12 
ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
had not shown sufficient enthusiasm in carrying it out, so he 
absorbed them and cut short several neighbouring principalities, 
By this last expansion the “ French Empire ” stretched from 
Lubeck to Rome, for the pope had already been evicted from 
the “ Eternal City ” in 1809. In addition, Bonaparte personally 
ruled the kingdom of Italy, and the Illyrian provinces on the 
Adriatic. Spain, the Rhine Confederation, Switzerland, the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and Naples were his vassals. Prussia 
was occupied by his garrisons since 1806. Austria, Russia, 
Denmark, and Sweden were his more or less willing allies, 
The English had no friends save in the weak kingdoms of 
Sicily, Sardinia, and Portugal, and among the still weaker 
Spanish insurgents. 
Meanwhile, even in this dark time, England continued to 
zarry out without following the policy that Pitt had left behind 
, him, "The conduct of affairs had passed into the 
Bold S hands of second-rate statesmen like Perceval and 
Lord Liverpool, but no hesitation was shown, 
though the National Debt continued to rise with appalling 
rapidity, and though Napoleon seemed more invincible than 
ever, "Che war in Spain was giving England a glimpse of 
success on land, though her armies had still to act upon the 
defensive, and to yield ground when the enemy came on in 
averwhelming numbers, Nation and ministers alike considered 
themselves irrevocably pledged to the war, and comforted 
themselves with the thought that Napoleon’s empire, built upon 
force and fraud, and maintaining itself by a cruel oppression of 
the vanquished, must ultimately fall before the simultaneous 
yprising of all the peoples of Europe. 
The year 1811 had seen the French in Spain checked 
in their endeavours to resume the invasion of 
Battles of n 
Fuentes Portugal. Massena’s last approach towards its 
FO and frontier was stopped dead at the battle of Fuentes 
" D’Oforo (May 5). Eleven days later, a bloody 
fight at Albuera turned back Marshal Soult, who had