_General Indignation of Europe in consequence of the Murder of the
Duke d'Enghien--Russia complains to Talleyrand of the Violation of
Baden--and, along with Sweden, Remonstrates in a Note laid before
the German Diet--but without effect--Charges brought by Buonaparte
against Mr. Drake and Mr. Spencer Smith--who are
accordingly Dismissed from the Courts of Stuttgard and
Munich--Seizure--Imprisonment--and Dismissal--of Sir George Rumbold,
the British Envoy at Lower Saxony--Treachery attempted against Lord
Elgin, by the Agents of Buonaparte--Details--Defeated by the
Exemplary Prudence of that Nobleman--These Charges brought before
the House of Commons--and peremptorily Denied by the Chancellor of
the Exchequer._
[Sidenote: GENERAL INDIGNATION OF EUROPE.]
Buonaparte, as we have seen, gained a great accession of power by the
event of Pichegru's conspiracy. But this was, in some measure,
counterbalanced by the diminution of character which attached to the
kidnapping and murdering the Duke d'Enghien, and by the foul suspicions
arising from the mysterious fate of Pichegru and Wright. He possessed no
longer the respect which might be claimed by a victor and legislator,
but had distinctly shown that either the sudden tempest of ungoverned
passion, or the rankling feelings of personal hatred, could induce him
to take the readiest means of wreaking the basest, as well as the
bloodiest vengeance. Deep indignation was felt through every country on
the Continent, though Russia and Sweden alone ventured to express their
dissatisfaction with a proceeding so contrary to the law of nations. The
court of St. Petersburg went into state mourning for the Duke d'Enghien,
and while the Russian minister at Paris presented a note to M.
Talleyrand, complaining of the violation of the Duke of Baden's
territory, the Russian resident at Ratisbon was instructed to lay before
the Diet of the Empire a remonstrance to the same effect. The Swedish
minister did the same. The answer of the French minister was hostile and
offensive.[68] He treated with scorn the pretensions of Russia to
interfere in the affairs of France and Germany, and accused that power
of being desirous to rekindle the flames of war in Europe. This
correspondence tended greatly to inflame the discontents already
subsisting betwixt France and Russia, and was one main cause of again
engaging France in war with that powerful enemy.
The Russian and Swedish remonstrance to the Diet produced no effect.
Austria was too much depressed, Prussia was too closely leagued with
France to be influenced by it; and there were none of the smaller powers
who could be expected to provoke the displeasure of the first consul,
by seconding the complaint of the violation of the territory of Baden.
The blood of the Duke d'Enghien was not, however, destined to sleep
unavenged in his obscure dwelling. The Duke of Baden himself requested
the matter might be left to silence and oblivion; but many of the German
potentates felt as men, what they dared not, in their hour of weakness,
resent as princes. It was a topic repeatedly and efficaciously resumed
whenever an opportunity of resistance against the universal conqueror
presented itself; and the perfidy and cruelty of the whole transaction
continued to animate new enemies against him, until, in the issue, they
became strong enough to work his overthrow. From the various and
inconsistent pleas which Buonaparte set up in defence of his
conduct--now attempting to justify, now to apologize for, now to throw
on others a crime which he alone had means and interest to commit, it is
believed that he felt the death of the Duke d'Enghien to be the most
reprehensible as well as the most impolitic act in his life.
Already aware of the unpopularity which attached to his late cruel
proceedings, Buonaparte became desirous to counterbalance it by filling
the public mind with a terrific idea of the schemes of England, which,
in framing and encouraging attempts upon his life, drove him to those
unusual and extraordinary acts, which he desired to represent as
measures of retaliation. Singular manœuvres were resorted to for the
purpose of confirming the opinions which he was desirous to impress upon
the world. The imprudence--so, at least, it seems--of Mr. Drake, British
resident at Munich, enabled Buonaparte to make his charges against
England with some speciousness. This agent of the British Government had
maintained a secret correspondence with a person of infamous character,
called Mehee de la Touche, who, affecting the sentiments of a Royalist
and enemy of Buonaparte, was, in fact, employed by the first consul to
trepan Mr. Drake into expressions which might implicate the English
ministers, his constituents, and furnish grounds for the accusations
which Buonaparte made against them. It certainly appears that Mr. Drake
endeavoured, by the medium of de la Touche, to contrive the means of
effecting an insurrection of the Royalists, or other enemies of
Buonaparte, with whom his country was then at war; and, in doing so, he
acted according to the practice of all belligerent powers, who, on all
occasions, are desirous to maintain a communication with such
malecontents as may exist in the hostile nation. But, unless by the
greatest distortion of phrase and expression, there arises out of the
letters not the slightest room to believe that Mr. Drake encouraged the
party with whom he supposed himself to be in correspondence, to proceed
by the mode of assassination, or any others that are incompatible with
the law of nations, and acknowledged by civilized governments. The error
of Mr. Drake seems to have been, that he was not sufficiently cautious
respecting the sincerity of the person with whom he maintained his
intercourse. Mr. Spencer Smith, the British envoy at Stuttgard, was
engaged in a similar intrigue, which appears also to have been a snare
spread for him by the French Government.
