Meanwhile, in the north, General Lake stormed Aligarh, and drove Scindiah's troops back to Delhi. Disgusted at the incapacity and perfidy that surrounded him, Perron threw up his command; and another conflict near Delhi yielded that ancient seat of Empire to our trading Company. In three months the results of the toil of Scindiah, the restless ambition of Holkar, the training of European officers, and the secret intrigues of Napoleon, were all swept to the winds. Wellesley now annexed the land around Delhi and Agra, besides certain coast districts which cut off the Mahrattas from the sea, also stipulating for the complete exclusion of French agents from their States. Perron was allowed to return to France; and the brusque reception accorded him from Bonaparte may serve to measure the height of the First Consul's hopes, the depth of his disappointment, and his resentment against a man who was daunted by a single disaster.[212]

Meanwhile it was the lot of Decaen to witness, in inglorious inactivity, the overthrow of all his hopes. Indeed, he barely escaped the capture which Wellesley designed for his whole force, as soon as he should hear of the outbreak of war in Europe; but by secret and skilful measures all the French ships, except one transport, escaped to their appointed rendezvous, the Ile de France. Enraged by these events, Decaen and Linois determined to inflict every possible injury on their foes. The latter soon swept from the eastern seas British merchantmen valued at a million sterling, while the general ceased not to send emissaries into India to encourage the millions of natives to shake off the yoke of "a few thousand English."

These officers effected little, and some of them were handed over to the English authorities by the now obsequious potentates. Decaen also endeavoured to carry out the First Consul's design of occupying strategic points in the Indian Ocean. In the autumn of 1803 he sent a fine cruiser to the Imaum of Muscat, to induce him to cede a station for commercial purposes at that port. But Wellesley, forewarned by our agent at Bagdad, had made a firm alliance with the Imaum, who accordingly refused the request of the French captain. The incident, however, supplies another link in the chain of evidence as to the completeness of Napoleon's oriental policy, and yields another proof of the vigour of our great proconsul at Calcutta, by whose foresight our Indian Empire was preserved and strengthened.[213]

Bonaparte's enterprises were by no means limited to well-known lands. The unknown continent of the Southern Seas appealed to his imagination, which pictured its solitudes transformed by French energy into a second fatherland. Australia, or New Holland, as it was then called, had long attracted the notice of French explorers, but the English penal settlements at and near Sydney formed the only European establishment on the great southern island at the dawn of the nineteenth century.

Bonaparte early turned his eyes towards that land. On his voyage to Egypt he took with him the volumes in which Captain Cook described his famous discoveries; and no sooner was he firmly installed as First Consul than he planned with the Institute of France a great French expedition to New Holland. The full text of the plan has never been published: probably it was suppressed or destroyed; and the sole public record relating to it is contained in the official account of the expedition published at the French Imperial Press in 1807.[214] According to this description, the aim was solely geographical and scientific. The First Consul and the Institute of France desired that the ships should proceed to Van Diemen's Land, explore its rivers, and then complete the survey of the south coast of the continent, so as to see whether behind the islands of the Nuyts Archipelago there might be a channel connecting with the Gulf of Carpentaria, and so cutting New Holland in half. They were then to sail west to "Terre Leeuwin," ascend the Swan River, complete the exploration of Shark's Bay and the north-western coasts, and winter in Timor or Amboyne. Finally, they were to coast along New Guinea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, and return to France in 1803.

In September, 1800, the ships, having on board twenty-three scientific men, set sail from Havre under the command of Commodore Baudin. They received no molestation from English cruisers, it being a rule of honour to give Admiralty permits to all members of genuinely scientific and geographical parties. Nevertheless, even on its scientific side, this splendidly-equipped expedition produced no results comparable with those achieved by Lieutenant Bass or by Captain Flinders. The French ships touched at the Ile de France, and sailed thence for Van Diemen's Land. After spending a long time in the exploration of its coasts and in collecting scientific information, they made for Sydney in order to repair their ships and gain relief for their many invalids. Thence, after incidents which will be noticed presently, they set sail in November, 1802, for Bass Strait and the coast beyond. They seem to have overlooked the entrance to Port Phillip—a discovery effected by Murray in 1801, but not made public till three years later—and failed to notice the outlet of the chief Australian river, which is obscured by a shallow lake.

There they were met by Captain Flinders, who, on H.M.S. "Investigator," had been exploring the coast between Cape Leeuwin and the great gulfs which he named after Lords St. Vincent and Spencer. Flinders was returning towards Sydney, when, in the long desolate curve of the bay which he named from the incident Encounter Bay, he saw the French ships. After brief and guarded intercourse the explorers separated, the French proceeding to survey the gulfs whence the "Investigator" had just sailed; while Flinders, after a short stay at Sydney and the exploration of the northern coast and Torres Strait, set out for Europe.[215]

Apart from the compilation of the most accurate map of Australia which had then appeared, and the naming of several features on its coasts—e.g., Capes Berrouilli and Gantheaume, the Bays of Rivoli and of Lacepede, and the Freycinet Peninsula, which are still retained—the French expedition achieved no geographical results of the first importance.

Its political aims now claim attention. A glance at the accompanying map will show that, under the guise of being an emissary of civilization, Commodore Baudin was prepared to claim half the continent for France. Indeed, his final inquiry at Sydney about the extent of the British claims on the Pacific coast was so significant as to elicit from Governor King the reply that the whole of Van Diemen's Land and of the coast from Cape Howe on the south of the mainland to Cape York on the north was British territory. King also notified the suspicious action of the French Commander to the Home Government; and when the French sailed away to explore the coast of southern and central Australia he sent a ship to watch their proceedings. When, therefore, Commodore Baudin effected a landing on King Island, the Union Jack was speedily hoisted and saluted by the blue-jackets of the British vessel; for it was rumoured that French officers had said that King Island would afford a good station for the command of Bass Strait and the seizure of British ships. This was probably mere gossip. Baudin in his interviews with Governor King at Sydney disclaimed any intention of seizing Van Diemen's Land; but he afterwards stated that he did not know what were the plans of the French Government with regard to that island.[216]

Long before this dark saying could be known at Westminster, the suspicions of our Government had been aroused; and, on February 13th, 1803, Lord Hobart penned a despatch to Governor King bidding him to take every precaution against French annexations, and to form settlements in Van Diemen's Land and at Port Phillip. The station of Risden was accordingly planted on the estuary of the Derwent, a little above the present town of Hobart; while on the shores of Port Phillip another expedition sent out from the mother country sought, but for the present in vain, to find a suitable site. The French cruise therefore exerted on the fortunes of the English and French peoples an influence such as has frequently accrued from their colonial rivalry: it spurred on the island Power to more vigorous efforts than she would otherwise have put forth, and led to the discomfiture of her continental rival. The plans of Napoleon for the acquisition of Van Diemen's Land and the middle of Australia had an effect like that which the ambition of Montcalm, Dupleix, Lally, and Perron has exerted on the ultimate destiny of many a vast and fertile territory.



Still, in spite of the destruction of his fleet at Trafalgar, Napoleon held to his Australian plans. No fact, perhaps, is more suggestive of the dogged tenacity of his will than his order to Peron and Freycinet to publish through the Imperial Press at Paris an exhaustive account of their Australian voyage, accompanied by maps which claimed half of that continent for the tricolour flag. It appeared in 1807, the year of Tilsit and of the plans for the partition of Portugal and her colonies between France and Spain. The hour seemed at last to have struck for the assertion of French supremacy in other continents, now that the Franco-Russian alliance had durably consolidated it in Europe. And who shall say that, but for the Spanish Rising and the genius of Wellington, a vast colonial empire might not have been won for France, had Napoleon been free to divert his energies away from this "old Europe" of which he professed to be utterly weary?

