taxpayers. Nearly everything in England was taxed, and this year saw the taxes increased. A man's pension, office, personal estate, and everything that could be called a luxury was heavily mulct; if a legacy were left him, it shrank wofully in the process of reaching him; his profession or trade was made but another excuse for picking his pocket; if he smoked, the tax-gatherer waited round the corner; if he took snuff, the same relentless visitor called upon him; and yet, after all, the revenue of the country fell far short of its expenditure. The horrified fund-holder saw Consols quoted at 58, and yet Parliament borrowing right and left to make the two ends meet. Twenty-four millions were borrowed by annuities, and twelve millions by Exchequer bills; and driven to his wits' end by want of funds, the Chancellor of the Exchequer started lotteries to raise the wind. A year of note in England. It was the year when Trafalgar was fought, and a country wept in the hour of victory for a life that could not be spared. A year when men were Titans; a fit year for a soldier to live; no unfit one in which he could die who had done to the very last his duty. In March, 1805, the old General passed to his rest. Perhaps, as he lay dying, his mind wandered to the Far West, where so important a part of his career had been passed; to the Hudson, bound then in the grip of winter; to the trees at West Point waving their naked arms in the wind, as if praying for summer; to New York spreading in peace as it never could have spread in war; to that great country, destined to be greater yet, but ah! never to be so pure as in those days of its infancy as a Republic, whose people were listening—even as he died—to the words addressed to them by their new President, words of soberness and peace, such as Washington himself would have loved. And so the old man went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIX. CONCLUSION OF THE WAR.