matter was infinitely important.  By that utterance he nailed his colours to the mast with respect to the British evacuation of Malta.  With his keen insight into the French nature, he knew that “honour” was its mainspring, and that his political fortunes rested on the satisfaction of that instinct.  He could not now draw back without affronting the prestige of France and undermining his own position.  In vain did our Government remind him of his admission that “His Majesty should keep a compensation out of his conquests for the important acquisitions of territory made by France upon the Continent."[250] That promise, although official, was secret.  Its violation would, at the worst, only offend the officials of Whitehall.  Whereas, if he now acceded to their demand that Malta should be the compensation, he at once committed that worst of all crimes in a French statesman, of rendering himself ludicrous.  In this respect, then, the scene of March 13th at the Tuileries was indirectly the cause of the bloodiest war that has desolated Europe.

Napoleon now regarded the outbreak of hostilities as probable, if not certain.  Facts are often more eloquent than diplomatic assurances, and such facts are not wanting.  On March 6th Decaen’s expedition had set sail from Brest for the East Indies with no anticipation of immediate war.  On March 16th a fast brig was sent after him with orders that he should return with all speed from Pondicherry to the Mauritius.  Napoleon’s correspondence also shows that, as early as March 11th, that is, after hearing of George III.’s message to Parliament, he expected the outbreak of hostilities:  on that day he ordered the formation of flotillas at Dunkirk and Cherbourg, and sent urgent messages to the sovereigns of Russia, Prussia, and Spain, inveighing against England’s perfidy.  The envoy despatched to St. Petersburg was specially charged to talk to the Czar on philosophic questions, and to urge him to free the seas from England’s tyranny.

Much as Addington and his colleagues loved peace, they were now convinced that it was more hazardous than open war.  Malta was the only effectual bar to a French seizure of Egypt or an invasion of Turkey from the side of Corfu.  With Turkey partitioned and Egypt in French hands, there would be no security against Napoleon’s designs on India.  The British forces evacuated the Cape of Good Hope on February 21st, 1803; they set sail from Alexandria on the 17th of the following month.  By the former act we yielded up to France the sea route to India—­for the Dutch at the Cape were but the tools of the First Consul:  by the latter we left Malta as the sole barrier against a renewed land attack on our Eastern possessions.  The safety of our East Indian possessions was really at stake, and yet Europe was asked to believe that the question was whether England would or would not evacuate Malta.  This was the French statement of the case:  it was met by the British plea that France, having declared her acceptance of the principle of compensation for us, had no cause for objecting to the retention of an island so vital to our interests.