" ... 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[pg.413] 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.
[pg.414] 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 [pg.415] 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[pg.416] 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[pg.417] that she alone could not maintain a struggle against France.[[246]]