THE CONCEPTION OF BRITISH STRATEGY, and its ultimate execution, required the involvement of personnel from across government, from cabinet ministers to the lowliest departmental clerk. At the head of government was the Cabinet, the executive branch comprised of members of the legislature, the House of Commons and House of Lords. It was here that government policy was determined. In 1808 it was a Cabinet decision to send a fleet to the Baltic. This marked a much broader movement to ratchet up the British war effort. In March 1807, following the collapse of the misleadingly named ‘Ministry of All the Talents’, the supporters of Pitt once again returned to power, headed by the duke of Portland, and brought fresh direction to the war against Napoleon. Very little of this was down to Portland himself; the historian Peter Dixon has noted that ‘he did not regard personal parliamentary activity as one of his obligations’. An increasingly ill man, Portland was an acceptable figurehead for a group of ambitious ministers who took on more responsibility, bringing increased organisation and drive to British war-planning. In particular, the Foreign Secretary, George Canning, and Lord Castlereagh at the War Office took control of the war against France. Both understood that Britain was fighting in a conflict for national survival. Canning embarked on an assertive foreign policy that saw Britain's place in the world in almost Hobbesian terms. He ordered the attack on Copenhagen in 1807 that pushed the boundaries between realpolitik and international law.