Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry

It has been shown, in the Biographical Memoir prefixed to the first volume of this Collection, that, after presiding for three years at the Board of Control, Lord Castlereagh was appointed, during Mr. Pitt's second administration, Secretary of State for the War and Colonial Department. In that official situation, the Expedition to which this section relates was planned and directed by him. Nearly all the Drafts that it contains are in his handwriting; and I will venture to affirm, at the risk of being pronounced a partial judge, that, had no other records of him but these remained, they would afford abundant evidence that there never existed a more able, zealous, indefatigable Minister, or one better qualified in every

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respect for the high and responsible offices confided to him during his long career.

So early as November, 1804, Austria had entered into negociations with England, and indicated, by the equipment and movements of troops, a disposition for war. On the 14th of January, 1805, the King of Sweden concluded with Russia a secret treaty, which was never made public; and this was followed, on the 11th of April, by a treaty between Russia and Great Britain. Its object was the formation of a European military league, that should furnish 500,000 men, and compel France to evacuate the north of Germany, to release Holland and Switzerland from her control, and to restore Piedmont to the King of Sardinia. For every 100,000 men, England was to pay £1,150,000 to the allied powers. Lombardy was to revert to Austria, Belgium to Holland, and Genoa, Savoy, and Nice to be assigned to Sardinia. At the end of the war, a congress was to regulate the affairs of Europe. The accession of Austria was anticipated with certainty; Austrian troops assembled on the Inn; and the signature of the treaty, on the part of that power, on the 9th of August, completed what was called the Third Coalition.

Prussia, which, for ten years, had adhered to a system of neutrality, refused to listen to the overtures of these confederated powers. The new Emperor of France, nevertheless, not feeling sufficiently assured of her neutrality, at the moment when he was about to march against Austria, resolved to hold

out to her, as a bait, a prospect of the possession of Hanover. At this price, the Prussian cabinet was ready to form an alliance with France, and Duroc was sent to Berlin for the purpose of concluding it. Napoleon now retracted, and proposed merely a neutrality on condition of the transfer of Hanover as a deposit, without right of possession. Thus the relations between the two powers were left in a precarious state.

Meanwhile, the camp at Boulogne was broken up on the 28th of August; and the mighty army assembled there for the boasted invasion of England was marched off in five divisions for the Rhine, to meet the Austrians, who had crossed the Inn and entered the territories of the ally of France, the Elector of Bavaria. Two Russian armies were advancing to support the Austrians on the opening of the campaign, when the Emperor Alexander despatched General Buxhöwden to Berlin, to solicit a free passage for his troops through the Prussian territories; the King, offended at the demand, replied by a categorical negative, and Prussian troops broke up for the Vistula, to repel force by force.

While the other French corps were pursuing their march from the Rhine to the Danube, Bernadotte received orders to proceed with that which he commanded from the Mayn; and, having united with it the Bavarian force, 20,000 strong, to join the grand army at Nördlingen. In order that he might reach that point by the time required, Napoleon expressly directed him, by way of shortening the distance, to

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Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, Second ..., Volume 6