His whole attitude towards European and colonial politics revealed a statesmanlike appreciation of the forces that were to mould the fortunes of nations in the nineteenth century. He saw that no rearrangement of the European peoples could be permanent. They were too stubborn, too solidly nationalized, to bear the yoke of the new Charlemagne. "I am come too late," he once exclaimed to Marmont; "men are too enlightened, there is nothing great left to be done." These words reveal his sense of the artificiality of his European conquests. His imperial instincts could find complete satisfaction only among the docile fate-ridden peoples of Asia, where he might unite the functions of an Alexander and a Mahomet: or, failing that, he would carve out an empire from the vast southern lands, organizing them by his unresting powers and ruling them as oekist and as despot. This task would possess a permanence such as man's conquests over Nature may always enjoy, and his triumphs over his fellows seldom or never. The political reconstruction of Europe was at best one of an infinite number of such changes, always progressing and never completed; while the peopling of new lands and the founding of States belonged to that highest plane of political achievement wherein schemes of social beneficence and the dictates of a boundless ambition could maintain an eager and unending rivalry. While a strictly European policy could effect little more than a raking over of long-cultivated parterres, the foundation of a new colonial empire would be the turning up of the virgin soil of the limitless prairie.

If we inquire by the light of history why these grand designs failed, the answer must be that they were too vast fitly to consort with an ambitious European policy. His ablest adviser noted this fundamental defect as rapidly developing after the Peace of Amiens, when "he began to sow the seeds of new wars which, after overwhelming Europe and France, were to lead him to his ruin." This criticism of Talleyrand on a man far greater than himself, but who lacked that saving grace of moderation in which the diplomatist excelled, is consonant with all the teachings of history. The fortunes of the colonial empires of Athens and Carthage in the ancient world, of the Italian maritime republics, of Portugal and Spain, and, above all, the failure of the projects of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. serve to prove that only as the motherland enjoys a sufficiency of peace at home and on her borders can she send forth in ceaseless flow those supplies of men and treasure which are the very life-blood of a new organism. That beneficent stream might have poured into Napoleon's Colonial Empire, had not other claims diverted it into the barren channels of European warfare. The same result followed as at the time of the Seven Years' War, when the double effort to wage great campaigns in Germany and across the oceans sapped the strength of France, and the additions won by Dupleix and Montcalm fell away from her flaccid frame.

Did Napoleon foresee a similar result? His conduct in regard to Louisiana and in reference to Decaen's expedition proves that he did, but only when it was too late. As soon as he saw that his policy was about to provoke another war with Britain long before he was ready for it, he decided to forego his oceanic schemes and to concentrate his forces on his European frontiers. The decision was dictated by a true sense of imperial strategy. But what shall we say of his sense of imperial diplomacy? The foregoing narrative and the events to be described in the next chapters prove that his mistake lay in that overweening belief in his own powers and in the pliability of his enemies which was the cause of his grandest triumphs and of his unexampled overthrow.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVI

NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS

War, said St. Augustine, is but the transition from a lower to a higher state of peace. The saying is certainly true for those wars that are waged in defence of some great principle or righteous cause. It may perhaps be applied with justice to the early struggles of the French revolutionists to secure their democratic Government against the threatened intervention of monarchical States. But the danger of vindicating the cause of freedom by armed force has never been more glaringly shown than in the struggles of that volcanic age. When democracy had gained a sure foothold in the European system, the war was still pushed on by the triumphant republicans at the expense of neighbouring States, so that, even before the advent of Bonaparte, their polity was being strangely warped by the influence of military methods of rule. The brilliance of the triumphs won by that young warrior speedily became the greatest danger of republican France; and as the extraordinary energy developed in her people by recent events cast her feeble neighbours to the ground, Europe cowered away before the ever-increasing bulk of France. In their struggles after democracy the French finally reverted to the military type of Government, which accords with many of the cherished instincts of their race: and the military-democratic compromise embodied in Napoleon endowed that people with the twofold force of national pride and of conscious strength springing from their new institutions.

With this was mingled contempt for neighbouring peoples who either could not or would not gain a similar independence and prestige. Everything helped to feed this self-confidence and contempt for others. The venerable fabric of the Holy Roman Empire was rocking to and fro amidst the spoliations of its ecclesiastical lands by lay princes, in which its former champions, the Houses of Hapsburg and Hohenzollern, were the most exacting of the claimants. The Czar, in October, 1801, had come to a profitable understanding with France concerning these "secularizations." A little later France and Russia began to draw together on the Eastern Question in a way threatening to Turkey and to British influence in the Levant.[217] In fact, French diplomacy used the partition of the German ecclesiastical lands and the threatened collapse of the Ottoman power as a potent means of busying the Continental States and leaving Great Britain isolated. Moreover, the great island State was passing through ministerial and financial difficulties which robbed her of all the fruits of her naval triumphs and made her diplomacy at Amiens the laughing-stock of the world. When monarchical ideas were thus discredited, it was idle to expect peace. The struggling upwards towards a higher plane had indeed begun; democracy had effected a lodgment in Western Europe; but the old order in its bewildered gropings after some sure basis had not yet touched bottom on that rock of nationality which was to yield a new foundation for monarchy amidst the strifes of the nineteenth century. Only when the monarchs received the support of their French-hating subjects could an equilibrium of force and of enthusiasms yield the long-sought opportunity for a durable peace.[218]



The negotiations at Amiens had amply shown the great difficulty of the readjustment of European affairs. If our Ministers had manifested their real feelings about Napoleon's presidency of the Italian Republic, war would certainly have broken forth. But, as has been seen, they preferred to assume the attitude of the ostrich, the worst possible device both for the welfare of Europe and the interests of Great Britain; for it convinced Napoleon that he could safely venture on other interventions; and this he proceeded to do in the affairs of Italy, Holland, and Switzerland.

On September 21st, 1802, appeared a senatus consultum ordering the incorporation of Piedmont in France. This important territory, lessened by the annexation of its eastern parts to the Italian Republic, had for five months been provisionally administered by a French general as a military district of France. Its definite incorporation in the great Republic now put an end to all hopes of restoration of the House of Savoy. For the King of Sardinia, now an exile in his island, the British Ministry had made some efforts at Amiens; but, as it knew that the Czar and the First Consul had agreed on offering him some suitable indemnity, the hope was cherished that the new sovereign, Victor Emmanuel I., would be restored to his mainland possessions. That hope was now at an end. In vain did Lord Whitworth, our ambassador at Paris, seek to help the Russian envoy to gain a fit indemnity. Sienna and its lands were named, as if in derision; and though George III. and the Czar ceased not to press the claims of the House of Savoy, yet no more tempting offer came from Paris, except a hint that some part of European Turkey might be found for him; and the young ruler nobly refused to barter for the petty Siennese, or for some Turkish pachalic, his birthright to the lands which, under a happier Victor Emmanuel, were to form the nucleus of a United Italy.[219] A month after the absorption of Piedmont came the annexation of Parma. The heir to that duchy, who was son-in-law to the King of Spain, had been raised to the dignity of King of Etruria; and in return for this aggrandizement in Europe, Charles IV. bartered away to France the whole of Louisiana. Nevertheless, the First Consul kept his troops in Parma, and on the death of the old duke in October, 1802, Parma and its dependencies were incorporated in the French Republic.

The naval supremacy of France in the Mediterranean was also secured by the annexation of the Isle of Elba with its excellent harbour of Porto Ferrajo. Three deputies from Elba came to Paris to pay their respects to their new ruler. The Minister of War was thereupon charged to treat them with every courtesy, to entertain them at dinner, to give them 3,000 francs apiece, and to hint that on their presentation to Bonaparte they might make a short speech expressing the pleasure of their people at being united with France. By such deft rehearsals did this master in the art of scenic displays weld Elba on to France and France to himself.

Even more important was Bonaparte's intervention in Switzerland. The condition of that land calls for some explanation. For wellnigh three centuries the Switzers had been grouped in thirteen cantons, which differed widely in character and constitution. The Central or Forest Cantons still retained the old Teutonic custom of regulating their affairs in their several folk-moots, at which every householder appeared fully armed. Elsewhere the confederation had developed less admirable customs, and the richer lowlands especially were under the hereditary control of rich burgher families. There was no constitution binding these States in any effective union. Each of the cantons claimed a governmental sovereignty that was scarcely impaired by the deliberations of the Federal Diet. Besides these sovereign States were others that held an ill-defined position as allies; among these were Geneva, Basel, Bienne, Saint Gall, the old imperial city of Muehlhausen in Alsace, the three Grisons, the principality of Neufchatel, and Valais on the Upper Rhone. Last came the subject-lands, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed in various degrees of strictness by their cantonal overlords. Such was the old Swiss Confederacy: it somewhat resembled that chaotic Macedonian league of mountain clans, plain-dwellers, and cities, which was so profoundly influenced by the infiltration of Greek ideas and by the masterful genius of Philip. Switzerland was likewise to be shaken by a new political influence, and thereafter to be controlled by the greatest statesman of the age.

