WHEN by the destruction of Brueys’ fleet Bonaparte found himself cut off from all communication with France, he began to think of establishing himself firmly in Egypt, and of making it the base of those gigantic enterprises which he had meditated against the English empire in the East. He strove to conciliate the inhabitants by respecting their customs, and especially their religion. Like the heathen conquerors of ancient Rome, he was ready to adopt all the gods of all the vanquished nations, except only the God of the Jews and Christians. In an interview with the Mufti in the pyramid of Cheops, he professed himself a believer in the Prophet, and adopted the hyperbolical language of the East. He also attempted to domiciliate his army in a country which they had no prospect of speedily quitting. Cairo was converted into a sort of little Paris, with French newspapers, restaurants, literary societies, gaming tables, and other luxuries. The exactions of the French, however, created serious discontent among the natives, and all Bonaparte’s vigilance could not prevent the breaking out of a dangerous conspiracy at Cairo, and the massacre of 300 of his men. But it was speedily quelled, and Bonaparte, from motives of policy, treated the ringleaders with clemency.

The enterprising mind of Bonaparte could not long remain in rep0se, and towards the end of 1798 he began to meditate further conquests. He visited Suez, explored the coasts of the Red Sea, entered into correspondence with Tippoo Sultaun, then at war with the English; little dreaming that a young soldier, Colonel Wellesley, destined at a future period to end his own extraordinary career, was then serving against that Prince. The Syrian campaign was, however, finally determined on. Bonaparte appears to have formed the extraordinary scheme of taking Constantinople, attacking Europe in flank, and marching to Paris. He left Cairo, February 11th, 1799, with a few of his bravest generals and about 12,000 of his best troops. The desert was rapidly traversed, El Arisch, Gaza, taken at the first assault, but Jaffa offered some resistance, which was punished by a promiscuous massacre. The garrison, some 4,000 Turks, shutting themselves up in a caravanserai, had desperately defended it, and had capitulated only on condition that their lives should be spared. Nevertheless, those who survived, about half the original number, were mercilessly shot. Miot, an eye-witness of their execution, has described how they were marched to the seashore, divided into little bands, dispatched with musket-balls, and, when these failed, with the bayonet and the sword. The impossibility of keeping so large a number of prisoners has been alleged in extenuation of this barbarous act. Bonaparte, in his correspondence, treats it quite as a matter of course. He was not wantonly cruel; but he had a reckless contempt for human life, and never suffered considerations of humanity to arrest him in the pursuit of his objects.

From Jaffa Bonaparte marched to St. John d'Acre, which siege of he invested March 20th. But here Djezzar Pasha, with 1,000 Turks, assisted by Commodore Sir Sidney Smith and some 200 or 300 English sailors and marines, succeeded in arrest­ing his progress. St. John d'Acre was badly fortified, but Bonaparte had only field guns to employ against it; his siege artillery, which he had forwarded by sea, had been captured by Sir Sidney Smith’s cruisers. Kléber defeated at Mount Thabor, April 16th, a large but irregular Turkish army which was inarching to relieve Acre. But, as it could be victualled from the sea, it sufficed for its own defence. After a siege of sixty days, during which nine desperate assaults had been delivered, and many sorties made by the garrison, Bonaparte, after losing a third of his army, was compelled to retire from before this apparently contemptible place. He displayed his rage by destroying the aqueduct and several of the public buildings. Yet he pretended in his dispatches that he had been successful, and that he had retired only for fear of the plague. So portentous were the falsehoods which he dictated that his secretary Bourienne threw down his pen in amazement. That the French army was infected with the plague is, however, true enough, and hundreds of the men were laid up at Jaffa.

