Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/285

 what then appeared to be impending annihilation. In 1794 and 1795 the conquest of Belgium and Holland had been achieved by the arms of France; and in the following year Napoleon began his victorious campaign in Italy, his first battle having been gained at Montenotte on the 11th of April, 1796.

But while the French were triumphant by land, the English soon became equally predominant on the ocean. Their fleets swept the seas of all their enemies. Through their vigilance, and the indomitable courage of their crews, the merchant vessels of England had never in any former war been so thoroughly protected. The premium of insurance which had, in 1782, been fifteen guineas per cent. on those of her ships engaged in the trade with India and China, did not exceed half that rate at any period between the spring of 1793 and the close of this terrible struggle. Nelson and his brave fellow-commanders were the only, but they were a complete, barrier to Napoleon's conquests. The fleets of France were either destroyed or shut up in her ports, and, to use Napoleon's own expression, he could not send a cockle boat to sea without the risk of its being captured. The loyalty and courage of the English nation had, amid all their sufferings, risen with the emergency. In Mr. Pitt the merchants, shipowners, and agriculturists had found a most able and truly loyal, though a cold, proud, disdainful champion; his extraordinary administrative talents and unswerving love of his country rendering him the idol of the mercantile and shipping classes. But though he had weathered the storm during seventeen years, he