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 _émigrés_. 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 Lunéville, 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 Lunéville, 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
_chargé 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 Lunéville, 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 à 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 Législatif, 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.
Meanwhile events had proceeded apace at Paris. On April 26th Joseph
Bonaparte made a last effort to bend his brother's will, but only
gained the grudging concession that Napoleon would never consent to
the British retention of Malta for a longer time than three or four
years. As this would have enabled him to postpone the rupture long
enough to mature his oriental plans, it was rejected by Lord
Whitworth, who insisted on ten years as the minimum. The evident
determination of the British Government speedily to terminate the
affair, one way or the other, threw Napoleon into a paroxysm of
passion; and at the diplomatic reception of May 1st, from which Lord
Whitworth discreetly absented himself, he vehemently inveighed against
its conduct. Fretted by the absence of our ambassador, for whom this
sally had been intended, he returned to St. Cloud, and there dictated
this curious epistle to Talleyrand:
"I desire that your conference [with Lord Whitworth] shall not
degenerate into a conversation. Show yourself cold, reserved, and
even somewhat proud. If the [British] note contains the word
_ultimatum_ make him feel that this word implies war; if it does
not contain this word, make him insert it, remarking to him that we
must know where we are, that we are tired of this state of
anxiety.... Soften down a little at the end of the conference, and
invite him to return before writing to his Court."
But this careful rehearsal was to avail nothing; our stolid ambassador
was not to be cajoled, and on May 2nd, that is, seven days after his
presenting our ultimatum, he sent for his passports. He did not,
however, set out immediately. Yielding to an urgent request, he
delayed his departure in order to hear the French reply to the British
ultimatum.[255] It notified sarcastically that Lampedusa was not in
the First Consul's power to bestow, that any change with reference to
Malta must be referred by Great Britain to the Great Powers for their
concurrence, and that Holland would be evacuated as soon as the terms
of the Treaty of Amiens were complied with. Another proposal was that
Malta should be transferred to Russia--the very step which was
proposed at Amiens and was rejected by the Czar: on that account Lord
Whitworth now refused it as being merely a device to gain time. The
sending of his passports having been delayed, he received one more
despatch from Downing Street, which allowed that our retention of
Malta for ten years should form a secret article--a device which would
spare the First Consul's susceptibilities on the point of honour. Even
so, however, Napoleon refused to consider a longer tenure than two or
three years. And in this he was undoubtedly encouraged by the recent
despatch from St. Petersburg, wherein the Czar promised his mediation
in a sense favourable to France. This unfortunate occurrence completed
the discomfiture of the peace party at the Consular Court, and in a
long and heated discussion in a council held at St. Cloud on May 11th
all but Joseph Bonaparte and Talleyrand voted for the rejection of
the British demands.
On the next day Lord Whitworth left Paris. During his journey to
Calais he received one more proposal, that France should hold the
peninsula of Otranto for ten years if Great Britain retained Malta for
that period; but if this suggestion was made in good faith, which is
doubtful, its effect was destroyed by a rambling diatribe which
Talleyrand, at his master's orders, sent shortly afterwards.[256] In
any case it was looked upon by our ambassador as a last attempt to gain
time for the concentration of the French naval forces. He crossed the
Straits of Dover on May 17th, the day before the British declaration of
war was issued.
On May 22nd, 1803, appeared at Paris the startling order that, as
British frigates had captured two French merchantmen on the Breton
coast, all Englishmen between eighteen and sixty years of age who were
in France should be detained as prisoners of war. The pretext for this
unheard-of action, which condemned some 10,000 Britons to prolonged
detention, was that the two French ships were seized prior to the
declaration of war. This is false: they were seized on May 18th, that
is, on the day on which the British Government declared war, three
days after an embargo had been laid on British vessels in French
ports, and seven days after the First Consul had directed his envoy at
Florence to lay an embargo on English ships in the ports of
Tuscany.[257] It is therefore obvious that Napoleon's barbarous decree
merely marked his disappointment at the failure of his efforts to gain
time and to deal the first stroke. How sorely his temper was tried by
the late events is clear from the recital of the Duchesse d'Abrantès,
who relates that her husband, when ordered to seize English residents,
found the First Consul in a fury, his eyes flashing fire; and when
Junot expressed his reluctance to carry out this decree, Napoleon
passionately exclaimed: "Do not trust too far to my friendship: as
soon as I conceive doubt as to yours, mine is gone."