Bonaparte got back to Cairo June 15th. During his absence Desaix had driven Murad Bey and his Mamelukes from Upper Egypt, had passed Thebes and arrived at Syene and the cataracts of the Nile, the furthest station occupied by the Roman legions. Murad, who eluded the pursuit of the French by the most rapid and unexpected manoeuvres, at length submitted, and in reward of the constancy and valour he had displayed, was made Prince of Said or Upper Egypt. At the instance of England, the Porte made an attempt to recover Egypt, and landed an army at Aboukir; but Bonaparte, having rapidly collected his forces, defeated them, July 26th, killed or captured a large number and drove the remainder into the sea, where the greater part miserably perished. About a week after this battle Bonaparte received, through a flag of truce of Sir Sidney Smith’s, some French and English newspapers, relating the defeats of the Republican armies in Germany and Italy, of which he had not yet heard. He immediately resolved to return to France. But it was necessary to depart secretly, and in order to veil his design he went back to Cairo, where he affected to employ himself in giving orders for a scientific expedition to the Thebais. Then suddenly returning to Alexandria, and transferring the command of the army to Kléber, he embarked on board a French frigate at Aboukir, accompanied by Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Andreossy, and Marmont, generals devotedly attached to his fortunes, and after a passage of nearly seven weeks, during which he contrived to escape the English cruisers by hugging the African coast, he landed at Frejus, October 9th. He was received with enthusiasm. The French were now quite disgusted with their Government; the complaints which he heard against it during his journey to Paris were loud and general. The finances, as well as every other branch of the administration, were in disorder. The nation was disgusted with the military reverses in Italy and Germany; the troops themselves were neither paid nor clothed, nay, hardly fed. A schism prevailed in the Directory. Sieyès, ever busy with new political schemes, had resolved to overthrow the Constitution of the year III, and to concentrate the forces of the Government in the hands of some powerful individual. After Joubert’s death Sieyès had turned his eyes on Moreau and Bernadotte, as the only two generals qualified to carry his scheme into execution; but Moreau, who had not much political energy or talent, declined to be concerned in the matter, while the frank and loyal but haughty temper of Bernadotte appeared to Sieyès unsuited to his purpose. The views of Sieyès were supported by Roger Ducos. Of the other Directors Barras had become almost politically useless. He had entered into negotiations with Louis XVIII, but soon discovered that a restoration of the Bourbons was at this time impracticable. Gohier and Moulins, the remaining two Directors, were Jacobins. That party, however, no longer entertained their former extreme and violent opinions. They were supported by the majority of the Council of Five Hundred; and out of doors by the Club du Manège, so called from its occupying the building in which the Constituent Assembly had formerly sit. Generals Bernadotte and Jourdan were also Jacobins. Sieyès, however, effected the dismissal of Bernadotte from the Ministry at War; and in conjunction with Fouché, now head of the police, caused the Manège to be closed.

Bonaparte had returned to France without any settled design except to take a leading part. His Italian campaign, his important negotiations, as well as the romantic glory of his almost fabulous expedition to Egypt, had placed his reputation far above that of any other general. The little part which he had taken in the domestic affairs of France, and consequent freedom from all party ties, was also in his favour. Sieyès was at first justly distrustful of him, as too ambitions to acquiesce in his Constitutional plans. Mutual friends, however, brought about an understanding, and the plot of a revolution was laid. Sieyès undertook to prepare the Councils for it, while Bonaparte was to gain the soldiery. On the morning of the 18th Brumaire (November 9th), the Ancients were summoned to the Tuileries at the early hour of seven, when certain members alarmed them with reports of a Jacobin plot, of a revival of the Reign of Terror.

18sth Brumaire, 1799.

The Councils proceeded next day to St. Cloud, whither Sieyès and Ducos accompanied Bonaparte. Gohier and Moulins had made their escape from Paris the evening before. When the Five Hundred assembled, Emile Gaudin, who was in the plot, rose and proposed a vote of thanks to the Ancients for what they had done. This was the signal for a stormy scene. Bonaparte, who seemed to have quite lost his presence of mind, was carried through this important crisis by his brother Lucien, the President of the Council of Five Hundred. Seeing that the Assembly was about to outlaw his brother, Lucien rushed to the door, mounted his horse, and riding to­wards the troops, exclaimed that he, the President, had been threatened with the daggers of the factious, and demanded that the Assembly should be dispersed. Bonaparte left the execution of this stroke to Murat, by whose orders a body of grenadiers dispersed the deputies at the point of the bayonet. A Provisional Government was then established. Persons selected for the purpose were nominated by a remnant of the two Councils as a Provisional Committee, which placed the Government under three Consuls, Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger Ducos. The Legislature was to be reassembled, February 20th, 1800; meanwhile a Committee of Fifty, twenty-five members of each Council, was to draw up a new Constitution. Thus was accomplished, with the perfect acquiescence of the French people, this important revolution. The new Government immediately adopted some just and vigorous measures. The law of hostages was abrogated, which made the innocent responsible for the guilty; forced loans were abolished; priests proscribed since 18th Fructidor were permitted to return; some emigrants who had been shipwrecked on the coast and detained in prison four years, were liberated. On the other hand, great severity was displayed towards the ultra-Jacobins. Between thirty and forty of this faction were ordered, by a simple consular decree, to be transported to Guiana; many others were placed under the surveillance of the police. But public opinion compelled the Consuls to recall this measure.

