Buonaparte made it his boast that he had returned the Prussian territories, not to the House of Brandenburgh, but to Alexander; so that if Frederick William yet reigned, it was only, he said, by the friendship of Alexander,—"a term," he added, "which he himself did not recognise in the vocabulary of sovereigns, under the head of state affairs." Alexander, however, was not altogether so disinterested as Buonaparte, with something like a sneer, thus seemed to insinuate. There was excepted from the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and added to the territory of Russia at the expense of Prussia, the province of Bialystock, serving materially to improve the frontier of the empire. Thus the Czar, in some degree, profited by the distress of his ally. The apology for his conduct must rest, first, on the strength of the temptation to stretch his empire towards the Vistula, as a great natural boundary; secondly, on the plea, that if he had declined the acquisition from a point of delicacy, Saxony, not Prussia would have profited by his self-denial, as the territory of Bialystock would, in that event, have gone to augment the Duchy of Warsaw. Russia ceded the lordship of Jever to Holland, as an ostensible compensation for her new acquisition.[289]
Dantzic, with a certain surrounding territory, was, by the treaty of Tilsit, recognised as a free city, under the protection of Prussia and Saxony. There can be little doubt, that the farther provision, that France should occupy the town until the conclusion of a maritime peace, was intended to secure, for the use of Napoleon, a place of arms, so important in case of a new breach betwixt him and Russia.
It followed, as a matter of course, that the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia ratified all the changes which Napoleon had wrought on Europe, acknowledged the thrones which he had erected, and recognised the leagues which he had formed. On the other hand, out of deference to the Emperor, Buonaparte consented that the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg, Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German princes connected with Alexander, should remain in possession of their territories; the French, however, continuing to occupy the seaports of the two countries last named, until a final peace betwixt France and England.
While these important negotiations were proceeding, a radical change took place in the councils of the British nation; what was called the Fox and Grenville administration being dissolved, and their place supplied by one formed under the auspices of the Duke of Portland, and comprehending Lords Liverpool, Castlereagh, Mr. Canning, and other statesmen, professing the principles of the late William Pitt. It was an anxious object with the new cabinet to reconcile the Czar to the alliance of England, and atone for the neglect with which he considered himself as having been treated by their predecessors. With this purpose, Lord Leveson Gower[290] was despatched with power to make such offers of conciliation as might maintain or renew an amicable intercourse between Britain and Russia. But the Emperor Alexander had taken his part, at least for the present; and, being predetermined to embrace the course recommended by his new ally Buonaparte, he avoided giving audience to the British ambassador, and took his measures at Tilsit, without listening to the offers of accommodation which Lord Gower was empowered to propose.
By the treaty of Tilsit, so far as made public, Russia offered her mediation betwixt Britain and France, on condition that the first named kingdom should accept the proffer of her interference within a month. So far, therefore, the Czar appeared to a certain extent careful of the interest of his late ally. But it is now perfectly well understood, that among other private articles of this memorable treaty, there existed one by which the Emperor bound himself, in case of Britain's rejecting the proposed mediation, to recognise and enforce what Buonaparte called the Continental System, by shutting his ports against British vessels, and engaging the Northern Courts in a new coalition, having for its object the destruction of English maritime superiority. In a word, the armed Northern Neutrality, originally formed under the auspices of Catherine, and in an evil hour adopted by the unfortunate Paul, was again to be established under the authority of Alexander. Denmark, smarting under the recollections of the battle of Copenhagen, only waited, it was thought, the signal to join such a coalition, and would willingly consent to lend her still powerful navy to its support; and Sweden was in too weak and distracted a state to resist the united will of France and Russia, either regarding war with Britain, or any other stipulations which it might be intended to impose upon her. But as there is no country of Europe to which the commerce of England is so beneficial as Russia, whose gross produce she purchases almost exclusively, it was necessary to observe strict secrecy upon these further objects. The ostensible proposal of mediation was therefore resorted to, less in the hope, perhaps, of establishing peace betwixt France and England, than in the expectation of affording a pretext, which might justify in the eye of the Russian nation a rupture with the latter power. But in spite of every precaution which could be adopted, the address of the British ambassador obtained possession of the secret which France and Russia deemed it so important to conceal; and Lord Gower was able to transmit to his court an exact account of this secret article, and particularly of the two Emperors having resolved to employ the Danish fleet in the destruction of the maritime rights of Britain, which had been so lately put upon a footing, that, to Alexander at least, had, till his recent fraternization with Buonaparte, seemed entirely satisfactory.
