To these causes we may attribute the French demands of February 4th: contradicting his earlier proposal for a temporary Neapolitan garrison of Malta, Bonaparte now absolutely refused either to grant that necessary protection to the weak Order of St. John, or to join Great Britain in an equal share of the expenses—£20,000 a year—which such a garrison would entail. The astonishment and indignation aroused at Downing Street nearly led to an immediate rupture of the negotiations; and it needed all the patience of Cornwallis and the suavity of Joseph Bonaparte to smooth away the asperities caused by Napoleon's direct intervention. It needs only a slight acquaintance with the First Consul's methods of thought and expression to recognize in the Protocol of February 4th the incisive speech of an autocrat confident in his newly-consolidated powers and irritated by the gibes of Peltier.[195]
The good sense of the two plenipotentiaries at Amiens before long effected a reconciliation. Hawkesbury, writing from Downing Street, warned Cornwallis that if a rupture were to take place it must not be owing to "any impatience on our part": and he, in his turn, affably inquired from Joseph Bonaparte whether he had any more practicable plan than that of a Neapolitan garrison, which he had himself proposed. No plan was forthcoming other than that of a garrison of 1,000 Swiss mercenaries; and as this was open to grave objections, the original proposal was finally restored. On its side, the Court of St. James still refused to blow up the fortifications at Valetta; and rather than destroy those works, England had already offered that the independence of Malta should be guaranteed by the Great Powers—Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Spain, and Prussia: to this arrangement France soon assented. Later on we demanded that the Neapolitan garrison should remain in Malta for three years after the evacuation of the island by the British troops; whereas France desired to limit the period to one year. To this Cornwallis finally assented, with the proviso that, "if the Order of St. John shall not have raised a sufficient number of men, the Neapolitan troops shall remain until they shall be relieved by an adequate force, to be agreed upon by the guaranteeing Powers." The question of the garrison having been arranged, other details gave less trouble, and the Maltese question was settled in the thirteen conditions added to Clause X. of the definitive treaty.
Though this complex question was thus adjusted by March 17th, other matters delayed a settlement.
Hawkesbury still demanded a definite indemnity for the Prince of Orange, but Cornwallis finally assented to Article XVIII. of the treaty, which vaguely promised "an adequate compensation." Cornwallis also persuaded his chief to waive his claims for the direct participation of Turkey in the treaty. The British demand for an indemnity for the expense of supporting French prisoners was to be relegated to commissioners—who never met. Indeed, this was the only polite way of escaping from the untenable position which our Government had heedlessly taken upon this topic.
It is clear from the concluding despatches of Cornwallis that he was wheedled by Joseph Bonaparte into conceding more than the British Government had empowered him to do; and, though the "secret and most confidential" despatch of March 22nd cautioned him against narrowing too much the ground of a rupture, if a rupture should still occur, yet three days later, and after the receipt of this despatch, he signed the terms of peace with Joseph Bonaparte, and two days later with the other signatory Powers.[196] It may well be doubted whether peace would ever have been signed but for the skill of Joseph Bonaparte in polite cajolery and the determination of Cornwallis to arrive at an understanding. In any case the final act of signature was distinctly the act, not of the British Government, but of its plenipotentiary.
That fact is confirmed by his admission, on March 28th, that he had yielded where he was ordered to remain inflexible. At St. Helena, Napoleon also averred that after Cornwallis had definitely pledged himself to sign the treaty as it stood on the night of March 24th, he received instructions in a contrary sense from Downing Street; that nevertheless he held himself bound by his promise and signed the treaty on the following day, observing that his Government, if dissatisfied, might refuse to ratify it, but that, having pledged his word, he felt bound to abide by it. This story seems consonant with the whole behaviour of Cornwallis, so creditable to him as a man, so damaging to him as a diplomatist. The later events of the negotiation aroused much annoyance at Downing Street, and the conduct of Cornwallis met with chilling disapproval.
The First Consul, on the other hand, showed his appreciation of his brother's skill with unusual warmth; for when they appeared together at the opera in Paris, he affectionately thrust his elder brother to the front of the State box to receive the plaudits of the audience at the advent of a definite peace. That was surely the purest and noblest joy which the brothers ever tasted.
With what feelings of pride, not unmixed with awe, must the brothers have surveyed their career. Less than nine years had elapsed since their family fled from Corsica, and landed on the coast of Provence, apparently as bankrupt in their political hopes as in their material fortunes. Thrice did the fickle goddess cast Napoleon to the ground in the first two years of his new life, only that his wondrous gifts and sublime self-confidence might tower aloft the more conspicuously, bewildering alike the malcontents of Paris, the generals of the old Empire, the peoples of the Levant, and the statesmen of Britain. Of all these triumphs assuredly the last was not the least. The Peace of Amiens left France the arbitress of Europe, and, by restoring to her all her lost colonies, it promised to place her in the van of the oceanic and colonizing peoples.
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