The French commissioners made several concessions, and even intimated, in verbal conference with Lord Yarmouth, that they would be content to treat upon the principle of uti possidetis; that is, of allowing each party to retain such advantages as she had been able to gain by her arms during the war. But when the treaty was farther advanced, the French negotiators resisted this rule, and showed themselves disposed to deny that they had ever assented to it.
They were, indeed, willing to resign a long contested point, and consented that the island of Malta, with the Cape of Good Hope, and other possessions in the East and West Indies, should remain under the dominion of Great Britain. But then they exacted the surrender of Sicily and Naples, proposing that Frederick IV. should be indemnified at the expense of Spain by the cession of the Balearic isles. Britain could not implicitly consent to this last proposition, either in policy, or in justice to her unfortunate ally. Naples was indeed occupied by the French, and had received Joseph Buonaparte as her King; but the insular situation of Sicily rendered it easy for Britain to protect that rich island, which was still in the possession of its legitimate monarch. The principle of uti possidetis was, therefore, in favour of the English, so far as Sicily was concerned, as it was in that of the French in the case of Naples. The English envoy, for this reason, refused an ultimatum, in which the cession of Sicily was made an indispensable article. Lord Lauderdale, at the same time, demanded his passports, which, however, he did not receive for several days, as if there had been some hopes of renewing the treaty.[224]
Buonaparte was put to considerable inconvenience by the shrewdness and tenacity of the noble negotiator, and had not forgotten them when, in 1815, he found himself on board the Bellerophon, commanded by a relation of the noble earl.[225] It is indeed probable, that, had Mr. Fox lived, the negotiation might have been renewed. That eminent statesman, then in his last illness, was desirous to accomplish two great objects—peace with France, and the abolition of the slave trade. But although Buonaparte's deference for Fox might have induced him to concede some of the points in dispute, and although the British statesman's desire of peace might have made him relinquish others on the part of England, still, while the two nations retained their relative power and positions, the deep jealousy and mutual animosity which subsisted between them would probably have rendered any peace which could have been made a mere suspension of arms—a hollow and insincere truce, which was almost certain to give way on the slightest occasion. Britain could never have seen with indifference Buonaparte making one stride after another towards universal dominion; and Buonaparte could not long have borne with patience the neighbourhood of our free institutions and our free press; the former of which must have perpetually reminded the French of the liberty they had lost, while the latter was sure to make the Emperor, his government, and his policy, the daily subject of the most severe and unsparing criticism. Even the war with Prussia and Russia, in which Napoleon was soon afterwards engaged, would, in all probability, have renewed the hostilities between France and England, supposing them to have been terminated for a season by a temporary peace. Yet Napoleon always spoke of the death of Fox as one of the fatalities on which his great designs were shipwrecked;[226] which makes it the more surprising that he did not resume intercourse with the administration formed under his auspices, and who might have been supposed to be animated by his principles even after his decease. That he did not do so may be fairly received in evidence to show, that peace, unless on terms which he could dictate, was not desired by him.
PRUSSIA.
As the conduct of Prussia had been fickle and versatile during the campaign of Austerlitz, the displeasure of Napoleon was excited in proportion against her. She had, it is true, wrenched from him an unwilling acquiescence in her views upon Hanover. By the treaty which Haugwitz had signed at Vienna, after the battle of Austerlitz, it was agreed that Prussia should receive the electoral dominions of the King of England, his ally, instead of Anspach, Bareuth, and Neufchatel, which she was to cede to France. The far superior value of Hanover was to be considered as a boon to Prussia, in guerdon of her neutrality. But Napoleon did not forgive the hostile disposition which Prussia had manifested, and it is probable he waited with anxiety for the opportunity of inflicting upon her condign chastisement. He continued to maintain a large army in Swabia and Franconia, and, by introducing troops into Westphalia, intimated, not obscurely, an approaching rupture with his ally. Meantime, under the influence of conflicting councils, Prussia proceeded in a course of politics which rendered her odious for her rapacity, and contemptible for the shortsighted views under which she indulged it.
