LORD WHITWORTH AND BONAPARTE.* Tim publication of Lord Whitworth'e despatches
and other papers, written in 1802 and 1803, is creditable to the Royal Historical Society ; but we must express a wish that an editor with a broader conception of his duties had been chosen to fulfil them. Mr. Browning correctly says that they were "in large part" published at the time, yet that " only such documents as would suit the arguments of the Minister" were given to the world, and that "the despatches themselves are [or were] in- geniously garbled by the omission of words and phrases which give a different colour to the sentences in which they occur. I have not thought it worth while to mark these variations, which any student can do for himself." Surely it was one of the first things incumbent on an editor to mark these varia- tions, not only because few students possess a Parliamentary History, or have time to hunt through the papers in a public library, but because an editor setting forth such a charge should make it good. The " student," if he thought it "worth while," might have verified the editor's work ; but he can- not be expected to do what the editor has left undone. It would also have been considerate, at least, had Mr. Browning given the dates of despatches referred to by Lord Hawkes- bury as "No. So-and-so," when answering them or acknow- ledging their receipt. Nor would the bulk of the volume have been greatly increased bad the editor included such papers as Sebastiani's report of his tour in the East, the instructions given to the officer sent to India, and Bonaparte's version of what passed at the famous interview on March 13th, a version he sent to St. Petersburg and Berlin with a slur on Lord Whit- worth's veracity. The preface is singularly inadequate, contain- ing too much or too little, and does not show any strong grasp of the actual situation of affairs in 1803. For the rest, the volume is correctly printed, which is much ; and the index of persons and places is useful, though few require to be told that "Boulogne is a port on the English Channel," "Berlin, the capital of Prussia," or " Ostend, seaport in Belgium." We might, however, have been told that Andrdossy was not a regular diplomatist, but a General of Artillery, suddenly plunged into business out of his line.
Lord Whitworth went to Paris in November, 1802, eight months after the conclusion of the Treaty of Amiens, and he returned to London in May, 1803, when the peace came to an end. The papers included in this volume begin with Lord
• Evigiand and Napoleon in 1933: being the Despatches of Lord Whitworth and others, now First IPrsnted from the Originals in the Record Office. Edited, for the Royal Historical Society, by Oscar Browning. M.A., F.R.H.S. London: Long. mane and Co. Hawkesbury's instructions to the Ambassador, and finish with letters dealing with the First Consul's sharp practice, exemplified in the detention of all the King's subjects found in his dominions. We say his dominions, because he was just as much Emperor, except in name, in 1803, as he was one year later, when, on May 18th, 1804, he signed himself for the last time " Bonaparte," and for the first time " Napoleon," characteristically enough at the foot of an order directing, among other things, two crowns to be made for the Arch-Chancellor and Arch-Treasurer, who on the morning of that day were officially addressed as Citoyen Cambitc6res and Citoyen Lac6pecle. War was again raging when these high ceremonial changes occurred, and Mr. Browning is of opinion that the Whitworth papers will help "to settle the long-debated question whether England was justified in the rupture of the peace." If we entertain doubts on that point, it is not because we undervalue these diplomatic writings, but
because the answer to the question should, now as then, depend upon the facts, the actual things at issue ; and these are not altered by the diplomatic wrestlings of Bonaparte and Talleyrand with Whitworth and Hawkesbary. Those conflicts add a certain piquancy to the great drama, and illustrate the characters and methods of the combatants ; but the realities lie not in what was said or written so much as in what was done, and some of the things done, of course, find no place in this volume.
