The selection of so honourable a man as Cornwallis afforded no slight guarantee for the sincerity of our Government, and its sincerity will stand the test of a perusal of its despatches.  Having examined all those that deal with these negotiations, the present writer can affirm that the official instructions were in no respect modified by the secret injunctions:  these referred merely to such delicate and personal topics as the evacuation of Hanover by Prussian troops and the indemnities to be sought for the House of Orange and the House of Savoy.  The circumstances of these two dispossessed dynasties were explained so as to show that the former Dutch Stadholder had a very strong claim on us, as well as on France and the Batavian Republic; while the championship of the House of Savoy by the Czar rendered the claims of that ancient family on the intervention of George III. less direct and personal than those of the Prince of Orange.  Indeed, England would have insisted on the insertion of a clause to this effect in the preliminaries had not other arrangements been on foot at Berlin which promised to yield due compensation to this unfortunate prince.  Doubtless the motives of the British Ministers were good, but their failure to insert such a clause fatally prejudiced their case all through the negotiations at Amiens.

The British official declaration respecting Malta was clear and practical.  The island was to be restored to the Knights of the Order of St. John and placed under the protection of a third Power other than France and England.  But the reconstitution of the Order was no less difficult than the choice of a strong and disinterested protecting Power.  Lord Hawkesbury proposed that Russia be the guaranteeing Power.  No proposal could have been more reasonable.  The claims of the Czar to the protectorate of the Order had been so recently asserted by a treaty with the knights that no other conclusion seemed feasible.  And, in order to assuage the grievances of the islanders and strengthen the rule of the knights, the British Ministry desired that the natives of Malta should gain a foothold in the new constitution.  The lack of civil and political rights had contributed so materially to the overthrow of the Order that no reconstruction of that shattered body could be deemed intelligent, or even honest, which did not cement its interests with those of the native Maltese.  The First Consul, however, at once demurred to both these proposals.  In the course of a long interview with Cornwallis at Paris,[186] he adverted to the danger of bringing Russia’s maritime pressure to bear on Mediterranean questions, especially as her sovereigns “had of late shown themselves to be such unsteady politicians.”  This of course referred to the English proclivities of Alexander I., and it is clear that Bonaparte’s annoyance with Alexander was the first unsettling influence which prevented the solution of the Maltese question.  The First Consul also admitted to Cornwallis that the King of Naples, despite his ancient claims of suzerainty over Malta, could not be considered a satisfactory guarantor, as between two Great Powers; and he then proposed that the tangle should be cut by blowing up the fortifications of Valetta.