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 you, had neglected the army and navy. Our admirals were old, our generals were at first very stupid. We sent some troops to help the Dutch, and they were very badly beaten. Holland became a daughter-republic of France, and Belgium became a French province. The poor Dutch did not gain much by the exchange, for the British Navy simply took away all their colonies, notably Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope, just as it was taking the French West Indian Islands. Nearer home our fleet did not do so well The French Republic did not have so good a navy as the old French Monarchy had had; but its sailors made up in gallantry what they lacked in skill and efficiency, and it was not until 1797 that we won a great naval battle in European waters. The Spaniards had been forced into the French alliance, and in that year Sir John Jervis and Captain Nelson (soon to be Lord Nelson) utterly defeated a big French and Spanish fleet at Cape St. Vincent on the Spanish Coast.

It was just at this time that the greatest soldier that ever lived came to lead the French—Napoleon Bonaparte. He appeared first as a victorious general in 1796; then as ‘First Consul’ (that is, President) of the French Republic, 1799; then in 1804 as ‘Emperor of the French’. By this time France had given up all idea of delivering peoples from ‘tyrants’, and simply meant to conquer all the world for her own benefit. Napoleon at once saw that this was impossible as long as Britain remained free and victorious at sea. To invade Britain, or to destroy in some other way the wealth and commerce of Britain, became his one desire. But to invade Britain while our fleet watched outside all French harbours, while it prevented French ships