On this motley group of cantons and districts the French Revolution exerted a powerful influence; and when, in 1798, the people of Vaud strove to throw off the yoke of Berne, French troops, on the invitation of the insurgents, invaded Switzerland, quelled the brave resistance of the central cantons, and ransacked the chief of the Swiss treasuries. After the plunderers came the constitution-mongers, who forthwith forced on Switzerland democracy of the most French and geometrical type: all differences between the sovereign cantons, allies, and subject-lands were swept away, and Helvetia was constituted as an indivisible republic—except Valais, which was to be independent, and Geneva and Muehlhausen, which were absorbed by France. The subject districts and non-privileged classes benefited considerably by the social reforms introduced under French influence; but a constitution recklessly transferred from Paris to Berne could only provoke loathing among a people that never before had submitted to foreign dictation. Moreover, the new order of things violated the most elementary needs of the Swiss, whose racial and religious instincts claimed freedom of action for each district or canton.

Of these deep-seated feelings the oligarchs of the plains, no less than the democrats of the Forest Cantons, were now the champions; while the partisans of the new-fangled democracy were held up to scorn as the supporters of a cast-iron centralization. It soon became clear that the constitution of 1798 could be perpetuated only by the support of the French troops quartered on that unhappy land; for throughout the years 1800 and 1801 the political see-saw tilted every few months, first in favour of the oligarchic or federal party, then again towards their unionist opponents. After the Peace of Luneville, which recognized the right of the Swiss to adopt what form of government they thought fit, some of their deputies travelled to Paris with the draft of a constitution lately drawn up by the Chamber at Berne, in the hope of gaining the assent of the First Consul to its provisions and the withdrawal of French troops. They had every reason for hope: the party then in power at Berne was that which favoured a centralized democracy, and their plenipotentiary in Paris, a thorough republican named Stapfer, had been led to hope that Switzerland would now be allowed to carve out its own destiny. What, then, was his surprise to find the First Consul increasingly enamoured of federalism. The letters written by Stapfer to the Swiss Government at this time are highly instructive.[220]

On March 10th, 1801, he wrote:

"What torments us most is the cruel uncertainty as to the real aims of the French Government. Does it want to federalize us in order to weaken us and to rule more surely by our divisions: or does it really desire our independence and welfare, and is its delay only the result of its doubts as to the true wishes of the Helvetic nation?"

Stapfer soon found that the real cause of delay was the non-completion of the cession of Valais, which Bonaparte urgently desired for the construction of a military road across the Simplon Pass; and as the Swiss refused this demand, matters remained at a standstill. "The whole of Europe would not make him give up a favourite scheme," wrote Stapfer on April 10th; "the possession of Valais is one of the matters closest to his heart."

The protracted pressure of a French army of occupation on that already impoverished land proved irresistible; and some important modifications of the Swiss project of a constitution, on which the First Consul insisted, were inserted in the new federal compact of May, 1801. Switzerland was now divided into seventeen cantons; and despite the wish of the official Swiss envoys for a strongly centralized government, Bonaparte gave large powers to the cantonal authorities. His motives in this course of action have been variously judged. In giving greater freedom of movement to the several cantons, he certainly adopted the only statesmanlike course: but his conduct during the negotiation, his retention of Valais, and the continued occupation of Switzerland by his troops, albeit in reduced numbers, caused many doubts as to the sincerity of his desire for a final settlement.

The unionist majority at Berne soon proceeded to modify his proposals, which they condemned as full of defects and contradictions; while the federals strove to keep matters as they were. In the month of October their efforts succeeded, thanks to the support of the French ambassador and soldiery; they dissolved the Assembly, annulled its recent amendments; and their influence procured for Reding, the head of the oligarchic party, the office of Landamman, or supreme magistrate. So reactionary, however, were their proceedings, that the First Consul recalled the French general as a sign of his displeasure at his help recently offered to the federals. Their triumph was brief: while their chiefs were away at Easter, 1802, the democratic unionists effected another coup d'etat—it was the fourth—and promulgated one more constitution. This change seems also to have been brought about with the connivance of the French authorities:[221] their refusal to listen to Stapfer's claims for a definite settlement, as well as their persistent hints that the Swiss could not by themselves arrange their own affairs, argued a desire to continue the epoch of quarterly coups d'etat.

The victory of the so-called democrats at Berne now brought the whole matter to the touch. They appealed to the people in the first Swiss plebiscite, the precursor of the famous referendum. It could now be decided without the interference of French troops; for the First Consul had privately declared to the new Landamman, Dolder, that he left it to his Government to decide whether the foreign soldiery should remain as a support or should evacuate Switzerland.[222] After many searchings of heart, the new authorities decided to try their fortunes alone—a response which must have been expected at Paris, where Stapfer had for months been urging the removal of the French forces. For the first time since the year 1798 Switzerland was therefore free to declare her will. The result of the plebiscite was decisive enough, 72,453 votes being cast in favour of the latest constitution, and 92,423 against it. Nothing daunted by this rebuff, and, adopting a device which the First Consul had invented for the benefit of Dutch liberty, the Bernese leaders declared that the 167,172 adult voters who had not voted at all must reckon as approving the new order of things. The flimsiness of this pretext was soon disclosed. The Swiss had had enough of electioneering tricks, hole-and-corner revolutions, and paper compacts. They rushed to arms; and if ever Carlyle's appeal away from ballot-boxes and parliamentary tongue-fencers to the primaeval mights of man can be justified, it was in the sharp and decisive conflicts of the early autumn of 1802 in Switzerland. The troops of the central authorities, marching forth from Berne to quell the rising ferment, sustained a repulse at the foot of Mont Pilatus, as also before the walls of Zuerich; and, the revolt of the federals ever gathering force, the Helvetic authorities were driven from Berne to Lausanne. There they were planning flight across the Lake of Geneva to Savoy, when, on October 15th, the arrival of Napoleon's aide-de-camp, General Rapp, with an imperious proclamation dismayed the federals and promised to the discomfited unionists the mediation of the First Consul for which they had humbly pleaded.[223]

Napoleon had apparently viewed the late proceedings in Switzerland with mingled feelings of irritation and amused contempt. "Well, there you are once more in a Revolution" was his hasty comment to Stapfer at a diplomatic reception shortly after Easter; "try and get tired of all that." It is difficult, however, to believe that so keen-sighted a statesman could look forward to anything but commotions for a land that was being saddled with an impracticable constitution, and whence the controlling French forces were withdrawn at that very crisis. He was certainly prepared for the events of September: many times he had quizzingly asked Stapfer how the constitution was faring, and he must have received with quiet amusement the solemn reply that there could be no doubt as to its brilliant success. When the truth flashed on Stapfer he was dumbfoundered, especially as Talleyrand at first mockingly repulsed any suggestion of the need of French mediation, and went on to assure him that his master had neither counselled nor approved the last constitution, the unfitness of which was now shown by the widespread insurrection. Two days later, however, Napoleon altered his tone and directed Talleyrand vigorously to protest against the acts and proclamations of the victorious federals as "the most violent outrage to French honour." On the last day of September he issued a proclamation to the Swiss declaring that he now revoked his decision not to mingle in Swiss politics, and ordered the federal authorities and troops to disperse, and the cantons to send deputies to Paris for the regulation of their affairs under his mediation. Meanwhile he bade the Swiss live once more in hope: their land was on the brink of a precipice, but it would soon be saved! Rapp carried analogous orders to Lausanne and Berne, while Ney marched in with a large force of French troops that had been assembled near the Swiss frontiers.

