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.
To many persons his position has seemed logically unassailable; but it is difficult to see how this view can be held. The Treaty of Amiens had twice over been rendered, in a technical sense, null and void by the action of Continental Powers. Russia and Prussia had not guaranteed the state of things arranged for Malta by that treaty; and the action of France and Spain in confiscating the property of the Knights in their respective lands had so far sapped the strength of the Order that it could never again support the expense of the large garrison which the lines around Valetta required.
In a military sense, this was the crux of the problem; for no one affected to believe that Malta was rendered secure by the presence at Valetta of 2,000 troops of the King of Naples, whose realm could within a week be overrun by Murat's division. This obvious difficulty led Lord Hawkesbury to urge, in his notes of April 13th and later, that British troops should garrison the chief fortifications of Valetta and leave the civil power to the Knights: or, if that were found objectionable, that we should retain complete possession of the island for ten years, provided that we were left free to negotiate with the King of Naples for the cession of Lampedusa, an islet to the west of Malta. To this last proposal the First Consul offered no objection; but he still inflexibly opposed any retention of Malta, even for ten years, and sought to make the barren islet of Lampedusa appear an equivalent to Malta. This absurd contention had, however, been exploded by Talleyrand's indiscreet confession "that the re-establishment of the Order of St. John was not so much the point to be discussed as that of suffering Great Britain to acquire a possession in the Mediterranean."[253]
This, indeed, was the pith and marrow of the whole question, whether Great Britain was to be excluded from that great sea—save at Gibraltar and Lampedusa—looking on idly at its transformation into a French lake by the seizure of Corfu, the Morea, Egypt, and Malta itself; or whether she should retain some hold on the overland route to the East. The difficulty was frankly pointed out by Lord Whitworth; it was as frankly admitted by Joseph Bonaparte; it was recognized by Talleyrand; and Napoleon's desire for a durable peace must have been slight when he refused to admit England's claim effectively to safeguard her interests in the Levant, and ever fell back on the literal fulfilment of a treaty which had been invalidated by his own deliberate actions.
Affairs now rapidly came to a climax. On April 23rd the British Government notified its ambassador that, if the present terms were not granted within seven days of his receiving them, he was to leave Paris. Napoleon was no less angered than surprised by the recent turn of events. In place of timid complaisance which he had expected from Addington, he was met with open defiance; but he now proposed that the Czar should offer his intervention between the disputants. The suggestion was infinitely skilful. It flattered the pride of the young autocrat and promised to yield gains as substantial as those which Russian mediation had a year before procured for France from the intimidated Sultan; it would help to check the plans for an Anglo-Russian alliance then being mooted at St. Petersburg, and, above all, it served to gain time.
All these advantages were to a large extent realized. Though the Czar had been the first to suggest our retention of Malta, he now began to waver. The clearness and precision of Talleyrand's notes, and the telling charge of perfidy against England, made an impression which the cumbrous retorts of Lord Hawkesbury and the sailor-like diplomacy of Admiral Warren failed to efface.[254] And the Russian Chancellor, Vorontzoff, though friendly to England, and desirous of seeing her firmly established at Malta, now began to complain of the want of clearness in her policy. The Czar emphasized this complaint, and suggested that, as Malta could not be the real cause of dispute, the British Government should formulate distinctly its grievances and so set the matter in train for a settlement. The suggestion was not complied with. To draw up a long list of complaints, some drawn from secret sources and exposing the First Consul's schemes, would have exasperated his already ruffled temper; and the proposal can only be regarded as an adroit means of justifying Alexander's sudden change of front.
Meanwhile events had proceeded apace at Paris. On April 26th Joseph Bonaparte made a last effort to bend his brother's will, but only gained the grudging concession that Napoleon would never consent to the British retention of Malta for a longer time than three or four years. As this would have enabled him to postpone the rupture long enough to mature his oriental plans, it was rejected by Lord Whitworth, who insisted on ten years as the minimum. The evident determination of the British Government speedily to terminate the affair, one way or the other, threw Napoleon into a paroxysm of passion; and at the diplomatic reception of May 1st, from which Lord Whitworth discreetly absented himself, he vehemently inveighed against its conduct. Fretted by the absence of our ambassador, for whom this sally had been intended, he returned to St. Cloud, and there dictated this curious epistle to Talleyrand:
"I desire that your conference [with Lord Whitworth] shall not degenerate into a conversation. Show yourself cold, reserved, and even somewhat proud. If the [British] note contains the word ultimatum make him feel that this word implies war; if it does not contain this word, make him insert it, remarking to him that we must know where we are, that we are tired of this state of anxiety…. Soften down a little at the end of the conference, and invite him to return before writing to his Court."
But this careful rehearsal was to avail nothing; our stolid ambassador was not to be cajoled, and on May 2nd, that is, seven days after his presenting our ultimatum, he sent for his passports. He did not, however, set out immediately. Yielding to an urgent request, he delayed his departure in order to hear the French reply to the British ultimatum.[255] It notified sarcastically that Lampedusa was not in the First Consul's power to bestow, that any change with reference to Malta must be referred by Great Britain to the Great Powers for their concurrence, and that Holland would be evacuated as soon as the terms of the Treaty of Amiens were complied with. Another proposal was that Malta should be transferred to Russia—the very step which was proposed at Amiens and was rejected by the Czar: on that account Lord Whitworth now refused it as being merely a device to gain time. The sending of his passports having been delayed, he received one more despatch from Downing Street, which allowed that our retention of Malta for ten years should form a secret article—a device which would spare the First Consul's susceptibilities on the point of honour. Even so, however, Napoleon refused to consider a longer tenure than two or three years. And in this he was undoubtedly encouraged by the recent despatch from St. Petersburg, wherein the Czar promised his mediation in a sense favourable to France. This unfortunate occurrence completed the discomfiture of the peace party at the Consular Court, and in a long and heated discussion in a council held at St. Cloud on May 11th all but Joseph Bonaparte and Talleyrand voted for the rejection of the British demands.
On the next day Lord Whitworth left Paris. During his journey to Calais he received one more proposal, that France should hold the peninsula of Otranto for ten years if Great Britain retained Malta for that period; but if this suggestion was made in good faith, which is doubtful, its effect was destroyed by a rambling diatribe which Talleyrand, at his master's orders, sent shortly afterwards.[256] In any case it was looked upon by our ambassador as a last attempt to gain time for the concentration of the French naval forces. He crossed the Straits of Dover on May 17th, the day before the British declaration of war was issued.