1801]

NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE

1235

terrorism and anarchy, and its end a military despotism. Seeing the isolated position which England now occupied, and believing the causes for further war removed, Pitt accepted the terms of the peace, although the concessions on the part of England, especially the surrender of the Cape of Good Hope, were no doubt great. With the support then of Pitt and of the general feeling of the country, the ministry found in Parliament large majorities in favour of their peace. But Pitt's views were by no means shared by a considerable number of his late colleagues. Grenville, Windham, and Spencer clung tenaciously to their old view that Bonaparte's career was but beginning, that his policy would continue to be one of aggression, that his present offers of peace were delusive, and that for the honour of England and the safety of Europe the war should be continued.

Napoleon ap

Holland, Switzerland, and Italy.

Before the preliminaries were ratified abundant proofs were given that they were right and that Pitt was wrong. Taking advantage of the exhausted condition of the Continent, of the eager desire of Addington to secure peace, and of the position of England, which was not only without allies, but unable while negotiations were still pending to make objections upon the score of treaty rights, Bonaparte hastened to complete his ambitious projects-by the appropriation of those smaller States which had already propriates fallen into a state of dependence upon France (the Republics of Holland, Switzerland, and the North of Italy, now called the Cisalpine Republic), and by the re-establishment of the French colonial power by means of a great expedition to reconquer St. Domingo. His method of proceeding with regard to the Republics was craftily arranged so as to give to the assumption of French supremacy the appearance of voluntary action on the part of the people themselves. For Holland a constitution was drawn up in France of a strongly republican character, which, when rejected by the National Assemblies of Holland, was put to the vote of the whole body of the people, and being accepted by a very small minority, while the rest abstained from voting, was declared established by the national will (Oct. 17, 1801). In Switzerland, not yet ripe for annexation, instructions were given to the French minister to thwart all efforts at the formation of a stable constitution, and to keep things so unsettled that an appeal to France was certain sooner or later to be made, while French troops garrisoned the Republic ostensibly for the purpose of keeping order. Less delicacy was used with regard to Italy. The chief rulers of the Cisalpine Republic were summoned

to Lyons, a constitution of Bonaparte's creation given them, and they were ordered to elect as their President Bonaparte himself (Jan. 1802). The expedition to St. Domingo was made still further to advance Napoleon's projects; for thither was sent, to be destroyed by the climate, almost the whole of the army of the Rhine, the only part of the military establishment of France not wholly devoted to him.

Meanwhile the projects for the ultimate annexation of Piedmont

Negotiations at Amiens.

and Genoa were carried on, and distinct orders sent to the negotiators at Amiens to withdraw entirely from discussion the affairs of Holland, Switzerland, and the Italian Republics, in other words, to treat with England as if the affairs of Europe were entirely beyond her cognizance. The withdrawal of these points of discussion left little to be settled except minute points with regard to fisheries and prisoners, for Bonaparte also entirely refused to entertain the idea of a commercial treaty with England. The only point of interest left was Malta. According to the preliminaries this island was to be evacuated and to be restored to the Knights under the guarantee of Russia. But a new sovereign was now upon the Russian throne less likely to be under the immediate influence of France. Bonaparte therefore wished to change the terms, to destroy the fortifications of the island, thus rendering it useless in a military point of view, and to place it under the guardianship of the King of Naples; in other words, to render it at once worthless to the English and an easy prey to the French whenever they should desire to reoccupy it. In their eagerness for peace the English ministry consented to be blind to Bonaparte's aggressions, though firm upon the point of Malta, and though they refused to acknowledge the existence of the newlyorganized republics. No doubt, what the English meant was that, for the sake of peace, they would bear what Bonaparte had already done, but that any further step would produce war. Bonaparte, on the other hand, argued that the refusal to acknowledge these republics was in fact a resignation on the part of England of the right of interference with them; henceforward March 27, 1802. that country could not complain although they were incorporated with France. There were thus a number of outstanding questions left unsettled at the peace, which was finally completed on the 27th of March 1802.

Peace concluded.

But it had begun to be plain to all thinking men that it could be but a short truce; and indeed Napoleon was already writing that

1802]

BONAPARTE'S AGGRESSIONS

1237

Napoleon mis

takes the
temper of

a renewal of war was necessary for his existence, as the memory of old victories was likely speedily to pass away." In fact, he totally mistook the temper of England. Addington's ministry, no doubt, was pledged to peace, and England. was anxious at all hazards to make it durable. The people of England were indeed weary of the war and eagerly desirous for peace; but they had lost none of their independence and pride, and anything which should prove either that their honour was attacked, their commercial activity trammelled, or their independence of action limited, would easily produce a reaction, and bring them back to their warlike temper. Bonaparte, while intending to renew the war sooner or later, meant to keep the occasion in his own hands, but, trusting to the weakness of Addington, he pursued a line of conduct exactly fitted to prove to England the absolute necessity for an immediate renewal of hostilities, and which touched the sensitive nation in its most tender points. He never ceased from his course of aggression, thus treating the remonstrances of England as if continues his they were completely worthless and beside the point. aggressions. In August he annexed the island of Elba, in September the whole of Piedmont, in October Parma and Placentia; and at length, taking advantage of the carefully fostered disorders in Switzerland, he suddenly occupied that most important military point with an army of 30,000 men under Marshal Ney, and took to himself the title of Mediator of the Swiss Republic. It has been mentioned that he refused a commercial treaty with England at the Peace of Amiens; this under the plea of a desire for the protection of native commerce he undoubtedly had a right to do; but he now obliged all the countries dependent on him to adopt a similar course, to exclude English productions, and thus closed half Europe to English trade.

