Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/363

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Fouché. "Europe requires an example." Murat, at the head of an army of fifty thousand Neapolitans, made a diversion in favour of Napoleon by marching to the Po; but they fled like a flock of sheep before the Austrians. Treason now lurked in the councils of Napoleon. Fouché was detected in a correspondence with Metternich. Napoleon threatened to hang him, but did not dare. As Carnot wisely said, the Republicans only permitted Napoleon to reign because they thought him more favourable to their views than the Bourbons; so Napoleon dissembled, under the necessity of keeping both in power. Each predominant power in succession had been fully conscious of the innate treachery of Fouché, but each was compelled to employ him.

Last campaign of Napoleon, and defeat at Waterloo. Leaving a council to direct affairs in Paris, Napoleon left that city to commence his last campaign, which ended in his final overthrow at Waterloo on the 18th of June, 1815.

Reflections. Every impartial reader of history can hardly fail to see that though the maritime decrees of Napoleon on the one hand, and the English Orders in Council on the other, had nothing to do with the origin of the lamentable wars which so long shook Europe to its base, they were the means, in a great measure, of their prolongation, and were the origin, in an essential manner, of the war between England and the United States of America. Attempts on the part of governments to deprive nations of what is necessary for their existence must ever produce the most serious consequences. Besides, it is alike vain and presumptuous for weak man to interpose obstacles in the way of securing to large masses of the people