The accession of strength which this treaty, and the manifest personal partiality of Alexander, gave to the French emperor, inspired him perhaps with the idea, that the English cabinet would, if a fair occasion offered, gladly enter into negotiations for a general peace. The two emperors wrote a joint letter to the king of England. “The circumstances of Europe had,” they said, “brought them together; their first thought was to yield to the wish and the wants of every people, and to seek, in a speedy pacification, the most efficacious remedy for the miseries which oppressed all nations. The long and bloody war which had torn the continent was at an end, without the possibility of being renewed. Many changes had taken place in Europe, many states had been overthrown; the cause was to be found in the state of agitation and misery in which the stagnation of maritime commerce had placed the greatest nations: still greater changes might yet take place, and all of them contrary to the policy of the English nation. Peace, then, was, at once, the interest of the people of the continent, as it was the interest of the people of Great Britain. We entreat your majesty,” they concluded, “we unite to entreat your majesty to listen to the voice of humanity, to silence that of the passions; to seek, with the intention of arriving at that object, to conciliate all interests, and thus preserve all powers which exist, ensure the happiness of Europe and of this generation, at the head of which Providence has placed us.”
To this joint letter Mr. Canning replied by two letters to the French and Russian ministers, accompanied by an official note. In that addressed to the Russian, he observed, that “however desirous the king might be to reply personally to the emperor, he was prevented, by the unusual mode of communication adopted, which had deprived it of a private and personal character. It was impossible to pay that mark of respect to the emperor, without at the same time acknowledging titles which he had never acknowledged. The proposition for peace would be communicated to Sweden, and to the existing government of Spain. It was necessary that his majesty should receive an immediate assurance, that France acknowledged the government of Spain as a party to the negotiation. That such was the intention of the emperor could not be doubted, when the lively interest manifested by his imperial majesty for the welfare and dignity of the Spanish monarchy was recollected. No other assurance was wanted, that the emperor could not have been induced to sanction by his concurrence or approbation, usurpations, the principles of which were not less unjust than their example was dangerous to all legitimate sovereigns.”
The letter addressed to Mons. de Champagny, duke of Cadore, merely reiterated the claim for Sweden and Spain being admitted as parties to the negotiation. The official note commenced by stating the king’s desire for peace, on terms consistent with his honour, his fidelity to his engagements, and the permanent repose of Europe. The miserable condition of the continent, the convulsions it had experienced, and those with which it was threatened, were not imputable to his majesty. If the cause of so much misery was to be found in the stagnation of commercial intercourse, although his majesty could not be expected to hear with unqualified regret, that the system devised for the destruction of the commerce of his subjects had recoiled upon its authors or its instruments; yet, as it was neither the disposition of his majesty, nor in the character of the people over whom he reigned to rejoice in the privations and unhappiness even of the nations which were combined against him, he anxiously desired the termination of the sufferings of the continent. The note, after stating that the progress of the war had imposed new obligations upon Great Britain, claimed for Sicily, for Portugal, for Sweden, and for Spain, a participation in the negotiations. Treaties, it stated, existed with the three first, which bound them and England in peace and war. With Spain indeed no formal instrument had yet been executed, but the ties of honour were, to the king of England, as strong as the most solemn treaties; wherefore it was assumed, that the central junta, or government of Spain, was understood to be a party to any negotiation, in which his majesty was invited to engage.
The reply of Russia was peremptory. The claims of the sovereigns, allies of Great Britain, she would readily admit. But the insurgents of Spain, Russia would not acknowledge as an independent power. The Russians (and England, it was said, could recollect one particular instance) had always been true to this principle; moreover, the emperor had acknowledged Joseph Buonaparte as king of Spain, and was united to the French emperor for peace and for war; he was resolved not to separate his interests from those of Napoleon. After some further arguments touching the question, the reply concluded by offering to treat upon the basis of the “uti possidetis,” and the respective power of the belligerent parties, or upon any basis; for the conclusion of an honourable, just, and equal peace.
The insulting tone of Mr. Canning’s communication produced an insulting reply from monsieur de Champagny, which also finished by proposing the “uti possidetis” as a basis for a treaty, and expressing a hope, that without losing sight of the inevitable results of the force of states, it would be remembered, that between great powers there could be no solid peace but that which was equal and honourable for both parties. Upon the receipt of these replies, the English minister broke off the negotiations, and all chance of peace vanished; but previous to the conclusion of this remarkable correspondence, Napoleon had returned to Paris.
