The British prime minister was succeeded, upon his death, by the statesman to whom, in life, he had waged the most uniform opposition. Charles Fox, now at the head of the British Government, had uniformly professed to believe it possible to effect a solid and lasting peace with France, and, in the ardour of debate, had repeatedly thrown on his great adversary the blame that such had not been accomplished. When he himself became possessed of the supreme power of administration, he was naturally disposed to realize his predictions, if Napoleon should be found disposed to admit a treaty upon any thing like equal terms. In a visit to Paris during the peace of Amiens, Mr. Fox had been received with great distinction by Napoleon. The private relations betwixt them were, therefore, of an amicable nature, and gave an opening for friendly intercourse. The time, too, appeared favourable for negotiation; for whatever advantages had been derived by France from her late triumphant campaign on the continent, were, so far as Britain was concerned, neutralized and outbalanced by the destruction of the combined fleets. All possibility of invasion--which appears before this event to have warmly engrossed the imagination of Napoleon--seemed at an end and for ever. The delusion which represented a united navy of fifty sail of the line triumphantly occupying the British Channel, and escorting an overpowering force to the shores of England, was dispelled by the cannon of 21st October. The gay dreams, which painted a victorious army marching to London, reforming the state of England by the destruction of her aristocracy, and reducing her to her natural condition, as Napoleon termed it, of such a dependency on France as the island of Oleron or of Corsica, were gone. After the battle of Trafalgar, all hopes were extinguished, that the fair provinces of England could, in any possible event, have been cut up into new fiefs of the French empire. It was no longer to be dreamed, that _Dotations_, as they were termed, might be formed upon the Royal Exchange for the payment of annuities by hundreds of thousands, and by millions, for rewarding the soldiers of the Great Nation. To work purses for the French officers, that they might be filled with British gold, had of late been a favourite amusement among the fair ladies of France; but it was now evident that they had laboured in vain. All these hopes and projects were swallowed up in the billows which entombed the wrecks of Trafalgar.