But the means which he adopted were just those that were destined to defeat this aim. Where he sought to intimidate, he only aroused a more stubborn resistance: where he should have allayed national fears, he redoubled them. He did not understand our people: he saw not that, behind our official sluggishness and muddling, there was a quenchless national vitality, which, if directed by a genius, could defy a world-wide combination. If, instead of making secret compacts with the Czar and trampling on Prussia; if, instead of intriguing with the Sultan and the Shah, and thus reawakening our fears respecting Egypt and India, he had called a Congress and submitted all the present disputes to general discussion, there is reason to think that Great Britain would have received his overtures. George III.'s Ministers had favoured the proposal of a Congress when put forward by Austria in the spring;[159] and they would doubtless have welcomed it from Napoleon after Friedland, had they not known of far-reaching plans which rendered peace more risky than open war. This great genius had, in fact, one fatal defect; he had little faith except in outward compulsion; and his superabundant energy of menace against England blighted the hopes of peace which he undoubtedly cherished. Long before Alexander's offer of mediation was forwarded to London, our Ministers had taken a sudden and desperate resolution. They determined to compel Denmark to join England and Sweden, and to hold the fleet at Copenhagen as a gauge of Danish fidelity.