The truth is, that too much has been made of the so-called Peace of Amiens, which was nothing more than a breathing- space, secured by leaving burning questions unsettled, and needful to both the contracting parties,—needed by England because she had been severely tried ; needed by Bonaparte because he wanted time in which to seat himself firmly and consolidate his vast realm, and especially to restore the several Navies—those of Holland and Spain, as well as that of France —which were under his control. The fact that both countries desired repose is the clue to the equivocal character of the Treaty, and to the necessary omission of much required to establish a solid peace. The frail edifice reared with such difficulty at Amiens had been roughly shaken long before Lord Whitworth went to Paris, and it was in the nature of things, as they then were, that it should be so imperilled. Bonaparte went on his way, and the British Government, observing his conduct, went on theirs, and both declared, which was quite true, that they wished peace to be maintained. England could not relinquish Malta, because no arrangement could be come to giving promise of the security that it would be independent, and safe from a French coup do main. France, or rather the First Consul, annexed Piedmont; held on to Holland, and ruled there—would suffer " neither agitation nor change ;" brought the Swiss into complete subjection, and gave public orders to evacuate the country, which were never carried out; sent Sebastiani on a tour in the Levant, with an especial eye to Egypt and Syria ; and ordered Decaen to India with very striking instructions. All round Bonaparte was undermining, or trying to undermine, British, and strengthening French power. And it was very great. The fatal expedition to San Domingo sailed oat of ports ranging from Flushing to Cadiz,— not a pleasant spectacle to maritime England. Bonaparte was engaged, naturally, in developing his Navy, but that required time ; he took measures to raise his Army to five hundred thousand men, and he was bent on having easy roads into and strong fortresses in Italy. His band was deep in the embroiled affairs of Germany, and he paid subtle court to Alexander, as he had done to Paul. Is it to be supposed that the British Government watching these facts, at least such of them as were visible—they could not know, of course, the secret instructions framed for the French General in India— could be expected to ignore them, take no precautions, prepare for no contingencies P They had to make out the best case they could in despatches, but what they were bound to act on and did act on was the facts; and the essence of the facts was that Bonaparte aimed at keeping England quiet until he had matured his gigantic naval and military plane, and had become, in his own opinion, more than a match for her single-handed. That was frustrated by the British resolve not to give up the one security they held in the shape of Malta, not to leave the miserable rocher, as the First Consul called it, when he could not get it, in a state so defencelees that it might have been rushed by a French division. For it is ridiculous to suppose that, even had they been so minded, the Neapolitan troops actually in the island could have resisted an attack, or that the
King of Naples, who sat under the shadow of French armies, could have been an efficient protector.
One of our grounds for retaining Malta was a fear lest the French should make another inroad on Egypt. The British Cabinet had something more to go upon than Sebastiani's mission and astonishing report, the published extracts of which Mr. Browning asserts were "rather meant as a diplomatic menace to England than as a serious indication of aggressive action." But Bonaparte himself told Lord Whitworth in February, 1803, that he did not think Egypt was worth the risk of a war, " by which he should lose more than he could gain, since sooner or later Egypt would belong to France, either by the falling to pieces of the Turkish Empire, or by some arrange. ment with the Porte." About the time when Sebastiani was sent—that is, months before February—the First Consul, says Bourrienne, " pensait toujours is ]'Orient" In March, when the quarrel was hot, Joseph Bonaparte, speaking to Whitworth, was " clearly of opinion that the First Consul would not attempt to carry his views on Egypt into effect at this moment, even supposing we were not in the way [that is, at Malta]; but he would not undertake to say that the hope of acquiring that sountry would ever be abandoned." The First Consul, however, "was determined to go to war for Malta," and he certainly said that be was. The British Government believed, as we learn from Lord Whitworth, that a design to invade Egypt was on foot in the preceding October, but that it was frustrated by the un- expected presence of the British Fleet in the Mediterranean. The suspicions of the London Cabinet would have been more than confirmed a little later, could