To understand the situation in the Baltic in April 1808 when Saumarez took up his command, it is necessary to be aware of the dramatic political, diplomatic and military events that took place during 1807. In March 1807, the Ministry of All the Talents fell, having achieved the passage of the Act for the Abolition of Slavery, but little else in its brief life. When Pitt had died in January 1806 there had been four obvious contenders for leadership of the Pittite Tories – Hawkesbury, Spencer Perceval, Castlereagh, and Canning, ‘all roughly the same age and with about the same qualifications and none of them aware of any good reason why he should defer to any of the others’.1 Instead the choice had fallen on the elderly Duke of Portland as a safe but uninspiring compromise. Canning became Foreign Secretary, where he quite clearly had an eye to making a reputation as a diplomat which he could add to the one he had already acquired for his skills as an orator. Together, these would lead him, he hoped, to succeed to the premiership when Portland became too frail to continue. Canning was then aged 37. Rory Muir suggests that: ‘Much of the history of the Portland government can be attributed to the tension between Canning's energy, impatience and perfectionism, and the more staid conservative qualities of his colleagues in the cabinet’. It was this energy and impatience that led to what was a questionable decision when seeking to eliminate the potential danger of the Danish fleet in July 1807.

The Third Coalition of European powers against Napoleon was on the point of final collapse. The battles of Ulm in October 1805 and Austerlitz two months later had eliminated Austria. Victories by Napoleon at Jena and Auerstadt in October 1806 had crushed Prussia and he had entered Berlin, forcing Frederick William III to retreat into East Prussia. Spain was a subservient French ally, having declared war on Britain in 1804, and, despite Trafalgar, her remaining fleet still remained a potential naval threat when added to that of France. Portugal was coming under pressure from Napoleon to close her ports to British ships and to seize British goods, leading ultimately in November 1807 to her invasion by Junot's army.