After the battle of Friedland, Sweden remained alone faithful to her alliance with Britain ; Russia had even, before that event, given several symptoms of secession, particularly in the appointment of Count Romanzow as her minister for foreign affairs, a man notoriously hos tile to the English interests. Denmark affected a neu trality, which, in reality, she was not only unable, hut unwilling to maintain. The greatest fear of her cabinet was for her German territory. Thus the victories of Bonaparte brought the French near her : she had not courage to collect her troops in the face of that power ; but in 1805, when the coalition was formed against France, she openly threw what little influence she then possessed, into the scale of that country, and collected an army, which contemptible as it was, could only be meant to watch the motions of Prussia, while the French soldiers were fighting on the banks of the Danube. France, the tyrant of the continent, was her natural en emy ; but her weakness had made her willing to bend so entirely to the views of that power, that she had become willing to suffer from Britain, an enemy created by the influence of France, deeper injuries than France had yet inflicted. In the spirit of submission to France, she had solicited our government to be excused from re ceiving our packet boats at the ports of Holstein or Sles wig, and this was brought forward as a plan of amicable arrangement with us. Our government repelled the proposal, and the Danes forbore to press it, being yet unprepared to come to a rupture. But the bare propo sal sheaved a degradation of national independence, from which we had a right to conclude that the basest acqui e scences to France would yet arise, when she should be obliged to break with us. Such was the situation of the north of Europe, when, even before the signing of the peace of Tilsit, it was known that Bonaparte was likely to accomplish, as the first fruits of his conquests, the formation of a maritime confederacy against Britain. The result was, a determination, on the part of the Bri tish government, to send a powerful military and naval force, amounting to 20,000 soldiers, and 27 sail of the line, to strike a blow upon Copenhagen.
The command of the military was given to Lord Cath cart ; and Admiral Gambier commanded the fleet. To conduct the negotiation, his majesty's ministers selected Mr Jackson, who had for several years resided at the court of Berlin. Upon the ground of Bonaparte's design to shut the ports of Holstein against the British flag, and forcibly to employ the Danish navy against this country, Mr Jackson was instructed to repair to the rc silence of the Prince Royal of Denmark, and to call upon his royal highness for an unequivocal dceetration of the intentions of Denmark, and for an infallible 'Lenge of the execution of those intentions, if they were not hostile to Great Britain. This pledge was the delivery of the Danish fleet into the pos,ession of the British admiral, under the most solemn stipulation, that it should be re stored at the conclusion of the war between this country and France. Should this be refused, and should the British negotiator have in vain exhaused every argu ment and effort to obtain the prince royal's consent to it, as the foundation of a treaty of alliance and general co operation between the two cuuntries, he was directed to announce, that it would be enforced by the British arma ment assembled in the Sound. In presenting this alter native, every possible stipulation was to be advanced, by which the present and future interests of the crown of Denmark were to be fostered by the resources of the British empire. Permanent alliance ; guarantee, and even aggrandisement, of their actual possessions ; every thing was promised that the fleets, and armies, and the treasury of England could afford.
Mr Jackson left England on the 1st of August, and arrived on the 6th at Kiel. In case impediments should be thown in the way of his communication with the Bri tish mission at Copenhagen, or with the British comman ders, a period was fixed, beyond which the latter was not to wait, to hear from Mr Jackson, but to suppose that a constraint had been put upon his person, and to proceed in the execution of their instructions. On the day after his arrival, Mr Jackson announced the purport of his instructions to Count Bernstorff, and applied for an audience of the Prince Royal. The Danish minister
is said to have received the proposals with the warmest indignation. The prince remained calm and unaffected during a long interview with Mr Jackson, and rejected the proposals with a dignified but determined declara tion, that Denmark would adhere to the neutrality she had hitherto observed. Next day Mr Jackson was in formed, that the prince had set off for Copenhagen, but that any proposals which he might make in the name of the British court, should be forwarded to his royal high ness. The British minister chose rather to follow the prince to his capital, and arrived there on the 12th of August. In the mean time, from the prompt movements of the British squadron, no progress had been made in assembling an army in Zealand. A division of our fleet, under the immediate direction of Commodore Keats, had been detached to the Great Belt, with instructions to allow no military force to pass over from the continent. That officer had led his line of battle ships through an intricate and ill-known navigation, without the smallest loss, and stationed his vessels within telegraphic dis tance of each other. All connection was thus intercept ed between the island of Zealand and the adjacent isle of Funen, and the mainland of Holstein, Sleswig, and Jut land. A levy had been made in Copenhagen from amongst the populace ; but without the walls of that city and of Elsineur, there was not a battalion of regular troops. On reaching the Danish capital, Mr Jackson was in formed at the first interview with the minister, that the prince had returned to Sleswig. This conduct was thought to spew a studied disposition to avoid negotia tion, and the acknowledgment of the Danish minister, that he had no authority in the prince roval's absence to conclude any arrangement in the least compatible with Mr Jackson's instructions, determined the British envoy to take his leave. He repaired that same evening on board the advanced frigate of the British squadron, now at anchor within a few miles of Copenhagen. Next morning the British commanders were informed, that all hope of accommodation was at an end The army accordingly landed without opposition at the village of Vedbeck, on the morning of the 16th of August, and, after some ineffectual attempts of the ene my to annoy its left wing by the fire of their gun-boats, and to impede its progress by sallies, which were always repulsed with loss, it closely invested the town on the land side. The fleet corning to a nearer anchorage, formed an impenetrable blockade by sea. On the even ing of the 2d of September, the land-troops, and the bomb and mortar vessels, opened a tremendous fire upon the town, with such effect, that a general confla gration soon was visible. The fire was returned but fee bly from the ramparts of the town, and from the citadel and crown batteries. On the night of the third, the Bri tish fire was considerably slackened, either from appre hension that the ammunition would not suffice for the prosecution of the siege, or, what is more probable and charitable to believe, from hopes being entertained that the impression already made would produce proposals for capitulation. It was probably because the Danes adopted the first of these suppositions, that the second was not realized ; the besieged conceived some hope from the relaxation of our fire, which, however, was re sumed with so much vigour and effect, that on the night of the 4th, (September), a trumpeter appeared at the British out-posts, with a letter from the commandant of the town, proposing a truce for twenty-four hours, to negotiate a capitulation. The capitulation was not sign ed till three days after, when the British army took pos session of the citadel, dock-yards, and batteries, depen dent upon them. The British admiral immediately be gan rigging and fitting out the ships that filled the spa cious basons, and were there laid up in ordinary. These, at the expiration of the term limited by the capitulation, were, together with the stores, timber, and every other article of naval equipment found in the arsenals, convey ed to England, where, with the exception of one ship of the line, that was stranded or destroyed on the island of Huen, they all arrived safely in the end of October.