they have read the instruc- tions drawn up by Bonaparte himself for the General who was to go to India, dated January 15th, 1803. In the country where " our rivals dominate," he was to give no alarm, raise no quarrels, but " dissimuler le plus possible." Referring to the British, he was told,—" Ile soot lee tyrans des bides, Rs y flout inquiets et jalonx ; it faut s'y comporter avec doncenr, dissimula- tion, et simplicite." To what end ? Ascertain bow best to wage a long war " Pour nourrir la guerre aux lades plusieurs campagnea." He must assume that France would not hold the sea, and could hope for little help. Hence, in order to resist the English a long time, a point trappui must be seized. In selecting one suitable for the purpose, it was to be laid hold of at once, no matter to what nation it belonged,— " Portugaise, Hollandaise, on Anglaise." This was a design prepared with a view to the future, no doubt, but, as evi- dence of Bonaparte's good faith, it is of greater weight than Sebastiani's report. At first, he said, the General's mission would be one of observation and commerce. "Maio le Premier Consul, Bien inetruit par lni at par Perecution ponctuelle des instructions qui precedent, pourra pent-etre Is mettre iodine d'acquerir, nu jour, la gloire qui prolongs la memoire dee hommes an delis de la duree des siecles." So we apprehend, although the First Consul " always denied that be had designs against Egypt," and asserted that Sebastiani's mission was "com- mercial," there can be little doubt in reasonable minds that his designs extended beyond Egypt to India itself. He did not want a rupture in 1803, because he had calculated, as we infer from a phrase in the Indian instructions—" Si in guerre venait n se declarer entre la France et l'Angleterre avant Is le, Vendemaiare, ann. KM. [ September 22 ad, 1805] "—that he would not be ready until 1805, and hence his anger and astonishment at the resolve of the British Cabinet to put an end to the suspense which involved England in the cost and anxiety of an armed and un- certain peace.
Not much need be said about the famous incident "at Court," when Bonaparte made speeches to and at Lord Whitworth, apparently as acts of intimidation. Mr. Browning is at pains to show "that 'the insult to the British Ambassador,' which so many historians" [and foolish historians they must be] "assign as a reason for the war, dwindles into nothing but a brusquerie." He does not seem to know, nor did Lord Whitworth, that it was a regularly gotten-up histrionic display, not less offensive on that account. In a despatch to the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, dated March 16th, and signed, " Par ordre du Premier Consul," containing a version of the scene, we read that England had accused him publicly of meditating a warlike expedition in the midst of peace. " Cet outrage it sa loyautd," the despatch goes on, " est entre vivement dane son emir, et dimanche dernier, as cercle de Madame Bona- parte, it a saisi l'occasion d'exprimer sa juste indignation devant nue assemblee faite pour dormer de l'eclat k see paroles." Surely nothing more need be said. It was probably designed to back up the instructions given on March 11th to Brigadier Colbert, who carried a letter to the Emperor Alexander, —" In case they speak of war with England, you will say that the French nation desires nothing more than to measure herself with that Power, vu rantipathie qui aisle." But, at the same time, he was to dwell on the harmless avocations of the First Consul. " Describe him as one very much engaged in tracing canals, establishing manufactures, and occupied in matters concerning education." Lord Whitworth behaved handsomely under the provocation, he did not make out of it an official complaint, but he told Talleyrand that he went to the Tuileries to pay his respects to Madame Bonaparte, and that if he were "to be attacked there in that public manner by the First Consul on topics which are made to be discussed in the cabinet," he should refrain from presenting himself until he had assurances that the same thing would not happen to him again. The incident is dramatic, but it was only one of a long series, and very far from the most grave which brought on the war. The rupture took place ostensibly on the retention of Malta ; but its real cause was the profound belief that Bonaparte. so soon to become Napoleon, could not be trusted any longer, and that there would be no consolation in running the risk of being devoured last. "I believe he would have made you a present of Malta," said Talleyrand, when all was over; "if your Cabinet had treated him avec plus d'egarde." That sounded well; but Napoleon was not only the greatest intellectual genius, he was above all things the greatest man of business then alive ; and it is absurd to suppose that such a man would have been diverted from his stupendous projects by any quantity of egards from any quarter.
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