* During the struggle, the English sent a powerful armament to
the coast of Dutch Zealand, which took Flushing, July, 1809. But
the earl of Chathcun, the conmiander of the land forces, wanted
energy, and the expedition returned home without making any per-



332 HISTORY OF KNGLAIH).
and the north of Italy, he had reduced Spain, Naples, Tus-
cany, Lucca, Switzerland, Westphalia, and the States on
the Rhine, to a condition of abject dependence : Prussia
was ruined, Austria subservient, and the emperor of Russia
his confederate. England alone defied him. Though her
expenditure was vast, and her national debt rapidly in-
creased to a frightful amount", her trade, manu&ctures,
agriculture, and colonial dominion, by their wonderful
growth, developed inexhaustible resources, which upheld
her in the struggle. Her navies swept the enemy's fleets
from the ocean ; Cayenne, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Bour-
bon, Mauritius, Amboyna, Batavia, and the other Dutch
settlements in the eastern seas, fell one after another
into her power ; and her old military glory, which seemed
to have been banished to India, was at length displayed
again in Europe \

Afler the failure of sir John Moore's expedition, Por-
tugal was a second time invaded by the French. Sir
Arthur Wellesley, however, returned from England, and
forced them to retire beyond the frontier into Spain, whence
he himself was in his turn obliged to retreat. While be
remained in Portugal, an attempt was made to drive him
into the sea ; but he took up so strong a position within



manent conquest. Numbers of men were destroyed by fever on tbe
unhealthy island of Walcheren.
* The debt, which at the end of the American war amounted to
about 250,000,000^., amounted in 1815 to nearly 850,000,000^.