So glaring a violation of Swiss independence and of the guaranteeing Treaty of Luneville aroused indignation throughout Europe. But Austria was too alarmed at Prussian aggrandizement in Germany to offer any protest; and, indeed, procured some trifling gains by giving France a free hand in Switzerland.[224] The Court of Berlin, then content to play the jackal to the French lion, revealed to the First Consul the appeals for help privately made to Prussia by the Swiss federals:[225] the Czar, influenced doubtless by his compact with France concerning German affairs, and by the advice of his former tutor, the Swiss Laharpe, offered no encouragement; and it was left to Great Britain to make the sole effort then attempted for the cause of Swiss independence. For some time past the cantons had made appeals to the British Government, which now, in response, sent an English agent, Moore, to confer with their chiefs, and to advance money and promise active support if he judged that a successful resistance could be attempted.[226] The British Ministry undoubtedly prepared for an open rupture with France on this question. Orders were immediately sent from London that no more French or Dutch colonies were to be handed back; and, as we have seen, the Cape of Good Hope and the French settlements in India were refused to the Dutch and French officers who claimed their surrender.

Hostilities, however, were for the present avoided. In face of the overwhelming force which Ney had close at hand, the chiefs of the central cantons shrank from any active opposition; and Moore, finding on his arrival at Constance that they had decided to submit, speedily returned to England. Ministers beheld with anger and dismay the perpetuation of French supremacy in that land; but they lacked the courage openly to oppose the First Consul's action, and gave orders that the stipulated cessions of French and Dutch colonies should take effect.

The submission of the Swiss and the weakness of all the Powers encouraged the First Consul to impose his will on the deputies from the cantons, who assembled at Paris at the close of the year 1802. He first caused their aims and the capacity of their leaders to be sounded in a Franco-Swiss Commission, and thereafter assembled them at St. Cloud on Sunday, December 12th. He harangued them at great length, hinting very clearly that the Swiss must now take a far lower place in the scale of peoples than in the days when France was divided into sixty fiefs, and that union with her could alone enable them to play a great part in the world's affairs: nevertheless, as they clung to independence he would undertake in his quality of mediator to end their troubles, and yet leave them free. That they could attain unity was a mere dream of their metaphysicians: they must rely on the cantonal organization, always provided that the French and Italian districts of Vaud and the upper Ticino were not subject to the central or German cantons: to prevent such a dishonour he would shed the blood of 50,000 Frenchmen: Berne must also open its golden book of the privileged families to include four times their number. For the rest, the Continental Powers could not help them, and England had "no right to meddle in Swiss affairs." The same menace was repeated in more strident tones on January 29th:

"I tell you that I would sacrifice 100,000 men rather than allow England to meddle in your affairs: if the Cabinet of St. James uttered a single word for you, it would be all up with you, I would unite you to France: if that Court made the least insinuation of its fears that I would be your Landamman, I would make myself your Landamman."

There spake forth the inner mind of the man who, whether as child, youth, lieutenant, general, Consul, or Emperor, loved to bear down opposition.[227]

In those days of superhuman activity, when he was carving out one colonial Empire in the New World and preparing to found another in India, when he was outwitting the Cardinals, rearranging the map of Germany, breathing new life into French commerce and striving to shackle that of Britain, he yet found time to utter some of the sagest maxims as to the widely different needs of the Swiss cantons. He assured the deputies that he spoke as a Corsican and a mountaineer, who knew and loved the clan system. His words proved it. With sure touch he sketched the characteristics of the French and Swiss people. Switzerland needed the local freedom imparted by her cantons: while France required unity, Switzerland needed federalism: the French rejected this last as damaging their power and glory; but the Swiss did not ask for glory; they needed "political tranquillity and obscurity": moreover, a simple pastoral people must have extensive local rights, which formed their chief distraction from the monotony of life: democracy was a necessity for the forest cantons; but let not the aristocrats of the towns fear that a wider franchise would end their influence, for a people dependent on pastoral pursuits would always cling to great families rather than to electoral assemblies: let these be elected on a fairly wide basis. Then again, what ready wit flashed forth in his retort to a deputy who objected to the Bernese Oberland forming part of the Canton of Berne: "Where do you take your cattle and your cheese?"—"To Berne."—"Whence do you get your grain, cloth, and iron?"—"From Berne."—"Very well: 'To Berne, from Berne'—you consequently belong to Berne." The reply is a good instance of that canny materialism which he so victoriously opposed to feudal chaos and monarchical ineptitude.

Indeed, in matters great as well as small his genius pierced to the heart of a problem: he saw that the democratic unionists had failed from the rigidity of their centralization, while the federals had given offence by insufficiently recognizing the new passion for social equality.[228] He now prepared to federalize Switzerland on a moderately democratic basis; for a policy of balance, he himself being at the middle of the see-saw, was obviously required by good sense as well as by self-interest. Witness his words to Roederer on this subject:

"While satisfying the generality, I cause the patricians to tremble. In giving to these last the appearance of power, I oblige them to take refuge at my side in order to find protection. I let the people threaten the aristocrats, so that these may have need of me. I will give them places and distinctions, but they will hold them from me. This system of mine has succeeded in France. See the clergy. Every day they will become, in spite of themselves, more devoted to my government than they had foreseen."

How simple and yet how subtle is this statecraft; simplicity of aim, with subtlety in the choice of means: this is the secret of his success.

After much preliminary work done by French commissioners and the Swiss deputies in committee, the First Consul summed up the results of their labours in the Act of Mediation of February 19th, 1803, which constituted the Confederation in nineteen cantons, the formerly subject districts now attaining cantonal dignity and privileges. The forest cantons kept their ancient folk-moots, while the town cantons such as Berne, Zuerich, and Basel were suffered to blend their old institutions with democratic customs, greatly to the chagrin of the unionists, at whose invitation Bonaparte had taken up the work of mediation.

The federal compact was also a compromise between the old and the new. The nineteen cantons were to enjoy sovereign powers under the shelter of the old federal pact. Bonaparte saw that the fussy imposition of French governmental forms in 1798 had wrought infinite harm, and he now granted to the federal authorities merely the powers necessary for self-defence: the federal forces were to consist of 15,200 men—a number less than that which by old treaty Switzerland had to furnish to France. The central power was vested in a Landamman and other officers appointed yearly by one of the six chief cantons taken in rotation; and a Federal Diet, consisting of twenty-five deputies—one from each of the small cantons, and two from each of the six larger cantons—met to discuss matters of general import, but the balance of power rested with the cantons: further articles regulated the Helvetic debt and declared the independence of Switzerland—as if a land could be independent which furnished more troops to the foreigner than it was allowed to maintain for its own defence. Furthermore, the Act breathed not a word about religious liberty, freedom of the Press, or the right of petition: and, viewing it as a whole, the friends of freedom had cause to echo the complaint of Stapfer that "the First Consul's aim was to annul Switzerland politically, but to assure to the Swiss the greatest possible domestic happiness."

I have judged it advisable to give an account of Franco-Swiss relations on a scale proportionate to their interest and importance; they exhibit, not only the meanness and folly of the French Directory, but the genius of the great Corsican in skilfully blending the new and the old, and in his rejection of the fussy pedantry of French theorists and the worst prejudices of the Swiss oligarchs. Had not his sage designs been intertwined with subtle intrigues which assured his own unquestioned supremacy in that land, the Act of Mediation might be reckoned among the grandest and most beneficent achievements. As it is, it must be regarded as a masterpiece of able but selfish statecraft, which contrasts unfavourably with the disinterested arrangements sanctioned by the allies for Switzerland in 1815.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVII

THE RENEWAL OF WAR

The re-occupation of Switzerland by the French in October, 1802, was soon followed by other serious events, which convinced the British Ministry that war was hardly to be avoided. Indeed, before the treaty was ratified, ominous complaints had begun to pass between Paris and London.

Some of these were trivial, others were highly important. Among the latter was the question of commercial intercourse. The British Ministry had neglected to obtain any written assurance that trade relations should be resumed between the two countries; and the First Consul, either prompted by the protectionist theories of the Jacobins, or because he wished to exert pressure upon England in order to extort further concessions, determined to restrict trade with us to the smallest possible dimensions. This treatment of England was wholly exceptional, for in his treaties concluded with Russia, Portugal, and the Porte, Napoleon had procured the insertion of clauses which directly fostered French trade with those lands. Remonstrances soon came from the British Government that "strict prohibitions were being enforced to the admission of British commodities and manufactures into France, and very vigorous restrictions were imposed on British vessels entering French ports"; but, in spite of all representations, we had the mortification of seeing the hardware of Birmingham, and the ever-increasing stores of cotton and woollen goods, shut out from France and her subject-lands, as well as from the French colonies which we had just handed back.

