The mere suggestion of such an act affords eloquent proof of the difficulties besetting the whole question.  To destroy works of vast extent, which were the bulwark of Christendom against the Barbary pirates, would practically have involved the handing over of Valetta to those pests of the Mediterranean; and from Malta as a new base of operations they could have spread devastation along the coasts of Sicily and Italy.  This was the objection which Cornwallis at once offered to an other-wise specious proposal:  he had recently received papers from Major-General Pigot at Malta, in which the same solution of the question was examined in detail.  The British officer pointed out that the complete dismantling of the fortifications would expose the island, and therefore the coasts of Italy, to the rovers; yet he suggested a partial demolition, which seems to prove that the British officers in command at Malta did not contemplate the retention of the island and the infraction of the peace.

Our Government, however, disapproved of the destruction of the fortifications of Valetta as wounding the susceptibilities of the Czar, and as in no wise rendering impossible the seizure of the island and the reconstruction of those works by some future invader.  In fact, as the British Ministry now aimed above all at maintaining good relations with the Czar, Bonaparte’s proposal could only be regarded as an ingenious device for sundering the Anglo-Russian understanding.  The French Minister at St. Petersburg was doing his utmost to prevent the rapprochement of the Czar to the Court of St James, and was striving to revive the moribund league of the Armed Neutrals.  That last offer had “been rejected in the most peremptory manner and in terms almost bordering upon derision.”  Still there was reason to believe that the former Anglo-Russian disputes about Malta might be so far renewed as to bring Bonaparte and Alexander to an understanding.  The sentimental Liberalism of the young Czar predisposed him towards a French alliance, and his whole disposition inclined him towards the brilliant opportunism of Paris rather than the frigid legitimacy of the Court of St. James.  The Maltese affair and the possibility of reopening the Eastern Question were the two sources of hope to the promoters of a Franco-Russian alliance; for both these questions appealed to the chivalrous love of adventure and to the calculating ambition so curiously blent in Alexander’s nature.  Such, then, was the motive which doubtless prompted Bonaparte’s proposal concerning Valetta; such also were the reasons which certainly dictated its rejection by Great Britain.