What his real views in proposing to treat were, it is difficult to determine; he could not have expected that Great Britain would relinquish the cause of Spain, he must therefore have been prepared to make some arrangement upon that head, unless the whole proceeding was an artifice to sow distrust among his enemies. The English ministers asserted that it was so; but what enemies were they among whom he could create this uneasy feeling? Sweden, Sicily, Portugal! the notion as applied to them was absurd; it is more O’Meara. Voice from St. Helena. Vol. 2. probable that he was sincere. He said so at Saint Helena, and the peculiar circumstances of the period at which the conferences of Erfurth took place, warrant a belief in that assertion. The menacing aspect of Austria, the recent loss of Portugal, the hitherto successful insurrection of Spain, the secret societies of Germany, the desire of consolidating the Polish dominions, and placing, while he might, a barrier to the power of Russia on that side, the breach which the events of the Peninsula made in his continental system of excluding British goods, and the commercial distresses of Europe, were cogent reasons for a peace, they might well cause him to be suspicious of the future, and render him anxious for an excuse to abandon an unjust contest, in which he could not fail to suffer much, and to risk more than he could gain. In securing the alliance of Russia, he only disentangled a part of the Gordian knot of politics; to cut the remainder with his sword was at this conjuncture a task which even he might have been doubtful of. The fact that his armies were marching upon Spain, proves nothing to the contrary of this supposition. Time was to him of the utmost consequence. His negotiations proving abortive, it would have been too late to have reinforced his troops on the Ebro; and the event evinced the prudence of his measures in that respect. The refusal to admit the Spaniards as a party to the conferences for peace is scarcely more conclusive; to have done that would have been to resign the weapon in his hands before he entered the lists. That England could not abandon the Spaniards is unquestionable; but that was not a necessary consequence of continuing the negotiations. There was a bar put to the admission of a Spanish diplomatist, but no bar was thereby put to the discussion of Spanish interests; the correspondence of the English minister would not of necessity have compromised Spanish independence, it need not have relaxed in the slightest degree the measures of hostility, nor retarded the succours preparing for the patriots; and when we consider the great power of Napoleon’s arms, the subtlety and force of his genius, the good fortune which had hitherto attended his progress in war, and the vast additional strength which the alliance of Russia conferred at the moment, and when, to oppose all this, we contrast the scanty means of Spain, and the confusion into which she was plunged, it does appear as if her welfare would have been better consulted by an appeal to negotiation rather than to battle. It is true that Austria was arming; but Austria had been so often conquered, was so sure to abandon the cause of the patriots, and every other cause when pressed, so certain to sacrifice every consideration of honour or faith to the suggestions of self-interest, that the independence of Spain through the medium of war could only be regarded as the object of uncertain hope, a prize to be gained, if gained at all, by wading through torrents of blood, and sustaining every misery that famine, and the fury of devastating armies could inflict. To avoid, if possible, such dreadful evils by negotiating was surely worth trial, and the force of justice, when urged by the minister of a great nation, would have been difficult to withstand; no power, no ambition can resist it and be safe. But such an enlarged mode of proceeding was not in accord with the shifts and subterfuges that characterized the policy of the day[15], when it was thought wise to degrade the dignity of such a correspondence by a ridiculous denial of Napoleon’s titles; and praiseworthy to render a state paper, in which such serious interests were discussed, offensive and mean by miserable sarcasms, evincing the pride of an author more than the gravity of a statesman. Mr. Whitbread declared in the House of Commons that he saw no reason for refusing to treat with France at that period; and although public clamour afterwards induced him to explain away this expression, he had no reason to be ashamed of it; for if the opinion of Cicero, that an unfair peace is preferable to the justest war, was ever worthy of attention, it was so at this period, when the success of Spain was doubtful, her misery certain, her salvation only to be obtained through the baptism of blood!
Upon the 18th of October Napoleon returned to Paris, secure of the present friendship and alliance of Russia, but uncertain of the moment when the stimulus of English subsidies would quicken the hostility Imperial Decree, 11th Sept. 1808. of Austria into life; but if his peril was great, his preparations to meet it were likewise enormous. First he called out two conscriptions, of which the one taken from the classes of 1806, 7, 8, and 9, afforded eighty thousand men arrived at maturity; these were destined to replace the veterans directed against Spain.
The second conscription, taken from the class of 1810, also produced eighty thousand, which were disposed of as reserves in the dépôts of France.
The force in Germany was concentrated on the side of Austria. Denmark was evacuated, and one hundred thousand soldiers were withdrawn from the Prussian states.