Napoleon did not content himself solely with preparations for the campaign in England. He sent Mortier to overrun Hanover, the hereditary territory of George III., seized the important commercial cities of Bremen and Hamburg, and closed the rivers Elbe and Weser against British commerce. In Italy the ports of Tarentum and Leghorn, with which British merchants did a considerable amount of trade, were also occupied. Not content with these drastic measures, Napoleon decreed that any ship which had so much as called at a British port was liable to be captured. With great good fortune the majority of the vessels from San Domingo eventually reached home ports, but several put in at the harbours of Coruña and Cadiz. Spain, unluckily for herself as it afterwards appeared, allowed supplies to be sent to the blockaded ships. Spain, indeed, helped France in other ways, including the payment of an annual subsidy. Portugal also agreed to disburse £640,000 a year.
Beloved though he was by the majority of the nation, Napoleon had enemies. Several attempts were made to take his life. In one of these, he narrowly escaped being blown to pieces by an infernal machine in the Rue St Nicaise, the plot being promoted by the Royalists of La Vendée. Napoleon showed his vindictive nature by seizing the opportunity to teach a lesson to the Jacobins, who had no hand whatever in the affair, and a hundred and thirty innocent persons were sentenced to transportation for life. Another Royalist conspiracy was that of Georges Cadoudal and Pichegru. These men tried to implicate Moreau, but without success. The famous Republican general, however, was arrested, with the ringleaders; Pichegru was found strangled in prison, Georges Cadoudal was guillotined, and Moreau was banished to America. The last was entirely innocent, but he had the misfortune to be Napoleon’s rival, and that was sufficient condemnation. He had won his spurs in the early days of the Revolution by placing himself at the head of a battalion of Breton volunteers, and he was popular with the army. An instance of his sterling integrity, one of many which redound to his credit, may be given. When the landed property of the aristocracy was sold as belonging to the nation, an estate owned by M. d’Orsay, adjoining that of Moreau, was sold to the Republican general at an absurdly low figure. Not only did the new owner inform his former neighbour of the transaction, but he insisted on paying him what he considered was a legitimate price.