CHAPTER XXII.
Return to the external Relations of France—Her universal Ascendency—Napoleon's advances to the Emperor Paul—Plan of destroying the British Power in India—Right of Search at Sea—Death of Paul—Its effects on Buonaparte—Affairs of Egypt—Assassination of Kleber—Menou appointed to succeed him—British Army lands in Egypt—Battle and Victory of Alexandria—Death of Sir Ralph Abercromby—General Hutchinson succeeds him—The French General Belliard capitulates—as does Menou—War in Egypt brought to a victorious Conclusion.
THE EMPEROR PAUL.
Having thus given a glance at the internal affairs of France during the commencement of Buonaparte's domination, we return to her external relations, which, since the peace of Luneville, had assumed the appearance of universal ascendency, so much had the current of human affairs been altered by the talents and fortunes of one man. Not only was France in secure possession, by the treaty of Luneville, of territories extending to the banks of the Rhine, but the surrounding nations were, under the plausible names of protection or alliance, as submissive to her government as if they had made integral parts of her dominions. Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, were all in a state of subjection to her will; Spain, like a puppet, moved but at her signal; Austria was broken-spirited and dejected; Prussia still remembered her losses in the first revolutionary war; and Russia, who alone could be considered as unmoved by any fear of France, was yet in a situation to be easily managed, by flattering and cajoling the peculiar temper of the Emperor Paul.
We have already observed, that Buonaparte had artfully availed himself of the misunderstanding between Austria and Russia, to insinuate himself into the good graces of the Czar. The disputes between Russia and England gave him still further advantages over the mind of that incautious monarch.
The refusal of Britain to cede the almost impregnable fortress of Malta, and with it the command of the Mediterranean, to a power who was no longer friendly, was aggravated by her declining to admit Russian prisoners into the cartel of exchange betwixt the French and British. Buonaparte contrived to make his approaches to the Czar in a manner calculated to bear upon both these subjects of grievance. He presented to Paul, who affected to be considered as the Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the sword given by the Pope to the heroic John de la Valette, who was at the head of the Order during the celebrated defence of Malta against the Turks.[632] With the same view of placing his own conduct in a favourable contrast with that of Great Britain, he new-clothed and armed eight or nine thousand Russian prisoners, and dismissed them freely, in token of his personal esteem for the character of the Emperor.
A more secret and scandalous mode of acquiring interest is said to have been attained, through the attachment of the unfortunate prince to a French actress of talents and beauty, who had been sent from Paris for the express purpose of acquiring his affections. From these concurring reasons, Paul began now openly to manifest himself as the warm friend of France, and the bitter enemy of Britain. In the former capacity, he had the weak and unworthy complaisance to withdraw the hospitality which he had hitherto afforded to the relics of the royal family of Bourbon, who were compelled to remove from Mittau, where they had been hitherto permitted to reside.
To gratify his pique against England, Paul gave hearing at least to a magnificent scheme, by which Buonaparte proposed to accomplish the destruction of the British power in India, which he had in vain hoped to assail by the possession of Egypt. The scheme was now to be effected by the union of the French and Russian troops, which were to force their way to British India overland, through the kingdom of Persia; and a plan of such a campaign was seriously in agitation. Thirty-five thousand French were to descend the Danube into the Black sea; and then, being wafted across that sea and the sea of Azof, were to march by land to the banks of the Wolga. Here they were again to be embarked, and descend the river to Astracan, and from thence were to cross the Caspian sea to Astrabad, where they were to be joined by a Russian army, equal in force to their own. It was thought that, marching through Persia by Herat, Ferah, and Candahar, the Russo-Gallic army might reach the Indus in forty-five days from Astrabad. This gigantic project would scarce have been formed by any less daring genius than Napoleon; nor could any prince, with a brain less infirm than Paul's, have agreed to become his tool in so extraordinary an undertaking, from which France was to derive all the advantage.[633]
A nearer mode of injuring the interests of England than this overland march to India, was in the power of the Emperor of Russia. A controversy being in dependence betwixt England and the northern courts, afforded the pretext for throwing his weight into the scale against her at this dangerous crisis.
The right of search at sea, that is, the right of stopping a neutral or friendly vessel, and taking out of her the goods belonging to an enemy, is acknowledged in the earliest maritime codes. But England, by her naval superiority, had been enabled to exert this right so generally that it became the subject of much heart-burning to neutral powers. The association of the Northern states in 1780, known by the name of the Armed Neutrality, had for its object to put down this right of search, and establish the maxim that free bottoms made free goods; in other words, that the neutral character of the vessel should protect whatever property she might have on board. This principle was now anxiously reclaimed by France, as the most effective argument for the purpose of irritating the neutral powers against Great Britain, whose right of search, which could not be exercised without vexation and inconvenience to their commerce, must necessarily be unpopular amongst them. Forgetting that the danger occasioned by the gigantic power of France was infinitely greater than any which could arise from the maritime claims of England, the northern courts became again united on the subject of what they termed the freedom of the seas. Indeed, the Emperor Paul, even before the offence arising out of his disappointment respecting Malta, had proceeded so far as to sequestrate all British property in his dominions, in resentment of her exercising the right of search. But upon the fresh provocation which he conceived himself to have received, the Emperor became outrageous, and took the most violent measures for seizing the persons and property of the English, that ever were practised by an angry and unreasonable despot.