From this time a peace with France was no longer thought of; that idea gave place to the determination to engage in a fierce and implacable war against Napoleon, who had now reached the _apogée_ of his glory, and on this point the opinion of Lord Castlereagh was firm and unvarying. His great object was to find the leaven of war, on that continent now humbled under the sword of the Emperor; and, by means of secret springs, to arouse the governments and people, crushed beneath his gigantic power. The influence of France extended from Cadiz to Hamburg, from Antwerp to Trieste; Austria had made peace with her after the sad defeat at Austerlitz; and Prussia, after appearing for a moment as if roused to resistance, had again bowed beneath the yoke. Germany was subject to the Confederation of the Rhine; Switzerland to the predominant mediation of the French empire; Italy was in a state of vassalage under the Iron crown; at Tilsit a friendship had been formed between Russia and France, and the two emperors were about to meet again at Erfurt, to cement the alliance projected at Tilsit, and divide the world between them. England, therefore, stood _alone_ in the struggle now fiercely undertaken against Napoleon. Castlereagh, who held the same opinions that Mr. Pitt had done, resolutely rejected every attempt at peace with a power whose principle had hitherto been to grasp at every thing, and which appeared resolved it should continue so to be. The Duke of Portland had a degree of rashness, and something chivalrous, in his disposition, which led him to engage boldly in the struggle; and the new connexion between Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington gave him a sort of pre-eminence in the cabinet, which offended the vanity of Canning. Like all political speakers, the minister for foreign affairs aimed at power, and, because he possessed a happy facility in quoting some classical verses acquired at the University, he considered himself fitted to occupy a higher situation than Castlereagh, whose speech was slow and embarrassed. This jealousy increased after the brilliant expedition to Copenhagen, in which the minister of war had displayed very great ability, and the arrangements of which were so perfectly successful that the Danish fleet remained in the power of the English. The opposition in vain declared it was an iniquitous action, contrary to all the principles of the law of nations: but necessity has no law; and was it not absolutely necessary that Great Britain should prevent the coalition of the Danish squadron and the fleet of Antwerp? The lukewarm neutrality of Denmark was not a sufficient guarantee to England, and it was indispensable either to force that government to declare itself, or to destroy a fleet which lay too near the formidable arsenal of Napoleon. Mr. Canning was very jealous of his ministerial colleague; he had always considered himself to hold the first place since the death of Mr.