Few persons in England now cherished any doubts as to the First
Consul's hatred of the nation which stood between him and his oriental
designs. Ministers alone knew the extent of those plans: but every
ploughboy could feel the malice of an act which cooped up innocent
travellers on the flimsiest of pretexts. National ardour, and, alas,
national hatred were deeply stirred.[258] The Whigs, who had paraded the
clemency of Napoleon, were at once helpless, and found themselves
reduced to impotence for wellnigh a generation; and the Tories, who
seemed the exponents of a national policy, were left in power until the
stream of democracy, dammed up by war in 1793 and again in 1803,
asserted its full force in the later movement for reform.
Yet the opinion often expressed by pamphleteers, that the war of 1803
was undertaken to compel France to abandon her republican principles,
is devoid of a shred of evidence in its favour. After 1802 there were
no French republican principles to be combated; they had already been
jettisoned; and, since Bonaparte had crushed the Jacobins, his
personal claims were favourably regarded at Whitehall, Addington even
assuring the French envoy that he would welcome the establishment of
hereditary succession in the First Consul's family.[259] But while
Bonaparte's own conduct served to refute the notion that the war of
1803 was a war of principles, his masterful policy in Europe and the
Levant convinced every well-informed man that peace was impossible;
and the rupture was accompanied by acts and insults to the "nation of
shopkeepers" that could be avenged only by torrents of blood.
Diatribes against perfidious Albion filled the French Press and
overflowed into splenetic pamphlets, one of which bade odious England
tremble under the consciousness of her bad faith and the expectation
of swift and condign chastisement. Such was the spirit in which these
nations rushed to arms; and the conflict was scarcely to cease until
Napoleon was flung out into the solitudes of the southern Atlantic.
The importance of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens will be realized if
we briefly survey Bonaparte's position after that treaty was signed. He
had regained for his adopted country a colonial empire and had given
away not a single French island. France was raised to a position of
assured strength far preferable to the perilous heights attained later
on at Tilsit. In Australia there was a prospect that the tricolour would
wave over areas as great and settlements as prosperous as those of New
South Wales and the infant town of Sydney. From the Ile de France and
the Cape of Good Hope as convenient bases of operations, British India
could easily be assailed; and a Franco-Mahratta alliance promised to
yield a victory over the troops of the East India Company. In Europe the
imminent collapse of the Turkish Empire invited a partition, whence
France might hope to gain Egypt and the Morea. The Ionian Isles were
ready to accept French annexation; and, if England withdrew her troops
from Malta, the fate of the weak Order of St. John could scarcely be a
matter of doubt.
For the fulfilment of these bright hopes one thing alone was needed, a
policy of peace and naval preparation. As yet Napoleon's navy was
comparatively weak. In March, 1803, he had only forty-three
line-of-battle ships, ten of which were on distant stations; but he
had ordered twenty-three more to be built--ten of them in Holland;
and, with the harbours of France, Holland, Flanders, and Northern
Italy at his disposal, he might hope, at the close of 1804, to
confront the flag of St. George with a superiority of force. That was
the time which his secret instructions to Decaen marked out for the
outbreak of the war that would yield to the tricolour a world-wide
supremacy.
These schemes miscarried owing to the impetuosity of their contriver.
Hustled out of the arena of European politics, and threatened with
French supremacy in the other Continents, England forthwith drew the
sword; and her action, cutting athwart the far-reaching web of the
Napoleonic intrigues, forced France to forego her oceanic plans, to
muster her forces on the Straits of Dover, and thereby to yield to the
English race the supremacy in Louisiana, India, and Australia, leaving
also the destinies of Egypt to be decided in a later age. Viewed from
the standpoint of racial expansion, the renewal of war in 1803 is the
greatest event of the century.
[Since this chapter was printed, articles on the same subject have
appeared in the "Revue Historique" (March-June, 1901) by M.
Philippson, which take almost the same view as that here presented. I
cannot, however, agree with the learned writer that Napoleon wanted
war. I think he did not, _until his navy was ready_; but it was not in
him to give way.]
NOTE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
M. Coquelle, in a work which has been translated into English by
Mr. Gordon D. Knox (G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.), has shown clearly that
the non-evacuation of Holland by Napoleon's troops and the
subjection of that Republic to French influence formed the chief
causes of war. I refer my readers to that work for details of the
negotiations in their final stages.
* * * * *