Buonaparte failed not to make the utmost use of these pretended
discoveries, which were promulgated with great form by Regnier,[69] who
held the office of grand judge. He invoked the faith of nations, as if
the Duke d'Enghien had been still residing in peaceable neutrality at
Ettenheim, and exclaimed against assassination, as if his state dungeons
could not have whispered of the death of Pichegru. The complaisant
sovereigns of Stuttgard and Munich readily ordered Smith and Drake to
leave their courts; and the latter was forced to depart on foot, and by
crossroads, to avoid being kidnapped by the French gendarmes.
[Sidenote: SIR GEORGE RUMBOLD.]
The fate which Mr. Drake dreaded, and perhaps narrowly escaped, actually
befell Sir George Rumbold, resident at the free German city of Hamburgh,
in the capacity of his British Majesty's envoy to the Circle of Lower
Saxony. On the night of the 25th October, he was seized, in violation of
the rights attached by the law of nations to the persons of ambassadors,
as well as to the territories of neutral countries, by a party of the
French troops, who crossed the Elbe for that purpose. The envoy, with
his papers, was then transferred to Paris in the capacity of a close
prisoner, and thrown into the fatal Temple. The utmost anxiety was
excited even amongst Buonaparte's ministers, lest this imprisonment
should be intended as a prelude to further violence; and both Fouché and
Talleyrand exerted what influence they possessed over the mind of
Napoleon, to prevent the proceedings which were to be apprehended. The
King of Prussia also extended his powerful interposition; and the result
was, that Sir George Rumbold, after two days' imprisonment, was
dismissed to England, on giving his parole not to return to Hamburgh. It
seems probable, although the _Moniteur_ calls this gentleman the worthy
associate of Drake and Spencer Smith, and speaks of discoveries amongst
his papers which were to enlighten the public on the policy of England,
that nothing precise was alleged against him, even to palliate the
outrage which the French ruler had committed.
The tenor of Buonaparte's conduct in another instance, towards a British
nobleman of distinction, though his scheme was rendered abortive by the
sagacity of the noble individual against whom it was directed, is a
striking illustration of the species of intrigue practised by the French
police, and enables us to form a correct judgment of the kind of
evidence upon which Buonaparte brought forward his calumnious accusation
against Britain and her subjects.
[Sidenote: LORD ELGIN.]
The Earl of Elgin, lately ambassador of Great Britain at the Porte, had,
contrary to the usage among civilized nations, been seized upon with his
family as he passed through the French territory; and during the period
of which we are treating, he was residing upon his parole near Pau, in
the south of France, as one of the _Détenus_. Shortly after the arrest
of Moreau, Georges, &c., an order arrived for committing his lordship to
close custody, in reprisal, it was said, of severities exercised in
England on the French General Boyer. The truth was, that the affair of
General Boyer had been satisfactorily explained to the French
Government. In the Parisian papers, on the contrary, his lordship's
imprisonment was ascribed to barbarities which he was said to have
instigated against the French prisoners of war in Turkey--a charge
totally without foundation. Lord Elgin was, however, transferred to the
strong castle of Lourdes, situated on the descent of the Pyrenees, where
the commandant received him, though a familiar acquaintance, with the
reserve and coldness of an entire stranger. Attempts were made by this
gentleman and his lieutenant to exasperate the feelings which must
naturally agitate the mind of a man torn from the bosom of his family,
and committed to close custody in a remote fortress, where the
accommodation was as miserable as the castle itself was gloomy, strong,
and ominously secluded from the world. They failed, however, in
extracting from their prisoner any expressions of violence or
impatience, however warranted by the usage to which he was subjected.
After a few days' confinement, a sergeant of the guard delivered to Lord
Elgin a letter, the writer of which informed him, that, being his fellow
prisoner, and confined in a secluded dungeon, he regretted he could not
wait on his lordship, but that when he walked in the court-yard, he
could have conversation with him at the window of his room. Justly
suspecting this communication, Lord Elgin destroyed the letter; and
while he gave the sergeant a louis-d'or, told him, that if he or any of
his comrades should again bring him any secret letter or message, he
would inform the commandant of the circumstance. Shortly afterwards, the
commandant of the fortress, in conversation with Lord Elgin, spoke of
the prisoner in question as a person whose health was suffering for want
of exercise; and next day his lordship saw the individual walking in the
court-yard before his window. He manifested every disposition to engage
his lordship in conversation, which Lord Elgin successfully avoided.
A few weeks afterwards, and not till he had been subjected to several
acts of severity and vexation, Lord Elgin was permitted to return to
Pau. But he was not yet extricated from the nets in which it was the
fraudulent policy of the French Government to involve him. The female,
who acted as porter to his lordship's lodgings, one morning presented
him with a packet, which she said had been left by a woman from the
country, who was to call for an answer. With the same prudence which
distinguished his conduct at Lourdes, Lord Elgin detained the portress
in the apartment, and found that the letter was from the state prisoner
already mentioned; that it contained an account of his being imprisoned
for an attempt to burn the French fleet; and detailed his plan as one
which he had still in view, and which he held out in the colours most
likely, as he judged, to interest an Englishman. The packet also covered
letters to the Comte d'Artois, and other foreigners of distinction,
which Lord Elgin was requested to forward with his best convenience.
