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[pg.418] 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[pg.419] 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[pg.420] 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[pg.421] 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.