It was no matter of difficulty for the Prussian forces to take possession of Hanover, which, when evacuated by Bernadotte and his army, lay a prey to the first invader, with the exception of the fortress of Hamelen, still occupied by a French garrison. The electorate, the hereditary dominions of the King of Great Britain, with whom Prussia was at profound peace, was accordingly seized upon, and her Cabinet pretended to justify that usurpation by alleging, that Hanover, having been transferred to France by the rights of war, had been ceded to the Prussian Government in exchange for other districts. At the same time, an order of the Prussian monarch shut his ports in the Baltic against the admission of British vessels. These measures, taken together, were looked upon by England as intimating determined and avowed hostility; and Fox described, in the House of Commons, the conduct of Prussia, as a compound of the most hateful rapacity with the most contemptible servility.[227] War was accordingly declared against her by Great Britain; and her flag being banished from the ocean by the English cruizers, the mouth of the Elbe and the Prussian seaports were declared in a state of blockade, and her trade was subjected to a corresponding degree of distress.
Meantime, it was the fate of Prussia to find, that she held by a very insecure tenure that very electorate, the price of her neutrality at Austerlitz, and which was farther purchased at the expense of war with England. Her ministers, while pressing France to confirm the cession of Hanover, had the mortification to discover that Napoleon, far from regarding the Prussian right in it as indefeasible, was in fact negotiating for a general peace upon the condition, amongst others, that the electorate should be restored to the King of England, its hereditary sovereign. While the disclosure of this double game showed Frederick William upon what insecure footing he held the premium assigned to Prussia by the treaty of Vienna, farther discovery of the projects of France seemed to impel him to change the pacific line of his policy.
Hitherto the victories of Napoleon had had for their chief consequences the depression of Austria, and the diminution of that power which was the natural and ancient rival of the House of Brandenburg. But now, when Austria was thrust back to the eastward, and deprived of her influence in the south-west of Germany, Prussia saw with just alarm that France was assuming that influence herself, and that, unless opposed, she was likely to become as powerful in the north of Germany, as she had rendered herself in the south-western circles. Above all, Prussia was alarmed at the Confederacy of the Rhine, an association which placed under the direct influence of France, so large a proportion of what had been lately component parts of the Germanic empire. The dissolution of the Germanic empire itself was an event no less surprising and embarrassing; for, besides all the other important points, in which the position of Prussia was altered by the annihilation of that ancient confederacy, she lost thereby the prospect of her own monarch being, upon the decline of Austria, chosen to wear the imperial crown, as the most powerful member of the federation.
One way remained, to balance the new species of power which France had acquired by these innovations on the state of Europe. It was possible, by forming the northern princes of the German empire into a league of the same character with the Confederacy of the Rhine, having Prussia instead of France for its protector, to create such an equilibrium as might render it difficult or dangerous for Buonaparte to use his means, however greatly enlarged, to disturb the peace of the north of Europe. It was, therefore, determined in the Prussian Cabinet to form a league on this principle.
This proposed Northern Confederacy, however, could not well be established without communication with France; and Buonaparte, though offering no direct opposition to the formation of a league, sanctioned by the example of that of the Rhine, started such obstacles to the project in detail, as were likely to render its establishment on an effectual footing impossible. It was said by his ministers, that Napoleon was to take the Hanseatic towns under his own immediate protection; that the wise prince who governed Saxony showed no desire to become a member of the proposed Confederacy; and that France would permit no power to be forced into such a measure. Finally, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, who was naturally reckoned upon as an important member of the proposed Northern League, was tampered with to prevail upon him to join the Confederacy of the Rhine, instead of that which was proposed to be formed under the protectorate of Prussia. This prince, afraid to decide which of these powerful nations he should adhere to, remained in a state of neutrality, notwithstanding the offers of France; and, by doing so, incurred the displeasure of Napoleon, from which in the sequel he suffered severely.