In this policy of commercial prohibition Napoleon was confirmed by our refusal to expel the Bourbon princes. He declined to accept our explanation that they were not officially recognized, and could not be expelled from England without a violation of the rights of hospitality; and he bitterly complained of the personal attacks made upon him in journals published in London by the French emigres. Of these the most acrid, namely, those of Peltier's paper, "L'Ambigu," had already received the reprobation of the British Ministry; but, as had been previously explained at Amiens, the Addington Cabinet decided that it could not venture to curtail the liberty of the Press, least of all at the dictation of the very man who was answering the pop-guns of our unofficial journals by double-shotted retorts in the official "Moniteur." Of these last His Majesty did not deign to make any formal complaint; but he suggested that their insertion in the organ of the French Government should have prevented Napoleon from preferring the present protests.

This wordy war proceeded with unabated vigour on both sides of the Channel, the British journals complaining of the Napoleonic dictatorship in Continental affairs, while the "Moniteur" bristled with articles whose short, sharp sentences could come only from the First Consul. The official Press hitherto had been characterized by dull decorum, and great was the surprise of the older Courts when the French official journals compared the policy of the Court of St. James with the methods of the Barbary rovers and the designs of the Miltonic Satan.[229] Nevertheless, our Ministry prosecuted and convicted Peltier for libel, an act which, at the time, produced an excellent impression at Paris.[230]



But more serious matters were now at hand. Newspaper articles and commercial restrictions were not the cause of war, however much they irritated the two peoples.

The general position of Anglo-French affairs in the autumn of 1802 is well described in the official instructions given to Lord Whitworth when he was about to proceed as ambassador to Paris. For this difficult duty he had several good qualifications. During his embassy at St. Petersburg he had shown a combination of tact and firmness which imposed respect, and doubtless his composure under the violent outbreaks of the Czar Paul furnished a recommendation for the equally trying post at Paris, which he filled with a sang froid that has become historic. Possibly a more genial personality might have smoothed over some difficulties at the Tuileries: but the Addington Ministry, having tried geniality in the person of Cornwallis, naturally selected a man who was remarkable for his powers of quiet yet firm resistance.

His first instructions of September 10th, 1802, are such as might be drawn up between any two Powers entering on a long term of peace. But the series of untoward events noticed above overclouded the political horizon; and the change finds significant expression in the secret instructions of November 14th. He is now charged to state George III.'s determination "never to forego his right of interfering in the affairs of the Continent on any occasion in which the interests of his own dominions or those of Europe in general may appear to him to require it." A French despatch is then quoted, as admitting that, for every considerable gain of France on the Continent, Great Britain had some claim to compensation: and such a claim, it was hinted, might now be proffered after the annexation of Piedmont and Parma. Against the continued occupation of Holland by French troops and their invasion of Switzerland, Whitworth was to make moderate but firm remonstrances, but in such a way as not to commit us finally. He was to employ an equal discretion with regard to Malta. As Russia and Prussia had as yet declined to guarantee the arrangements for that island's independence, it was evident that the British troops could not yet be withdrawn.

"His Majesty would certainly be justified in claiming the possession of Malta, as some counterpoise to the acquisitions of France, since the conclusion of the definitive treaty: but it is not necessary to decide now whether His Majesty will be disposed to avail himself of his pretensions in this respect."

Thus between September 10th and November 14th we passed from a distinctly pacific to a bellicose attitude, and all but formed the decision to demand Malta as a compensation for the recent aggrandizements of France. To have declared war at once on these grounds would certainly have been more dignified. But, as our Ministry had already given way on many topics, a sudden declaration of war on Swiss and Italian affairs would have stultified its complaisant conduct on weightier subjects. Moreover, the whole drift of eighteenth-century diplomacy, no less than Bonaparte's own admission, warranted the hope of securing Malta by way of "compensation." The adroit bargainer, who was putting up German Church lands for sale, who had gained Louisiana by the Parma-Tuscany exchange, and still professed to the Czar his good intentions as to an "indemnity" for the King of Sardinia, might well be expected to admit the principle of compensation in Anglo-French relations when these were being jeopardized by French aggrandizement; and, as will shortly appear, the First Consul, while professing to champion international law against perfidious Albion, privately admitted her right to compensation, and only demurred to its practical application when his oriental designs were thereby compromised.

Before Whitworth proceeded to Paris, sharp remonstrances had been exchanged between the French and British Governments. To our protests against Napoleon's interventions in neighbouring States, he retorted by demanding "the whole Treaty of Amiens and nothing but that treaty." Whereupon Hawkesbury answered: "The state of the Continent at the period of the Treaty of Amiens, and nothing but that state." In reply Napoleon sent off a counterblast, alleging that French troops had evacuated Taranto, that Switzerland had requested his mediation, that German affairs possessed no novelty, and that England, having six months previously waived her interest in continental affairs, could not resume it at will. The retort, which has called forth the admiration of M. Thiers, is more specious than convincing. Hawkesbury's appeal was, not to the sword, but to law; not to French influence gained by military occupations that contravened the Treaty of Luneville, but to international equity.

Certainly, the Addington Cabinet committed a grievous blunder in not inserting in the Treaty of Amiens a clause stipulating the independence of the Batavian and Helvetic Republics. Doubtless it relied on the Treaty of Luneville, and on a Franco-Dutch convention of August, 1801, which specified that French troops were to remain in the Batavian Republic only up to the time of the general peace. But it is one thing to rely on international law, and quite another thing, in an age of violence and chicanery, to hazard the gravest material interests on its observance. Yet this was what the Addington Ministry had done: "His Majesty consented to make numerous and most important restitutions to the Batavian Government on the consideration of that Government being independent and not being subject to any foreign control."[231] Truly, the restoration of the Cape of Good Hope and of other colonies to the Dutch, solely in reliance on the observance of international law by Napoleon and Talleyrand, was, as the event proved, an act of singular credulity. But, looking at this matter fairly and squarely, it must be allowed that Napoleon's reply evaded the essence of the British complaint; it was merely an argumentum ad hominem; it convicted the Addington Cabinet of weakness and improvidence; but in equity it was null and void, and in practical politics it betokened war.

As Napoleon refused to withdraw his troops from Holland, and continued to dominate that unhappy realm, it was clear that the Cape of Good Hope would speedily be closed to our ships—a prospect which immensely enhanced the value of the overland route to India, and of those portals of the Orient, Malta and Egypt. To the Maltese Question we now turn, as also, later on, to the Eastern Question, with which it was then closely connected.

Many causes excited the uneasiness of the British Government about the fate of Malta. In spite of our effort not to wound the susceptibilities of the Czar, who was protector of the Order of St. John, that sensitive young ruler had taken umbrage at the article relating to that island. He now appeared merely as one of the six Powers guaranteeing its independence, not as the sole patron and guarantor, and he was piqued at his name appearing after that of the Emperor Francis![232] For the present arrangement the First Consul was chiefly to blame; but the Czar vented his displeasure on England. On April 28th, 1802, our envoy at Paris, Mr. Merry, reported as follows:

"Either the Russian Government itself, or Count Markoff alone personally, is so completely out of humour with us for not having acted in strict concert with them, or him, or in conformity to their ideas in negotiating the definitive treaty [of Amiens], that I find he takes pains to turn it into ridicule, and particularly to represent the arrangement we have made for Malta as impracticable and consequently as completely null."

The despatches of our ambassador at St. Petersburg, Lord St. Helens, and of his successor, Admiral Warren, are of the same tenor. They report the Czar's annoyance with England over the Maltese affair, and his refusal to listen even to the joint Anglo-French request, of November 18th, 1802, for his guarantee of the Amiens arrangements.[233] A week later Alexander announced that he would guarantee the independence of Malta, provided that the complete sovereignty of the Knights of St. John was recognized—that is, without any participation of the native Maltese in the affairs of that Order—and that the island should be garrisoned by Neapolitan troops, paid by France and England, until the Knights should be able to maintain their independence. This reopening of the question discussed, ad nauseam, at Amiens proved that the Maltese Question would long continue to perplex the world. The matter was still further complicated by the abolition of the Priories, Commanderies, and property of the Order of St. John by the French Government in the spring of 1802—an example which was imitated by the Court of Madrid in the following autumn; and as the property of the Knights in the French part of Italy had also lapsed, it was difficult to see how the scattered and impoverished Knights could form a stable government, especially if the native Maltese were not to be admitted to a share in public affairs. This action of France, Spain, and Russia fully warranted the British Government in not admitting into the fortress the 2,000 Neapolitan troops that arrived in the autumn of 1802. Our evacuation of Malta was conditioned by several stipulations, five of which had not been fulfilled.[234] But the difficulties arising out of the reconstruction of this moribund Order were as nothing when compared with those resulting from the reopening of a far vaster and more complex question—the "eternal" Eastern Question.