There were, no doubt, other secret articles named in the treaty of Tilsit, by which it seems to have been the object of these two great Emperors, as they loved to term themselves, of the North and of the South, to divide the civilized world between them.[291] It may be regarded as certain, that Buonaparte opened to Alexander the course of unprincipled policy which he intended to pursue respecting the kingdom of Spain, and procured his acquiescence in that daring usurpation. And it has been affirmed, that he also stipulated for the aid of Russia to take Gibraltar, to recover Malta and Egypt, and to banish the British flag from the Mediterranean. All these enterprises were more or less directly calculated to the depression, or rather the destruction of Great Britain, the only formidable enemy who still maintained the strife against France, and so far the promised co-operation of Russia must have been in the highest degree grateful to Napoleon. But Alexander, however much he might be Buonaparte's personal admirer, did not follow his father's simplicity in becoming his absolute dupe, but took care, in return for his compliance with the distant, and in some degree visionary projects of Buonaparte's ambition, to exact his countenance and co-operation in gaining certain acquisitions of the highest importance to Russia, and which were found at a future period to have added powerfully to her means of defence, when she once more matched her strength with that of France. To explain this, we must look back to the ancient policy of France and of Europe, when, by supporting the weaker states, and maintaining their dependence, it was the object to prevent the growth of any gigantic and over-bearing power, who might derange the balance of the civilized world.
The growing strength of Russia used in former times to be the natural subject of jealousy to the French Government, and they endeavoured to counterbalance these apprehensions by extending the protection of France to the two weaker neighbours of Russia, the Porte and the kingdom of Sweden, with which powers it had always been the policy of France to connect herself, and which connexion was not only honourable to that kingdom, but useful to Europe. But, at the treaty of Tilsit, and in Buonaparte's subsequent conduct relating to these powers, he lost sight of this national policy, or rather sacrificed it to his own personal objects.
One of the most important private articles of the treaty of Tilsit seems to have provided, that Sweden should be despoiled of her provinces of Finland in favour of the Czar, and be thus, with the consent of Buonaparte, deprived of all effectual means of annoying Russia. A single glance at the map will show how completely the possession of Finland put a Swedish army, or the army of France as an ally of Sweden, within a short march of St. Petersburgh; and how, by consenting to Sweden's being stripped of that important province, Napoleon relinquished the grand advantage to be derived from it, in case of his ever being again obliged to contend with Russia upon Russian ground. Yet there can be no doubt, that at the treaty of Tilsit he became privy to the war which Russia shortly after waged against Sweden, in which Alexander deprived that ancient kingdom of her frontier province of Finland, and thereby obtained a covering territory of the last and most important consequence to his own capital.
The Porte was no less made a sacrifice to the inordinate anxiety, which, at the treaty of Tilsit, Buonaparte seems to have entertained, for acquiring at any price the accession of Russia to his extravagant desire of destroying England. By the public treaty, indeed, some care seems to have been taken of the interests of Turkey, since it provides that Turkey was to have the benefit of peace under the mediation of France, and that Russia was to evacuate Moldavia and Wallachia, for the acquisition of which she was then waging an unprovoked war. But by the secret agreement of the two Emperors, it was unquestionably understood, that Turkey in Europe was to be placed at the mercy of Alexander, as forming naturally a part of the Russian Empire, as Spain, Portugal, and perhaps Great Britain, were, from local position, destined to become provinces of France. At the subsequent Congress betwixt the Emperors at Erfurt, their measures against the Porte were more fully adjusted.
It may seem strange, that the shrewd and jealous Napoleon should have suffered himself to be so much over-reached in his treaty with Alexander, since the benefits stipulated for France, in the treaty of Tilsit, were in a great measure vague, and subjects of hope rather than certainty. The British naval force was not easily to be subdued—Gibraltar and Malta are as strong fortresses as the world can exhibit—the conquest of Spain was at least a doubtful undertaking, if the last war of the Succession was carefully considered. But the Russian objects were nearer, and were within her grasp. Finland was seized on with little difficulty, nor did the conquest even of Constantinople possess any thing very difficult to a Russian army, if unopposed save by the undisciplined forces of the Turkish empire. Thus it is evident, that Napoleon exchanged, for distant and contingent prospects, his acquiescence in the Russian objects, which were near, essential, and, in comparison, of easy attainment. The effect of this policy we shall afterwards advert to. Meanwhile, the two most ancient allies of France, and who were of the greatest political importance to her in case of a second war with Russia, were most unwisely abandoned to the mercy of that power, who failed not to despoil Sweden of Finland, and, but for intervening causes, would probably have seized upon Constantinople with the same ease.