Lord Elgin thrust the letters into the fire in presence of the portress,
and kept her in the room till they were entirely consumed; explaining to
her, at the same time, that such letters to him as might be delivered by
any other channel than the ordinary post, should be at once sent to the
governor of the town. His lordship judged it his farther duty to mention
to the prefect the conspiracy detailed in the letter, under the
condition, however, that no steps should be taken in consequence, unless
the affair became known from some other quarter.
Some short time after these transactions, and when Buonaparte was
appointed to assume the imperial crown, (at which period there was hope
of a general act of grace, which should empty the prisons,) Lord Elgin's
fellow-captive at Lourdes, being, it seems, a real prisoner, as well as
a spy, in hopes of meriting a share in this measure of clemency, made a
full confession of all which he had done or designed to do against
Napoleon's interest. Lord Elgin was naturally interested in this
confession, which appeared in the _Moniteur_, and was a good deal
surprised to see that a detail, otherwise minute, bore no reference to,
or correspondence regarding, the plan of burning the Brest fleet. He
lost no time in writing an account of the particulars we have mentioned
to a friend at Paris, by whom they were communicated to Monsieur
Fargues, senator of the district of Bearn, whom these plots particularly
interested as having his senatorie for their scene. When Lord Elgin's
letter was put into his hand, the senator changed countenance, and
presently after expressed his high congratulation at what he called Lord
Elgin's providential escape. He then intimated, with anxious hesitation,
that the whole was a plot to entrap Lord Elgin; that the letters were
written at Paris, and sent down to Bearn by a confidential agent, with
the full expectation that they would be found in his lordship's
possession. This was confirmed by the commandant of Lourdes, with whom
Lord Elgin had afterwards an unreserved communication, in which he laid
aside the jailor, and resumed the behaviour of a gentleman. He imputed
Lord Elgin's liberation to the favourable report which he himself and
his lieutenant had made of the calm and dignified manner in which his
lordship had withstood the artifices which they had been directed to
use, with a view of working on his feelings, and leading him into some
intemperance of expression against France or her ruler; which might
have furnished a pretext for treating him with severity, and for
implicating the British Government in the imprudence of one of her
nobles, invested with a diplomatic character.[70]
The above narrative forms a singularly luminous commentary on the
practices imputed to Messrs. Drake and Spencer, and subsequently to Sir
George Rumbold; nor is it a less striking illustration of the detention
of the unfortunate Captain Wright. With one iota less of prudence and
presence of mind, Lord Elgin must have been entangled in the snare which
was so treacherously spread for him. Had he even engaged in ten minutes
conversation with the villanous spy and incendiary, it would have been
in the power of such a wretch to represent the import after his own
pleasure. Or had his lordship retained the packet of letters even for
half an hour in his possession, which he might have most innocently
done, he would probably have been seized with them upon his person, and
it must in that case have been impossible for him to repel such
accusations, as Buonaparte would have no doubt founded on a circumstance
so suspicious.
While Napoleon used such perfidious means, in order to attach, if
possible, to a British ambassador of such distinguished rank, the charge
of carrying on intrigues against his person, the British ministers, in a
tone the most manly and dignified, disclaimed the degrading charges
which had been circulated against them through Europe. When the topic
was introduced by Lord Morpeth[71] into the British House of Commons, by
a motion respecting the correspondence of Drake, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer replied, "I thank the noble lord for giving me an opportunity
to repel, openly and courageously, one of the most gross and most
atrocious calumnies ever fabricated in one civilized nation to the
prejudice of another. I affirm, that no power has been given, no
instruction has been sent, by this government to any individual, to act
in a manner contrary to the law of nations. I again affirm, as well in
my own name as in that of my colleagues, that we have not authorised any
human being to conduct himself in a manner contrary to the honour of
this country, or the dictates of humanity."[72]
This explicit declaration, made by British ministers in a situation
where detected falsehood would have proved dangerous to those by whom it
was practised, is to be placed against the garbled correspondence of
which the French possessed themselves, by means violently subversive of
the law of nations; and which correspondence was the result of intrigues
that would never have existed but for the treacherous suggestions of
their own agents.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] See Annual Register, vol. xlvi., pp. 642-656.
[69] For the First and Second Reports of the Grand Judge to the First
Consul, on the alleged Conspiracies against him, see Annual Register,
vol. xlvi., pp. 619, 622.
[70] This account is abstracted from the full details which Lord Elgin
did us the honour to communicate in an authenticated manuscript.--S.
[71] Now Earl of Carlisle.
[72] See Parliamentary Debates, April 16, 1804, vol. ii., p. 131.