Rarely has the mouldering away of the Turkish Empire gone on so rapidly as at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Corruption and favouritism paralyzed the Government at Constantinople; masterful pachas, aping the tactics of Ali Pacha, the virtual ruler of Albania, were beginning to carve out satrapies in Syria, Asia Minor, Wallachia, and even in Roumelia itself. Such was the state of Turkey when the Sultan and his advisers heard with deep concern, in October, 1801, that the only Power on whose friendship they could firmly rely was about to relinquish Malta. At once he sent an earnest appeal to George III. begging him not to evacuate the island. This despatch is not in the archives of our Foreign Office; but the letter written from Malta by Lord Elgin, our ambassador at Constantinople, on his return home, sufficiently shows that the Sultan was conscious of his own weakness and of the schemes of partition which were being concocted at Paris. Bonaparte had already begun to sound both Austria and Russia on this subject, deftly hinting that the Power which did not early join in the enterprise would come poorly off. For the present both the rulers rejected his overtures; but he ceased not to hope that the anarchy in Turkey, and the jealousy which partition schemes always arouse among neighbours, would draw first one and then the other into his enterprise.[235]

The young Czar's disposition was at that period restless and unstable, free from the passionate caprices of his ill-fated father, and attuned by the fond efforts of the Swiss democrat Laharpe, to the loftiest aspirations of the France of 1789. Yet the son of Paul I. could hardly free himself from the instincts of a line of conquering Czars; his frank blue eyes, his graceful yet commanding figure, his high broad forehead and close shut mouth gave promise of mental energy; and his splendid physique and love of martial display seemed to invite him to complete the campaigns of Catherine II. against the Turks, and to wash out in the waves of the Danube the remorse which he still felt at his unwitting complicity in a parricidal plot. Between his love of liberty and of foreign conquest he for the present wavered, with a strange constitutional indecision that marred a noble character and that yielded him a prey more than once to a masterful will or to seductive projects. He is the Janus of Russian history. On the one side he faces the enormous problems of social and political reform, and yet he steals many a longing glance towards the dome of St. Sofia. This instability in his nature has been thus pointedly criticised by his friend Prince Czartoryski:[236]

"Grand ideas of the general good, generous sentiments, and the desire to sacrifice to them a part of the imperial authority, had really occupied the Emperor's mind, but they were rather a young man's fancies than a grown man's decided will. The Emperor liked forms of liberty, as he liked the theatre: it gave him pleasure and flattered his vanity to see the appearances of free government in his Empire: but all he wanted in this respect was forms and appearances: he did not expect them to become realities. He would willingly have agreed that every man should be free, on the condition that he should voluntarily do only what the Emperor wished."

This later judgment of the well-known Polish nationalist is probably embittered by the disappointments which he experienced at the Czar's hands; but it expresses the feeling of most observers of Alexander's early career, and it corresponds with the conclusion arrived at by Napoleon's favourite aide-de-camp, Duroc, who went to congratulate the young Czar on his accession and to entice him into oriental schemes—that there was nothing to hope and nothing to fear from the Czar. The mot was deeply true.[237]

From these oriental schemes the young Czar was, for the time, drawn aside towards the nobler path of social reform. The saving influence on this occasion was exerted by his old tutor, Laharpe. The ex-Director of Switzerland readily persuaded the Czar that Russia sorely needed political and social reform. His influence was powerfully aided by a brilliant group of young men, the Vorontzoffs, the Strogonoffs, Novossiltzoff, and Czartoryski, whose admiration for western ideas and institutions, especially those of Britain, helped to impel Alexander on the path of progress. Thus, when Napoleon was plying the Czar with notes respecting Turkey, that young ruler was commencing to bestow system on his administration, privileges on the serfs, and the feeble beginnings of education on the people.

While immersed in these beneficent designs, Alexander heard with deep chagrin of the annexation of Piedmont and Parma, and that Napoleon refused to the King of Sardinia any larger territory than the Siennese. This breach of good faith cut the Czar to the quick. It was in vain that Napoleon now sought to lure him into Turkish adventures by representing that France should secure the Morea for herself, that other parts of European Turkey might be apportioned to Victor Emmanuel I. and the French Bourbons. This cold-blooded proposal, that ancient dynasties should be thrust from the homes of their birth into alien Greek or Moslem lands, wounded the Czar's monarchical sentiments. He would none of it; nor did he relish the prospect of seeing the French in the Morea, whence they could complete the disorder of Turkey and seize on Constantinople. He saw whither Napoleon was leading him. He drew back abruptly, and even notified to our ambassador, Admiral Warren, that England had better keep Malta.[238]

Alexander also, on January 19th, 1803 (O.S.), charged his ambassador at Paris to declare that the existing system of Europe must not be further disturbed, that each Government should strive for peace and the welfare of its own people; that the frequent references of Napoleon to the approaching dissolution of Turkey were ill-received at St. Petersburg, where they were considered the chief cause of England's anxiety and refusal to disarm. He also suggested that the First Consul by some public utterance should dispel the fears of England as to a partition of the Ottoman Empire, and thus assure the peace of the world.[239]

Before this excellent advice was received, Napoleon astonished the world by a daring stroke. On the 30th of January the "Moniteur" printed in full the bellicose report of Colonel Sebastiani on his mission to Algiers, Egypt, Syria, and the Ionian Isles. As that mission was afterwards to be passed off as merely of a commercial character, it will be well to quote typical passages from the secret instructions which the First Consul gave to his envoy on September 5th, 1802:

"He will proceed to Alexandria: he will take note of what is in the harbour, the ships, the forces which the British as well as the Turks have there, the state of the fortifications, the state of the towers, the account of all that has passed since our departure both at Alexandria and in the whole of Egypt: finally, the present state of the Egyptians.... He will proceed to St. Jean d'Acre, will recommend the convent of Nazareth to Djezzar: will inform him that the agent of the [French] Republic is to appear at Acre: will find out about the fortifications he has had made: will walk along them himself, if there be no danger."

Fortifications, troops, ships of war, the feelings of the natives, and the protection of the Christians—these subjects were to be Sebastiani's sole care. Commerce was not once named. The departure of this officer had already alarmed our Government. Mr. Merry, our charge d'affaires in Paris, had warned it as to the real aims in view, in the following "secret despatch:

"PARIS, September 25th, 1802.

"... I have learnt from good authority that he [Sebastiani] was accompanied by a person of the name of Jaubert (who was General Bonaparte's interpreter and confidential agent with the natives during the time he commanded in Egypt), who has carried with him regular powers and instructions, prepared by M. Talleyrand, to treat with Ibrahim-Bey for the purpose of creating a fresh and successful revolt in Egypt against the power of the Porte, and of placing that country again under the direct or indirect dependence of France, to which end he has been authorized to offer assistance from hence in men and money. The person who has confided to me this information understands that the mission to Ibrahim-Bey is confided solely to M. Jaubert, and that his being sent with Colonel Sebastiani has been in order to conceal the real object of it, and to afford him a safe conveyance to Egypt, as well as for the purpose of assisting the Colonel in his transactions with the Regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli."[240]

Merry's information was correct: it tallied with the secret instructions given by Napoleon to Sebastiani: and our Government, thus forewarned, at once adopted a stiffer tone on all Mediterranean and oriental questions. Sebastiani was very coldly received by our officer commanding in Egypt, General Stuart, who informed him that no orders had as yet come from London for our evacuation of that land. Proceeding to Cairo, the commercial emissary proposed to mediate between the Turkish Pacha and the rebellious Mamelukes, an offer which was firmly declined.[241] In vain did Sebastiani bluster and cajole by turns. The Pacha refused to allow him to go on to Assouan, the headquarters of the insurgent Bey, and the discomfited envoy made his way back to the coast and took ship for Acre. Thence he set sail for Corfu, where he assured the people of Napoleon's wish that there should be an end to their civil discords. Returning to Genoa, and posting with all speed to Paris, he arrived there on January 25th, 1803. Five days later that gay capital was startled by the report of his mission, which was printed in full in the "Moniteur." It described the wretched state of the Turks in Egypt—the Pacha of Cairo practically powerless, and on bad terms with General Stuart, the fortifications everywhere in a ruinous state, the 4,430 British troops cantoned in and near Alexandria, the Turkish forces beneath contempt. "Six thousand French would at present be enough to conquer Egypt." And as to the Ionian islands, "I do not stray from the truth in assuring you that these islands will declare themselves French as soon as an opportunity shall offer itself."[242]

Such were the chief items of this report. Various motives have been assigned for its publication. Some writers have seen in it a crushing retort to English newspaper articles. Others there are, as M. Thiers, who waver between the opinion that the publication of this report was either a "sudden unfortunate incident," or a protest against the "latitude" which England allowed herself in the execution of the Treaty of Amiens.