the English

Not content with this conduct abroad, he took upon himself to interfere with the internal affairs of England. His Demands the course of policy was such as to be wholly incompatible repression of with a free press; his underhand machinations were press, certain to be exposed where such a press existed. On the Continent he had succeeded in enforcing silence; in England alone an unfettered press was able to direct its assaults both on his policy and his character. No doubt some of the attacks were sharp enough; especially had an emigrant, one Jean Peltier, established a French paper in London called L'Ambigu, which was full of strong invective against the First Consul. Again, the emigrants had not ceased from [2 E)

CON. MON.

and the expulsion of the emigrants from England.

forming conspiracies against the French Government, conspiracies which Bonaparte delighted to exaggerate, to mingle with doubtful charges of assassination, and to connect (wholly without grounds) with the English ministry. Those emigrants were enjoying the hospitality of England: Otto, the French agent in London, was therefore instructed to bring the matter to the notice of Lord Hawkesbury, and to demand the suppression of the obnoxious papers, and the dismissal of the emigrants from England. Hawkesbury's answers were at first of a peaceful and conciliatory character. He replied that he would consult the law officers on the matter of the press, and would go so far in the matter of the emigrants as to withdraw them from the isle of Guernsey. This answer was followed by still more peremptory demands, requiring effective measures of repression with regard to the press, the withdrawal of the emigrants from Jersey, the removal from England of the Bourbon princes, and the expulsion of all emigrants wearing the orders or distinctions of the old régime. What rendered these demands more grotesque was the fact that the Moniteur, the official paper of France, was constantly full of assertions of the complicity of the Government with the attempts of assassins in France, and of libels on the English Constitution; there was even an English paper, the Argus, published in Paris, a counterpart of the Ambigu of Peltier. To demands thus formulated no English Government could afford to give a temporizing answer, and Hawkesbury replied that the freedom of the English press was limited by English law alone, and that the exercise of hospitality could not be curtailed. At the same time, as Peltier appeared to have exceeded all legal license in his writing, an action was commenced against him, and in spite of a brilliant defence by Macintosh he was found guilty.1

Such conduct on the part of Bonaparte was rapidly changing the feeling of England and rendering war inevitable. It became evident that, no longer to uphold an aristocratic government, but for our very existence as an independent country, we must plunge into war. Consequent change of feeling in England.

As this feeling gained ground, so did the desire that when that war should come it should find England in the hands of its ablest statesmen, and not in those of an incapable man like Addington. Even from the first, as soon as it was understood that Pitt, in deference to the King's weak state of health, had consented to forego the support of the Roman Catholics, his immediate friends had desired his return to office, and had regarded as false his position as the supporter out of office of 1 Owing to change of relations with France the punishment was not carried out.

1802]

NECESSITY FOR WAR

1239

Negotiations for

Nov. 1802.

Addington's weak ministry. Already, in November 1802, Canning, the most eager of his supporters, in conjunction with Lord Malmesbury, had set on foot an address to Pitt's return. Addington begging him to resign. This plan had been peremptorily closed by Pitt himself. Indeed, the obstacles in the way of his resumption of office were very awkward. In some sort the creator of the present ministry, and known to have had a share in most of their earlier measures, Pitt could not come forward in opposition till some flagrant instance of incapacity or some great national crisis should justify such a step. The only other hope was that modesty (which was not one of his characteristics) might induce Addington to acknowledge his incompetence, and himself advise the restoration of Pitt to the ministry. Fully aware of these obstacles, and feeling his position an anomalous one, Pitt withdrew for a time from Parliament.

Napoleon At examines the

of

resources of Egypt, England, and Ireland.

1803.

During his absence the difficulties with France continued to increase, and the signs of Bonaparte's intention of making war sooner or later became more obvious. length, in January 1803, was published a report Colonel Sebastiani, who had been sent by Napoleon, nominally for commercial purposes, to examine the resources of Egypt and the East; in fact, so far from being commercial in its character, the report was devoted almost entirely to show with what ease Egypt could be again conquered by the French. It was impossible that such an official document could be issued by a power which was really friendly. At the same time Bonaparte had sent both to England and to Ireland agents who, under the same commercial pretext, were really minutely examining the resources of England and instigating Irish rebellion. Nor was the question of Malta as yet at rest. The project of obtaining a guarantee from the European powers had failed, and in face of the constant aggressions of Bonaparte, it was impossible for England to evacuate the island with the certainty that it would be immediately occupied by the French. But Bonaparte was still anxious to keep the occasion of war in his own hands, and still hoped to impose upon the feeble ministry of England. He summoned His interview Lord Whitworth, the English ambassador, to an inter- Whitworth. view, in which he declared that he did not desire war, Feb. 18, 1803. but that he would rather see England in possession of the Faubourg St. Antoine than of Malta, that he was ready to attempt a descent upon England if necessary, but how much better would it be for

with Lord