[Footnote 243:  So Adams’s “Hist, of the U.S.,” vol. ii., pp. 12-21.]

[Footnote 244:  Miot de Melito, “Mems.,” vol. i, ch. xv., quotes the words of Joseph Bonaparte to him:  “Let him [Napoleon] once more drench Europe with blood in a war that he could have avoided, and which, but for the outrageous mission on which he sent his Sebastiani, would never have occurred.”

Talleyrand laboured hard to persuade Lord Whitworth that Sebastiani’s mission was “solely commercial”:  Napoleon, in his long conversation with our ambassador, “did not affect to attribute it to commercial motives only,” but represented it as necessitated by our infraction of the Treaty of Amiens.  This excuse is as insincere as the former.  The instructions to Sebastiani were drawn up on September 5th, 1802, when the British Ministry was about to fulfil the terms of the treaty relative to Malta and was vainly pressing Russia and Prussia for the guarantee of its independence]

[Footnote 245:  Despatch of February 21st.]

[Footnote 246:  “View of the State of the Republic,” read to the Corps Legislatif on February 21st, 1803.]

[Footnote 247:  Papers presented to Parliament May 18th, 1803.  See too Pitt’s speech, May 23rd, 1803.]

[Footnote 248:  See Russell’s proclamation of July 22nd to the men of Antrim that “he doubted not but the French were then fighting in Scotland.” ("Ann.  Reg.,” 1803, p. 246.) This document is ignored by Plowden ("Hist. of Ireland, 1801-1810").]

[Footnote249:  Despatch of March 14th, 1803.  Compare it with the very mild version in Napoleon’s “Corresp.,” No. 6636.]

[Footnote 250:  Lord Hawkesbury to General Andreossy, March 10th.]

[Footnote 251:  Lord Hawkesbury to Lord Whitworth, April 4th, 1803.]

[Footnote 252:  Despatches of April 11th and 18th, 1803.]

[Footnote 253:  Whitworth to Hawkesbury, April 23rd.]

[Footnote 254:  Czartoryski ("Mems.,” vol. i., ch. xiii.) calls him “an excellent admiral but an indifferent diplomatist—­a perfect representative of the nullity and incapacity of the Addington Ministry which had appointed him.  The English Government was seldom happy in its ambassadors.”  So Earl Minto’s “Letters,” vol. iii., p. 279.]

[Footnote 255:  See Lord Malmesbury’s “Diaries” (vol. iv., p. 253) as to the bad results of Whitworth’s delay.]

[Footnote 256:  Note of May 12th, 1803:  see “England and Napoleon,” p. 249.]

[Footnote 257:  “Corresp.,” vol. viii., No. 6743.]

[Footnote 258:  See Romilly’s letter to Dumont, May 31st, 1803 ("Memoirs,” vol. i.).]

[Footnote 259:  “Lettres inedites de Talleyrand,” November 3rd, 1802.  In his letter of May 3rd, 1803, to Lord Whitworth, M. Huber reports Fouche’s outspoken warning in the Senate to Bonaparte:  “Vous etes vous-meme, ainsi que nous, un resultat de la revolution, et la guerre remet tout en probleme.  On vous flatte en vous faisant compter sur les principes revolutionnaires des autres nations:  le resultat de notre revolution les a aneantis partout.”]