The English government, being satisfied that the naval force of Denmark was about to be employed for the purposes of Napoleon, determined to anticipate him, while it was yet time, and to send into the Baltic such a fleet as should at once convince the court of Copenhagen that resistance must be vain, and so bring about the surrender of the vessels of war (to be retained by England, not in property, but in pledge until the conclusion of a general peace), without any loss of life or compromise of honour. Twenty-seven sail of the line, carrying a considerable body of troops under the orders of Earl Cathcart, appeared before the capital of Denmark in the middle of August, and found the government wholly unprepared for defence. The high spirit of the Crown Prince, however, revolted against yielding to a demand which imperious necessity alone could have rendered justifiable on the part of England: nor, unfortunately, were these scruples overcome until the Danish troops had suffered severely in an action against the British, and the capital itself had been bombarded during three days, in which many public buildings, churches and libraries perished, and the private population sustained heavy loss both of life and property. The fleet being at length surrendered, the English withdrew with it in safety; and the rage of Napoleon--ill disguised in lofty philippics about the violations of the rights and privileges of independent nations--betrayed how completely he had calculated on the use of this marine, and how little he had anticipated a movement of such vigour from the cabinet of St. James's. The Emperor of Russia is said to have signified, through a confidential channel, that, though for the present he found himself compelled to temporise, he approved and admired the procedure of the English government. If this be true, however, his public and open conduct bore a very different appearance. The British ambassador was dismissed from St. Petersburg, and a general coalition of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Denmark, against the commerce of England being speedily afterwards formed, the decrees of Berlin--still further strengthened by other decrees, issued by Napoleon on the 7th December, 1806, at Milan--were in fact announced as part and parcel of the universal law of the continent. Alexander of Russia marched a large army into Finland, and took possession of that great Swedish province--the promised booty of Tilsit. His fleet in the Mediterranean gained a signal victory over the Turks, and terms of amity between the courts of St. Petersburg and Constantinople were at length arranged under the mediation or dictation of Napoleon. Everything seemed to point to a state of universal tranquillity or submission throughout the continent, and to a steady devotion of all the resources of the European monarchies to the service of the French Emperor and the destruction of his last and greatest enemy.