The First Consul, meanwhile, proceeded to turn the friendship of the Russian Emperor to solid account. It has never, in truth, been difficult to excite angry and jealous feelings, among the minor maritime powers, with regard to the naval sovereignty of England. The claim of the right of searching neutral ships, and her doctrine on the subject of blockades, had indeed been recognised in many treaties by Russia, and by every maritime government in Europe. Nevertheless, the old grudge remained; and Buonaparte now artfully employed every engine of diplomacy to awaken a spirit of hostility against England, first, in the well-prepared mind of the Czar, and then in the cabinets of Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden. The result was, in effect, a coalition of these powers against the mistress of the seas; and, at the opening of the nineteenth century, England had to contemplate the necessity of encountering single-handed the colossal military force of France, and the combined fleets of Europe. To deepen the shadows of her prospects at that great crisis of her history, the people suffered severely under a scarcity of food, in consequence of bad harvests; and the efforts which England made, under such an accumulation of adverse circumstances, must ever be treasured among the proudest of her national recollections. In January, 1801, the first imperial parliament of Great Britain and Ireland assembled; and, shortly afterwards, in consequence of a difference of opinion, touching the Roman Catholic Question, between George III. and Mr. Pitt, that great minister resigned his office, and a new cabinet was formed, with Mr. Addington (afterwards Viscount Sidmouth) at its head. These changes were a new source of embarrassment; yet the prosecution of the war was urged with undiminished vigour.