In their instructions to the auctioneer, the Government made conditions that the tenants were to keep the buildings in repair, and to deliver them up on three months’ notice if required. The property does not read in the advertisement as one that there would be a rush for.
The landlord of the Old Bell Inn, still in the glory of the coaching and posting days, apparently treated for the wooden building, containing the two houses occupied one by Captain Woodriff the agent and the other by the steward and another officer, the rental of Captain Woodriff’s house to be £12 and that adjoining £10; but even at that rent he did not close.
In January 1803 the whole was let to Mr. Henderson, on condition that he lived on the premises, the barrack master keeping one key of the great gate. Mr. Henderson paid an extra sum of £10 for Captain Woodriff’s house, which he probably wished to fit up either for his own residence or for the man whom he proposed to leave in charge when he was in London attending to another business which he had there; he also agreed to level the huts, which are not represented on any of the plans, and to sow the ground covered by them with grass seeds.
His tenancy lasted only six months. Hostilities recommenced in May 1803, and on 3rd July Henderson had to hand over everything to two clerks appointed by the Admiralty. He pleaded that he had ploughed and sown crops, and claimed £30 18s. compensation; he received £18 13s. On the whole the Government would probably have saved money if they had locked the gates when Captain Woodriff, their agent, left the empty depot in June 1802, kept the keys themselves, and unlocked them on the 3rd July 1803.
Between those dates much had taken place to affect the history of the Depot. The complete supremacy of the British Fleet, the blow given to the Northern Alliance (the Armed Neutrality) by Nelson in the battle of Copenhagen, and on the other hand the defeats inflicted on Austria, England’s continental ally, on whom she relied for her land forces, and the consequent Treaty of Lunéville, left England and France alike in a position which made them in 1802 anxious for a cessation of hostilities, the Treaty of Amiens being the result.
But its conditions were not such as to satisfy the British, who gave up all their conquests but Trinidad and Ceylon, restored the Cape to Holland, with the condition that it should be a free port, and agreed that Malta was to go back to the Knights of St. John, under the guarantee of one of the Great Powers. France also made sacrifices and withdrew claims, but to the British nation these did not appear to balance those made by their own Government. Buonaparte had no intention of allowing the peace to be more than a truce. Among other objects he had in view, he recovered his veterans from their confinement in English prisons, and he never paused in his ambitious schemes. He strove to increase French influence in Switzerland, Holland, and Italy. Under the name of consuls he sent agents to England and Ireland, their real object being to make themselves acquainted with the resources of those countries and the chance of their successful invasion. Egypt had been restored to the Porte by the Treaty, but instead of evacuating that country, the First Consul was utilising his position there to equip a fresh army.
In the face of these proceedings Britain did not withdraw her troops from Egypt, nor did she evacuate Malta, which she should have done in fulfilment of the Article which restored that island to the Knights of St. John. Angry disputes arose over her action, or rather want of action, in this matter. Commenting on the Treaty of Amiens, Count Guillaume de Garden [245] writes:
“L’article est le plus important de tout le Traité, mais aucune des conditions qu’il renferme n’a été exécutée et il est devenu le prétexte d’une guerre, qui s’est renouvelée en 1803 et a duré sans interruption jusqu’en 1814.”
The complaint of the First Consul against the English Press, and his demands that Britain should alter her laws, putting restraints on the liberty of the Press, and depriving of their freedom those living under her protection, roused the indignation of the country. The British Government prosecuted under her own laws a Frenchman, M. Peltier, who in articles he had written had brought himself within the arm of the law of the land, but it refused to alter those laws at the bidding of another power. M. Norvus, Napoleon’s apologist, wrote:
“Napoleon demanded from Great Britain what was nearly the same thing as proposing the sacrifice of its constitution, and to insist upon its abandoning the two pillars of its freedom, the liberty of the press, and the privilege of Habeas Corpus.”