Preliminary Stages of the Peace of Amiens (Volume 1, No. 2); The Diplomatic Relations of Great Britain and France from the Fall of the Directory to th

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1899 Excerpt: ... the time. According to him, Austria would have become the paramount power in Italy, France would have evacuated Holland and Switzerland, Egypt would have been restored to the Porte, Malta to the Order of St. John, and finally, Great Britain, by retaining the Cape and Ceylon, would have secured the keys to India.32 To this statement one may attach what credit one will; it shows, at least, that Bonaparte, when he made it, in looking back over the past, regarded the surrender of the Netherlands83 at the time of his overture as an impossibility. The natural boundaries which France had sought -o long, and which the Revolution had secured, Bonaparte, who was the Revolution's heir and claimed to be its consummator,84 dared not again surrender. It is in this connection that Bonaparte's proclamation to the army, which is of the same date as his overtures to London and Vienna, appears in its true significance. It is a warning to his enemies that he will not shrink from war in order to obtain a suitable peace.36 Bonaparte's proposals were despatched from Paris on the 5. The course 26th of December, 1799. An introductory note from Talley-tureg_ Great rand to Grenville accompanied them, but the overture itself?ri1'fVLre was a personal one, in which Bonaparte ignored the existence The grounds. of this rejec of the Ministry and addressed himself to the King.86 In other tion. It is worth notice that Bonaparte, while confirming Great Britain in the possession of the Cape, and thus closing one way to India upon himself, wishes to have Malta returned to the Order, in order that the other, which was the shorter and for France an especially convenient road to the East, should not also fall into the hands of his rival. ' Here and elsewhere in this essay the expres...