France and her allies now had fifty-nine sail of the line ready for sea: the compact with the Czar would give her twenty-four more; and if Napoleon seized the eighteen Danish and nine Portuguese battleships, his fighting strength would be nearly equal to our own.[161] Canning therefore determined, on July 16th, to compel Denmark to side with us, or at least to observe a neutrality favourable to the British cause; and, to save her honour, he proposed to send an irresistible naval force.
"Denmark's safety," he wrote on July 16th, "is to be found, under the present circumstances of the world, only in a balance of opposite dangers.

For it is not to be disguised that the influence which France has acquired from recent events over the North of Europe, might, unless balanced by the naval power of Great Britain, leave to Denmark no other option than that of compliance with the demands of Bonaparte."[162] _A balance of opposite dangers!_ In this phrase Canning summed up his policy towards Denmark.

Threatened by Napoleon on the land, she was to be threatened by us from the sea; and Canning hoped that these opposite forces would, at least, secure Danish neutrality, without which Sweden must succumb in her struggle against France.

That some compulsion would be needed had long been clear.

In fact, the use of compulsion had first been recommended by the Russian and Prussian Governments, which had gone so far as to include in the Treaty of Bartenstein a proposal of common action, along with England, Austria and Sweden, _to compel Denmark to side with the allies against Napoleon_.[163] To this resolve England still clung, despite the defection of the Czar.