knew that it was this or religious anarchy. But a spectacle even stranger was soon to be offered to the world. Whatever form the struggle between France and England for ascendancy had taken throughout the long centuries it had lasted, it was ever and always bitter and envenomed. The French Revolution had offered the English Tories an opportunity, as they believed, finally and literally to crush France, even to the extent which Lord Chatham had always declared necessary for enduring peace. The younger Pitt inherited his father's idea, and the conquering policy of the republic had enforced his position, so that since the beginning of the present struggle between the two countries the British nation had reposed unbounded confidence in him. Unfortunately, he used this popular feeling to retain power after his convictions had changed. But successful as the war had been, it seemed to many as if there were no limits to its duration, and to timid minds the payment of lavish subsidies to the successive coalitions, combined with the expensive mismanagement of the naval establishment, augured bankruptcy. Pitt fell from power on the question of Catholic emancipation in Ireland, a matter in which he disagreed with George III, the unnerved, feeble King; the Addington ministry which succeeded was popular because it was understood to be above all else a peace ministry. When, in 1799, Russia, furious at the perfidy of Austria and weary of the tyranny exercised by England over the seas, had instigated a renewal of the armed neutrality, and banished the French pretender, the delicate attentions and substantial offers of Bonaparte, already enumerated, completely won the heart of the Czar. Early in 1800 a confidential Russian agent appeared in Paris, and urged the First Consul to declare himself King. He also proposed to arrange terms for an alliance of the two rulers in order to destroy English power in India, according to plans already outlined by the Czar. An agreement was quickly reached, which early in 1801 resulted in a proposition by Paul for two expeditions: one Russian, by way of the Don and across the carry to the Volga, thence through the Ural Mountains to the Indus, and from the Indus to the Ganges; the other Franco-Russian, to proceed by the Danube, the Black Sea, the Don, and the Volga to Astrakhan and Persia, where it was to combine with the former. The plan for the latter was worked out in the minutest detail, and every item was carefully commentated by Bonaparte.