This is the much discussed "insult to the British ambassador," the scene in which Bonaparte has been represented as threatening to strike Whitworth, "the violent harangue," etc., which has been given as the reason why England broke the treaty of Amiens. As a matter of fact, the whole picture speaks for itself. Bonaparte's behavior was not courtly, and his conduct was a piece of bluster; for the rest, the scene was not merely, as Talleyrand explained it, the First Consul's method of calling the attention of all Europe to the political situation: it was both a means of warning England in the interest of peace and of warning France in the interest of war, if war there must be.
Five days later Whitworth himself wrote that his agent had seen nothing at Havre "which can be construed into an armament; and," adds the ambassador, "I verily believe this is the case in every port of France." He also declared that, judging from Talleyrand's note to the French envoy in London, France was not ready to declare war. The United States minister in Paris was of the same opinion. When next Bonaparte received the diplomatic corps, on April fourth, Whitworth reported that he had every reason to be satisfied with his treatment.
But the despatches of Lord Whitworth were not published in England as they were written and transmitted. They were printed with such omissions and changes as to make them serve the purpose of the ministry, which was to inflame public opinion. Negotiations were kept up for a few weeks, but without sincerity. England, refusing admission within the fortifications of Malta to the Neapolitan garrison which had been stipulated for, on the ground that it could not be trusted, suggested that she should keep the island until the transfer could safely be made. Bonaparte then suggested either an Austrian or a Russian occupation, for a term of years, but this England rejected. France then proposed a joint French and English occupation, but this was likewise rejected, and Whitworth was instructed to stand on the ultimatum of a ten years' occupancy by England.
On May tenth the diplomatic rupture occurred, and on May sixteenth England formally declared war. Wilberforce asserted in opposition to the act that "the language of Bonaparte in the later stages of the negotiations" afforded reason to believe that he would have acquiesced in the independence of Malta, or even in the English retention of it for ten years. Whitworth's attitude was felt by moderate and liberal Englishmen to have been far from conciliatory.
The first appearance of William Pitt in the House of Commons after a serious illness brought together on the twenty-third a brilliant audience. It was with breathless interest that they heard him gasp forth the eloquent periods in which he denounced the lambent flame of Jacobinism embodied in Bonaparte, and satirized the Whigs who pleaded the cause of a devastator. The triple round of applause, unprecedented at Westminster, with which his speech was cheered at its close was ominous for those who were to follow. Not even Fox, whose polished oratory was heard with respectful attention, could diminish by a jot or tittle the enthusiasm for war. So therefore the struggle of centuries between France and England, orderly conservatism undismayed and turbulent liberalism afire with zeal, was again renewed. The continental powers were the pawns on the board, the players were Pitt and Bonaparte.
CHAPTER XXVI
France and England in Arms[27]
A Debatable Question — The Attack on English Commerce — Bonaparte Abandons his Colonial System — The Neighbors of France — The Feint against England — The Army at Boulogne — England Aroused — Enthusiasm in France.
The much debated question as to whether or not Bonaparte was victor in the diplomatic struggle, desired the rupture as it occurred and wanted war, is, in the light of the fullest information, apparently unanswerable. If he were a profound philosopher and constructive statesman disposed to abandon the struggle for mastery on the high seas and confine the expansion of France to the Continent, he was ready and his wishes were fulfilled; if, on the other hand, he intended to confront England by sea and her allies by land, he was unready, for he had no fighting navy and he had not expected war so soon. There were the beginnings of colonial empire in Australia, Decaen was on his way to Réunion with a squadron to establish a base of action against British India, the Cape of Good Hope was French, there was every prospect of a powerful Mahratta-French alliance in India itself. There were high hopes in the Ionian Isles, in Greece, and for Egypt. Malta might be wrested from England, and so forth. Ten of his battle-ships were far away, the remaining thirty-three were just available and no more; there were orders out for building twenty-three new ones, and a visit to Normandy convinced him that all sixty-six could be manned by splendid crews from western France. He indulged in much bravado about possibilities. But the hard fact is that in May, 1803, the French naval power was negligible, while the French land power was in the highest state of efficiency. Pitt had his enormous fleets and his possible coalition in hand, Bonaparte his army and his incomparable military genius.
Hostilities began by the seizure of many French merchantmen which were constructively in English harbors, though in many cases really at sea. The reply of the First Consul to this conduct was equally high-handed: every Englishman between the ages of eighteen and sixty within the borders of France was seized and thrown into confinement. For twelve long years these unfortunate persons were held as prisoners of war. The French embargo on hostile ships antedated England's by three days, and simultaneously with its publication Clarke was instructed to drive English ships from the harbors of Tuscany. In the last days of May an army under Mortier occupied Hanover, and, closing both Bremen and Hamburg to British commerce, exacted large contributions of money from them. In June another force under Saint-Cyr entered Naples, which in strict observance of the treaty of Amiens had been evacuated, and laid a similar embargo on the ports of Taranto, Brindisi, and Otranto. In the case of Hanover, France utterly disregarded the fine point in international law which had so far distinguished between George III as King of England and the German Elector whose patrimony was Hanover; in that of Naples she displayed a disregard for treaty obligations not entirely consistent with Bonaparte's maledictions on those who did not observe them.