A consideration of the actual state of affairs at the end of January, 1803, will perhaps guide us to an explanation which is more consonant with the grandeur of Napoleon's designs. At that time he was all-powerful in the Old World. As First Consul for Life he was master of forty millions of men: he was President of the Italian Republic: to the Switzers, as to the Dutch, his word was law. Against the infractions of the Treaty of Luneville, Austria dared make no protest. The Czar was occupied with domestic affairs, and his rebuff to Napoleon's oriental schemes had not yet reached Paris. As for the British Ministry, it was trembling from the attacks of the Grenvilles and Windhams on the one side, and from the equally vigorous onslaughts of Fox, who, when the Government proposed an addition to the armed forces, brought forward the stale platitude that a large standing army "was a dangerous instrument of influence in the hands of the Crown." When England's greatest orator thus impaired the unity of national feeling, and her only statesman, Pitt, remained in studied seclusion, the First Consul might well feel assured of the impotence of the Island Power, and view the bickering of her politicians with the same quiet contempt that Philip felt for the Athens of Demosthenes.

But while his prospects in Europe and the East were roseate, the western horizon bulked threateningly with clouds. The news of the disasters in St. Domingo reached Paris in the first week of the year 1803, and shortly afterwards came tidings of the ferment in the United States and the determination of their people to resist the acquisition of Louisiana by France. If he persevered with this last scheme, he would provoke war with that republic and drive it into the arms of England. From that blunder his statecraft instinctively saved him, and he determined to sell Louisiana to the United States.

So unheroic a retreat from the prairies of the New World must be covered by a demonstration towards the banks of the Nile and of the Indus. It was ever his plan to cover retreat in one direction by brilliant diversions in another: only so could he enthrall the imagination of France, and keep his hold on her restless capital. And the publication of Sebastiani's report, with its glowing description of the fondness cherished for France alike by Moslems, Syrian Christians, and the Greeks of Corfu; its declamation against the perfidy of General Stuart; and its incitation to the conquest of the Levant, furnished him with the motive power for effecting a telling transformation scene and banishing all thoughts of losses in the West.[243]

The official publication of this report created a sensation even in France, and was not the bagatelle which M. Thiers has endeavoured to represent it.[244] But far greater was the astonishment at Downing Street, not at the facts disclosed by the report—for Merry's note had prepared our Ministers for them—but rather at the official avowal of hostile designs. At once our Government warned Whitworth that he must insist on our retaining Malta. He was also to protest against the publication of such a document, and to declare that George III. could not "enter into any further discussion relative to Malta until he received a satisfactory explanation." Far from offering it, Napoleon at once complained of our non-evacuation of Alexandria and Malta.

"Instead of that garrison [of Alexandria] being a means of protecting Egypt, it was only furnishing him with a pretence for invading it. This he should not do, whatever might be his desire to have it as a colony, because he did not think it worth the risk of a war, in which he might perhaps be considered the aggressor, and by which he should lose more than he could gain, since sooner or later Egypt would belong to France, either by the falling to pieces of the Turkish Empire, or by some arrangement with the Porte.... Finally," he asked, "why should not the mistress of the seas and the mistress of the land come to an arrangement and govern the world?"

A subtler diplomatist than Whitworth would probably have taken the hint for a Franco-British partition of the world: but the Englishman, unable at that moment to utter a word amidst the torrent of argument and invective, used the first opportunity merely to assure Napoleon of the alarm caused in England by Sebastiani's utterance concerning Egypt. This touched the First Consul at the wrong point, and he insisted that on the evacuation of Malta the question of peace or war must depend. In vain did the English ambassador refer to the extension of French power on the Continent. Napoleon cut him short: "I suppose you mean Piedmont and Switzerland: ce sont des——: vous n'avez pas le droit d'en parler a cette heure." Seeing that he was losing his temper, Lord Whitworth then diverted the conversation.[245]

This long tirade shows clearly what were the aims of the First Consul. He desired peace until his eastern plans were fully matured. And what ruler would not desire to maintain a peace so fruitful in conquests—that perpetuated French influence in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, that enabled France to prepare for the dissolution of the Turkish Empire and to intrigue with the Mahrattas? Those were the conditions on which England could enjoy peace: she must recognize the arbitrament of France in the affairs of all neighbouring States, she must make no claim for compensation in the Mediterranean, and she must endure to be officially informed that she alone could not maintain a struggle against France.[246]

But George III. was not minded to sink to the level of a Charles II. Whatever were the failings of our "farmer king," he was keenly alive to national honour and interests. These had been deeply wounded, even in the United Kingdom itself. Napoleon had been active in sending "commercial commissioners" into our land. Many of them were proved to be soldiers: and the secret instructions sent by Talleyrand to one of them at Dublin, which chanced to fall into the hands of our Government, showed that they were charged to make plans of the harbours, and of the soundings and moorings.[247]

Then again, the French were almost certainly helping Irish conspirators. One of these, Emmett, already suspected of complicity in the Despard conspiracy which aimed at the King's life, had, after its failure, sought shelter in France. At the close of 1802 he returned to his native land and began to store arms in a house near Rathfarnham. It is doubtful whether the authorities were aware of his plans, or, as is more probable, let the plot come to a head. The outbreak did not take place till the following July (after the renewal of war), when Emmett and some of his accomplices, along with Russell, who stirred up sedition in Ulster, paid for their folly with their lives. They disavowed any connection with France, but they must have based their hope of success on a promised French invasion of our coasts.[248]

The dealings of the French commercial commissioners and the beginnings of the Emmett plot increased the tension caused by Napoleon's masterful foreign policy; and the result was seen in the King's message to Parliament on March 8th, 1803. In view of the military preparations and of the wanton defiance of the First Consul's recent message to the Corps Legislatif, Ministers asked for the embodiment of the militia and the addition of 10,000 seamen to the navy. After Napoleon's declaration to our ambassador that France was bringing her forces on active service up to 480,000 men, the above-named increase of the British forces might well seem a reasonable measure of defence. Yet it so aroused the spleen of the First Consul that, at a public reception of ambassadors on March 13th, he thus accosted Lord Whitworth:

"'So you are determined to go to war.' 'No, First Consul,' I replied, 'we are too sensible of the advantage of peace.' 'Why, then, these armaments? Against whom these measures of precaution? I have not a single ship of the line in the French ports, but if you wish to arm I will arm also: if you wish to fight, I will fight also. You may perhaps kill France, but will never intimidate her.' 'We wish,' said I, 'neither the one nor the other. We wish to live on good terms with her.' 'You must respect treaties then,' replied he; 'woe to those who do not respect treaties. They shall answer for it to all Europe.' He was too agitated to make it advisable to prolong the conversation: I therefore made no answer, and he retired to his apartment, repeating the last phrase."[249]

This curious scene shows Napoleon in one of his weaker petulant moods: it left on the embarrassed spectators no impression of outraged dignity, but rather of the over-weening self-assertion of an autocrat who could push on hostile preparations, and yet flout the ambassador of the Power that took reasonable precautions in return. The slight offered to our ambassador, though hotly resented in Britain, had no direct effect on the negotiations, as the First Consul soon took the opportunity of tacitly apologizing for the occurrence; but indirectly the matter was infinitely important. By that utterance he nailed his colours to the mast with respect to the British evacuation of Malta. With his keen insight into the French nature, he knew that "honour" was its mainspring, and that his political fortunes rested on the satisfaction of that instinct. He could not now draw back without affronting the prestige of France and undermining his own position. In vain did our Government remind him of his admission that "His Majesty should keep a compensation out of his conquests for the important acquisitions of territory made by France upon the Continent."[250] That promise, although official, was secret. Its violation would, at the worst, only offend the officials of Whitehall. Whereas, if he now acceded to their demand that Malta should be the compensation, he at once committed that worst of all crimes in a French statesman, of rendering himself ludicrous. In this respect, then, the scene of March 13th at the Tuileries was indirectly the cause of the bloodiest war that has desolated Europe.

