From the earliest moment of his assumption of power Napoleon had conceived the idea that England, “a mere nation of shopkeepers,” could be most effectually injured by directing his hostility against her trade, and certain it is that, with unintermitting pertinacity, he tried to carry out this design. It happened, however, that military men and engineers were selected to act as “commercial agents,” the two most able and active of whom having actually commenced their duties in Guernsey and Dublin, while others arrived in London to receive final instructions from leaders who had been recognised by Lord Hawkesbury, the English Commissary-general of the commercial relations with the French republic in London. The English government could hardly fail to notice these suspicious circumstances, revealing as they did but too plainly the object of these pseudo-commercial agents. Lord Hawkesbury consequently made a verbal representation to the French ambassador of the facts; but his reply was so flimsy and unsatisfactory, that the French agents were detained in London, with a further intimation that if they left it they would at once receive orders to quit the country.
Aggrandisement of Bonaparte.
Irritation in England.
It is unnecessary to recapitulate at length the various acts by which Bonaparte, during a presumed period of peace, endeavoured to aggrandise his power. Suffice it to say that he despatched an enormous military force to the island of San Domingo with a view of placing the colonial power of France in the West Indies on a level with that of Great Britain: an expedition which, however, proved most disastrous, many thousands of his soldiers finding their graves in a climate singularly dangerous to European constitutions.[253] But when Bonaparte sent Ney with thirty thousand men “to give,” in the phraseology of the day, “a constitution” to Switzerland, the war party in England roused the entire nation to energetic action, and, though the public language of ministers still breathed a spirit of peace, it was resolved that effectual steps should be taken to curb Napoleon’s further progress.
Italy, Holland, and Liguria (as the Genoese republic was called at that time) had fallen under his iron rule. Spain he had likewise overawed, while exercising a predominating influence over Austria, whose power he had humbled; and, in the opinion of the French people, the insular position of England alone “prevented her from being absorbed into a French province,” thus sinking beneath the domineering power of the French Dictator. The very thought of such humiliating conditions was totally incompatible with the independent spirit of Englishmen. The newspaper press, though at that time swayed by a spirit of party, yet still free, sounded the alarm, and attacked the ruler of France with an undaunted spirit, which Bonaparte could not endure. He lost all temper when complaining of the unmistakable opinions expressed of his conduct and intentions by the English press; though the too complaisant English ministers prosecuted the offending parties.[254] In the midst of this excitement the question of the surrender of Malta arose, only to intensify the suspicions of the English people, the more so as Bonaparte was making prodigious preparations of a military and naval character in Holland.
Bonaparte’s interview with Lord Whitworth.
Although Talleyrand on the 18th of February, 1803, in a conference, told Lord Whitworth that Sebastiani’s mission was “purely commercial,” his lordship on the same day received a message from the First Consul, appointing a personal interview to be held at the Tuileries three days afterwards, which revealed a very different state of things. This celebrated interview, which lasted two hours, had been previously carefully rehearsed by Bonaparte, with the idea of either deceiving or intimidating England. “Every wind which blows from England,” exclaimed the petulant ruler of France, as he stood at one end of his table with Lord Whitworth at the other, “is charged with hatred and outrage;” and in this strain he harangued the ambassador throughout, inveighing with bitterness against England, though drawing the veil carefully to conceal his own acts of territorial ambition; and, in the midst of his tirades, throwing out broad hints that if England and France were but united they might share the whole world between them.[255] “As for Malta,” he exclaimed, after he had worked himself into a frenzy, “my mind is made up; I would rather see the English in possession of the heights of Montmartre[256] than that they should continue to hold Malta.” Lord Whitworth stared in calm, imperturbable silence at this outbreak of well-feigned passion; but, on that same evening, made his government acquainted with the extraordinary conversation to which he had listened, the most startling matter of which was the First Consul’s declaration “that Egypt must sooner or later belong to France;” and that in the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire France would take care to have her share. A few days later, conscious of the folly of his previous speech, he caused it to be notified to Lord Whitworth that “a project was in contemplation, by which the integrity of the Turkish Empire would be effectually secured,” Napoleon having evidently perceived that he had overshot his mark, and, therefore, that he must endeavour to obliterate the impression he had made on the mind of the English ambassador.
The English ministers try to gain time.
The bolt was however shot, and to retrieve his indiscretion was beyond his power. The English ministry, although they saw that war was inevitable, were desirous of protracting the issue; they, therefore, desired Lord Whitworth to state that His Majesty could not evacuate Malta till substantial security was provided for those objects which might be materially endangered by the removal of his troops. While England was firm, Bonaparte, on the other hand, as was often his habit whenever his schemes were thwarted, rashly published an extravagant paper in the Moniteur, as an exposition of the powerful state of France, and of his own glory. The whole of the past policy of France, together with his intentions, were disclosed in this ostentatious instrument. The other powers on the continent were plainly told how impossible it would be for any of them to obstruct or interfere with the prosecution of French designs; while they were reminded of the advantages to be derived from the protection of France, and of the destructive consequences of her enmity.
Excitement in England.