have stultified its complaisant conduct on weightier subjects.  Moreover, the whole drift of eighteenth-century diplomacy, no less than Bonaparte’s own admission, warranted the hope of securing Malta by way of “compensation.”  The adroit bargainer, who was putting up German Church lands for sale, who had gained Louisiana by the Parma-Tuscany exchange, and still professed to the Czar his good intentions as to an “indemnity” for the King of Sardinia, might well be expected to admit the principle of compensation in Anglo-French relations when these were being jeopardized by French aggrandizement; and, as will shortly appear, the First Consul, while professing to champion international law against perfidious Albion, privately admitted her right to compensation, and only demurred to its practical application when his oriental designs were thereby compromised.

Before Whitworth proceeded to Paris, sharp remonstrances had been exchanged between the French and British Governments.  To our protests against Napoleon’s interventions in neighbouring States, he retorted by demanding “the whole Treaty of Amiens and nothing but that treaty.”  Whereupon Hawkesbury answered:  “The state of the Continent at the period of the Treaty of Amiens, and nothing but that state.”  In reply Napoleon sent off a counterblast, alleging that French troops had evacuated Taranto, that Switzerland had requested his mediation, that German affairs possessed no novelty, and that England, having six months previously waived her interest in continental affairs, could not resume it at will.  The retort, which has called forth the admiration of M. Thiers, is more specious than convincing.  Hawkesbury’s appeal was, not to the sword, but to law; not to French influence gained by military occupations that contravened the Treaty of Luneville, but to international equity.

Certainly, the Addington Cabinet committed a grievous blunder in not inserting in the Treaty of Amiens a clause stipulating the independence of the Batavian and Helvetic Republics.  Doubtless it relied on the Treaty of Luneville, and on a Franco-Dutch convention of August, 1801, which specified that French troops were to remain in the Batavian Republic only up to the time of the general peace.  But it is one thing to rely on international law, and quite another thing, in an age of violence and chicanery, to hazard the gravest material interests on its observance.  Yet this was what the Addington Ministry had done:  “His Majesty consented to make numerous and most important restitutions to the Batavian Government on the consideration of that Government being independent and not being subject to any foreign control."[231] Truly, the restoration of the Cape of Good Hope and of other colonies to the Dutch, solely in reliance on the observance of international law by Napoleon and Talleyrand, was, as the event proved, an act of singular credulity.  But, looking at this matter fairly and squarely, it must be allowed that Napoleon’s reply evaded the essence of the British complaint; it was merely an argumentum ad hominem; it convicted the Addington Cabinet of weakness and improvidence; but in equity it was null and void, and in practical politics it betokened war.