He certainly had grave cause for complaint.

We had done nothing to help the allies in the Polish campaign except to send a few cruisers and 60,000 muskets, which last did not reach the Swedish and Russian ports until the war was over.

True, we had gone out of our way to attack Constantinople at his request; but that attack had failed; and our attitude towards his Turkish policy was one of veiled suspicion, varied with moral lectures.[141] As for the loan of five millions sterling which the Czar had asked us to guarantee, we had put him off, our envoy finally reminding him that it had been of the first importance to help Austria to move.

Worst of all, our cruisers had seized some Russian merchantmen coming out of French ports, and despite protests from St.Petersburg the legality of that seizure was maintained.

Thus, in a war which concerned our very existence we had not rendered him a single practical service, and yet strained the principles of maritime law at the expense of Russian commerce.[142] Over against our policy of blundering delay there was that of Napoleon, prompt, keen, and ever victorious.