any conception I can form, the Country has received its death blow. When the preliminaries of the Treaty were debated in the Commons on 3 November 1801, Windham gave a speech that was, according to A. D. Harvey, "the sensation of the evening". He said Addington and Lord Hawkesbury "in a moment of rashness and weakness, have fatally put their hands to this treaty, have signed the death-warrant of their country. They have given it a blow, under which it may languish for a few years, but from which I do not conceive how it is possible for it ever to recover". According to The Times Windham sat on "the same bench from which Mr. Burke always spoke after separating from Mr. Fox" and an observer said he spoke "like the ghost of Burke". One contemporary said Windham possessed Burke's insanity without his inspiration. When Charles James Fox visited France during the Peace of Amiens he conversed with Napoleon Bonaparte (on 23 September 1802). Napoleon said he believed Windham's "talents were mediocre and that he was an unfeeling, unprincipled man". Fox immediately defended Windham but Napoleon countered: "It is easy for you who only know public debate. But for me, I detest him and that Pitt who together have attempted my life". Fox assured Napoleon that "Mr Pitt and Mr Windham, like every other Englishman, would shrink with horror from the idea of secret assassination". When Windham lost the Norwich election in June 1802, a seat for the pocket borough of St Mawes in Cornwall was found for him. In May 1804 he declined a place in Pitt's new cabinet on the ground that the exclusion of Fox prevented the formation of an administration strong enough to cope with the dangers which threatened the nation, and he offered a general opposition to the measures that Pitt proposed. William Hazlitt apparently had it on somewhat good authority that Pitt had hated Windham. Windham in turn did not attend Pitt's funeral at Westminster Abbey after his death in January 1806. Secretary of State for War and the Colonies: 1806–1807 On 5 February 1806 Windham received the seals of office to become Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in Lord Grenville's Ministry of All the Talents. Windham abolished the ballot for the militia to ensure that only volunteers manned the militia. He also wanted to solve the Army's recruiting shortage by