2. Trafalgar relieved us from a danger nearer home. When, after a year of uneasy peace, war broke out Napoleon's again in 1803, Napoleon gathered an army Plan for of 130,000 men at Boulogne, ready to Invasion. invade England. Hosts of flat-bottomed boats were prepared to carry them across, and the troops were so constantly drilled at embarking that the task was only an affair of minutes. "Let us", said Napoleon, "but be masters of the Straits for six hours, and we shall be masters of the world." But those six hours' mastery he was never to gain.

France was not without ships; indeed, could she only mass her own with those of her ally, Spain, she would have had a formidable fleet; but the ships lay blockaded in many separate harbours-Toulon, Rochefort, Brest, Ferrol, Cadiz. Napoleon formed an ingenious plan. His admiral, Villeneuve, was to dash out of Toulon the first time a storm drove off the British blockading fleet, and sail for the West Indies. Nelson would be sure to follow. Villeneuve, however, was not to fight him; he was to give him the slip, hasten back across the Atlantic, set free the imprisoned French ships at Brest, and thus, with a united fleet, hurry to Boulogne and give Napoleon the command of the Channel. The first part of the plan succeeded. Villeneuve avoided Nelson, and, leaving him in the West Indies, returned to Europe. But on his way he had to fight a British fleet under Calder, and though he was not seriously defeated, he turned aside and put into Cadiz, where he was at once blockaded. Napoleon's chance of invading England was gone.

Nelson took care that he never had another. On the 21st of October, 1805, he met the allied French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar. As the British

fleet drifted slowly down in two columns against the allied line, Nelson made that famous signal Trafalgar, that will always be remembered by all 1805. English-speaking races: "England expects that every man will do his duty"-and nobly every man did it. The enemy's fleet was destroyed, but the victory was won at the cost of Nelson's life. He was struck on the quarter-deck of his flagship, the Victory, by a musket-ball from the French ship, the Redoutable, and died soon after. But his work was done. Never again during the war was the British command of the sea in danger; never again were we threatened with the horrors of a foreign invasion.

Wellington.

3. While our sailors had been winning so much renown, our soldiers had done very little. They did not lack bravery, but they were badly led, or else sent to places where they could do no good. Their turn came when Wellington (Sir Arthur Wellesley, as he then was) went to command the British army in Portugal. He defeated one French marshal after another. He constructed Peninsular War, the lines of Torres Vedras, a fortified 1808-1813.

camp from which French armies far larger than his could not expel him. Step by step he drove the French through Spain towards their own frontier. He showed that British soldiers, when well led, were better than any soldiers in the world, and that even the French, so long victorious, could not resist the men who advanced to storm the steep and shot-swept breaches in the great fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo with unloaded muskets. Picton's order had been, "No powder. We'll do this thing with cold iron." It was done.

In the course of five campaigns Wellington cleared Spain, and in the spring of 1814 England was in turn invading France.

4. The war in Spain, which Napoleon called "the Spanish ulcer", to such an extent did it eat away his Napoleon's power, was not the only disaster he had met. In 1812 he had led half a million of

Russian

Campaign. soldiers-his Grand Army-into Russia. The Russians retired before him, and he reached Moscow. There, to his surprise, the Russians did not ask for peace. He was forced to retreat over the same country which his army had laid waste in his advance. His men could find neither food nor shelter. The Russians followed on his traces, and gave his men no rest. The Cossack horsemen cut off the stragglers. Then came on the winter, with snow and bitter frosts, more deadly than Russian cannon, sharper and more pitiless than Cossack lances. The wretched French froze to death round their very campfires. Not one in ten of the army escaped. Napoleon's veterans were gone; and after another year's fighting in Germany he was driven by combined Russian, Austrian, and Prussian forces to retreat into France, and at last had to give up his throne.

5. He was sent to Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean, but early in 1815 he escaped to France. The The "Hundred army joined him again, and it was Days". felt that such an enemy to the peace of Waterloo. Europe must be crushed, and this time for ever. England was nearest at hand, and Wellington was the man to do it. He was sent with an army into Belgium. Wellington had the aid of a Prussian army under Blücher. Napoleon's plan was to thrust his force between the British and the Prussians, and defeat each in turn. He began well by beating Blücher at Ligny, and advanced to attack Wellington. The two great generals had never met before. On the 18th of June, 1815, the armies were face to face at

Waterloo, the French superior in numbers, while Wellington had many Belgian troops, on whom he could not rely. But he had promised Blücher to stand fast at Waterloo, while Blücher had sworn to come there to help him, and both generals were men of their word. All day the British troops stood steady under the rush of cavalry and the storm of French shot and shell-"the thin red line" that could not be broken. Charge after charge was beaten off, and still the French swarmed to the attack. In the afternoon the thunder of the Prussian guns was heard coming up on the left. Wellington gave the word to his own troops to advance in their turn, and the French were overthrown. Napoleon was con

quered at last.

It has been said that "at Waterloo England fought for victory; at Trafalgar for existence". The fruits of these battles are what we now enjoy: a land secure from invasion; a supremacy at sea; great wealth drawn from a world-wide commerce; and a colonial empire which no other power can rival.

XXXII.—THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Perhaps the greatest feature in British history during the eighteenth century is one which is often passed over very lightly. We think Britain's Wealth. a great deal of Wolfe's conquest of Quebec, and of Clive's deeds in India. These, indeed, meant the expansion of our empire abroad. But we must not lose sight of the sources of our power at home. The most astonishing mark of our history in the eighteenth century is the way in which Britain