Napoleon now regarded the outbreak of hostilities as probable, if not certain. Facts are often more eloquent than diplomatic assurances, and such facts are not wanting. On March 6th Decaen's expedition had set sail from Brest for the East Indies with no anticipation of immediate war. On March 16th a fast brig was sent after him with orders that he should return with all speed from Pondicherry to the Mauritius. Napoleon's correspondence also shows that, as early as March 11th, that is, after hearing of George III.'s message to Parliament, he expected the outbreak of hostilities: on that day he ordered the formation of flotillas at Dunkirk and Cherbourg, and sent urgent messages to the sovereigns of Russia, Prussia, and Spain, inveighing against England's perfidy. The envoy despatched to St. Petersburg was specially charged to talk to the Czar on philosophic questions, and to urge him to free the seas from England's tyranny.

Much as Addington and his colleagues loved peace, they were now convinced that it was more hazardous than open war. Malta was the only effectual bar to a French seizure of Egypt or an invasion of Turkey from the side of Corfu. With Turkey partitioned and Egypt in French hands, there would be no security against Napoleon's designs on India. The British forces evacuated the Cape of Good Hope on February 21st, 1803; they set sail from Alexandria on the 17th of the following month. By the former act we yielded up to France the sea route to India—for the Dutch at the Cape were but the tools of the First Consul: by the latter we left Malta as the sole barrier against a renewed land attack on our Eastern possessions. The safety of our East Indian possessions was really at stake, and yet Europe was asked to believe that the question was whether England would or would not evacuate Malta. This was the French statement of the case: it was met by the British plea that France, having declared her acceptance of the principle of compensation for us, had no cause for objecting to the retention of an island so vital to our interests.

Yet, while convinced of the immense importance of Malta, the Addington Cabinet did not insist on retaining it, if the French Government would "suggest some other equivalent security by which His Majesty's object in claiming the permanent possession of Malta may be accomplished and the independence of the island secured conformably to the spirit of the 10th Article of the Treaty of Amiens."[251] To the First Consul was therefore left the initiative in proposing some other plan which would safeguard British interests in the Levant; and, with this qualifying explanation, the British ambassador was charged to present to him the following proposals for a new treaty: Malta to remain in British hands, the Knights to be indemnified for any losses of property which they may thereby sustain: Holland and Switzerland to be evacuated by French troops: the island of Elba to be confirmed to France, and the King of Etruria to be acknowledged by Great Britain: the Italian and Ligurian Republics also to be acknowledged, if "an arrangement is made in Italy for the King of Sardinia, which shall be satisfactory to him."

Lord Whitworth judged it better not to present these demands point blank, but gradually to reveal their substance. This course, he judged, would be less damaging to the friends of peace at the Tuileries, and less likely to affront Napoleon. But it was all one and the same. The First Consul, in his present state of highly wrought tension, practically ignored the suggestion of an equivalent security, and declaimed against the perfidy of England for daring to infringe the treaty, though he had offered no opposition to the Czar's proposals respecting Malta, which weakened the stability of the Order and sensibly modified that same treaty.

Talleyrand was more conciliatory; and there is little doubt that, had the First Consul allowed his brother Joseph and his Foreign Minister wider powers, the crisis might have been peaceably passed. Joseph Bonaparte urgently pressed Whitworth to be satisfied with Corfu or Crete in place of Malta; but he confessed that the suggestion was quite unauthorized, and that the First Consul was so enraged on the Maltese Question that he dared not broach it to him.[252] Indeed, all through these critical weeks Napoleon's relations to his brothers were very strained, they desiring peace in Europe so that Louisiana might even now be saved to France, while the First Consul persisted in his oriental schemes. He seems now to have concentrated his energies on the task of postponing the rupture to a convenient date and of casting on his foes the odium of the approaching war. He made no proposal that could reassure Britain as to the security of the overland routes; and he named no other island which could be considered as an equivalent to Malta.

To many persons his position has seemed logically unassailable; but it is difficult to see how this view can be held. The Treaty of Amiens had twice over been rendered, in a technical sense, null and void by the action of Continental Powers. Russia and Prussia had not guaranteed the state of things arranged for Malta by that treaty; and the action of France and Spain in confiscating the property of the Knights in their respective lands had so far sapped the strength of the Order that it could never again support the expense of the large garrison which the lines around Valetta required.

In a military sense, this was the crux of the problem; for no one affected to believe that Malta was rendered secure by the presence at Valetta of 2,000 troops of the King of Naples, whose realm could within a week be overrun by Murat's division. This obvious difficulty led Lord Hawkesbury to urge, in his notes of April 13th and later, that British troops should garrison the chief fortifications of Valetta and leave the civil power to the Knights: or, if that were found objectionable, that we should retain complete possession of the island for ten years, provided that we were left free to negotiate with the King of Naples for the cession of Lampedusa, an islet to the west of Malta. To this last proposal the First Consul offered no objection; but he still inflexibly opposed any retention of Malta, even for ten years, and sought to make the barren islet of Lampedusa appear an equivalent to Malta. This absurd contention had, however, been exploded by Talleyrand's indiscreet confession "that the re-establishment of the Order of St. John was not so much the point to be discussed as that of suffering Great Britain to acquire a possession in the Mediterranean."[253]

This, indeed, was the pith and marrow of the whole question, whether Great Britain was to be excluded from that great sea—save at Gibraltar and Lampedusa—looking on idly at its transformation into a French lake by the seizure of Corfu, the Morea, Egypt, and Malta itself; or whether she should retain some hold on the overland route to the East. The difficulty was frankly pointed out by Lord Whitworth; it was as frankly admitted by Joseph Bonaparte; it was recognized by Talleyrand; and Napoleon's desire for a durable peace must have been slight when he refused to admit England's claim effectively to safeguard her interests in the Levant, and ever fell back on the literal fulfilment of a treaty which had been invalidated by his own deliberate actions.

Affairs now rapidly came to a climax. On April 23rd the British Government notified its ambassador that, if the present terms were not granted within seven days of his receiving them, he was to leave Paris. Napoleon was no less angered than surprised by the recent turn of events. In place of timid complaisance which he had expected from Addington, he was met with open defiance; but he now proposed that the Czar should offer his intervention between the disputants. The suggestion was infinitely skilful. It flattered the pride of the young autocrat and promised to yield gains as substantial as those which Russian mediation had a year before procured for France from the intimidated Sultan; it would help to check the plans for an Anglo-Russian alliance then being mooted at St. Petersburg, and, above all, it served to gain time.

All these advantages were to a large extent realized. Though the Czar had been the first to suggest our retention of Malta, he now began to waver. The clearness and precision of Talleyrand's notes, and the telling charge of perfidy against England, made an impression which the cumbrous retorts of Lord Hawkesbury and the sailor-like diplomacy of Admiral Warren failed to efface.[254] And the Russian Chancellor, Vorontzoff, though friendly to England, and desirous of seeing her firmly established at Malta, now began to complain of the want of clearness in her policy. The Czar emphasized this complaint, and suggested that, as Malta could not be the real cause of dispute, the British Government should formulate distinctly its grievances and so set the matter in train for a settlement. The suggestion was not complied with. To draw up a long list of complaints, some drawn from secret sources and exposing the First Consul's schemes, would have exasperated his already ruffled temper; and the proposal can only be regarded as an adroit means of justifying Alexander's sudden change of front.