Bonaparte suffered the metaphysical Abbé Sieyès to amuse himself with drawing up a Constitution, which, however, he altered in all its essential points, and practically reduced to a mere form. The Commission of Fifty implicitly obeyed his dictates. The “Constitution of the year VIII” was proclaimed, December 24th. The following are the chief features of this short-lived Constitution: a Conservative Senate (sénat conservateur), of eighty members at least forty years of age, appointed for life and unremovable, whose principal functions were to select, from lists presented by the electoral colleges of the Departments, the Legislators, Tribunes, Consuls, Judges, etc. It was also a Court of Appeal respecting all acts de­nounced as unconstitutional. A Tribunate of 100 members, twenty-five years of age, at least, to discuss, adopt, or reject the laws proposed to it by the Government. A Legislative Assembly, composed of 300 members, at least thirty years of age. This assembly gave only a silent vote of acceptance or rejection of the projets de loi discussed before it by the orators of the Tribunate or of the Government. An Execu­tive Government of three Consuls nominated for ten years, and indefinitely re-eligible. Of these, the First Consul was invested with an almost absolute power. The Second and Third Consuls had only a deliberative voice (voix consultative) in some of the acts of Government, but even in these the decision of the First Consul sufficed. The salary of the First Consul was 500,000 francs (£20,000); of the remaining two, only three-tenths of that sum. As the members of the Tribunate and Legislature were selected by the Senate from lists of persons called notables of France, the result of three degrees of election, by the people, the notables of the Communes, and the notables of the Departments; as the Senate itself was chosen by the Consuls, and as the Government alone had the power to initiate laws, the political existence of the nation was completely annihilated; and though the name of a republic was retained, the new Constitution was virtually a pure despotism.

The first act of Bonaparte on becoming First Consul was dismiss his two colleagues. Sieyès was rewarded with a sum of 800,000 francs, a domain called Crosne, and a place in the Senate, the pay of which was 25,000 francs per annum. Roger Ducos was forced to content himself with the humble sum of 120,000 francs. Bonaparte now named as Second Consul Cambacérès, a jurisconsult, ex-Conventional and regicide, a man of great legal acquirements; Le Brun, a littérateur of polished manners, was appointed Third Consul. He had been secretary to the Chancellor Maupeou, a member of the Constituent Assembly and of the Girondist Government of Roland. Both these men were recommended by their total want of physical and moral courage, as well as by their talents and acquirements. Cambacérès was Bonaparte’s in­terpreter with the Jacobins and revolutionists; Le Brun, with the Royalists. Talleyrand was reinstated in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs; Fouché was retained as head of the Police; Gaudin was appointed to the Finances; Berthier was made Chief of the Staff.

Bonaparte, surrounded by 3,000 of his best troops, took up his residence at the Tuileries even before his nomination as First Consul was officially declared, and the ancient palace of the Bourbons again assumed some appearance of regal splendor. He had already learned to govern in Italy and Egypt; under the influence of his great administrative talents order began gradually to reappear in France. Public credit revived; the Bank of France was established; the administration of the Departments was facilitated and brought more under the control of the Government by the institution of prefectures; the Chouan insurrection, which had again broken out, was appeased; but the treacherous manner in which Frotté, and six more of the Chouan leaders were inveigled and put to death, was another proof of the relentless policy of Bonaparte.

With regard to Foreign Affairs, one of the first steps of Bonaparte was to propose a peace to King George III and the Emperor Francis II. The chief motive with the English Ministry in rejecting this overture appears to have been a want of confidence in the stability of the new French Government. They saw no hope of permanent tranquillity except in the restoration of the Bourbons. The renewal of the correspondence through Talleyrand seems to indicate that Bonaparte might at this time have really desired a peace. His own power needed consolidation; the French army in Italy seemed compromised, that in Egypt irretrievably cut off. The Emperor followed the same course as England, and refused to negotiate.

Battle of Marengo, 1800

All hope of peace being at an end, Bonaparte prepared for war. The command of the army on the Rhine was given to Moreau, while the First Consul determined to proceed in person into Italy. After the departure of Suvorov from that country, the French had been defeated with considerable loss at Savigliano, Fossano, and Genola; Coni had surrendered December 5th, completing the occupation of Piedmont by the Austrians. Ancona had also been taken; and thus Genoa and its Riviera was all that the French held in Italy. In the spring of 1800, the right wing of the French army, con­sisting of 40,000 men, under Massena, leaned upon Genoa; its left upon the Var. From many of its posts it had been driven as well by the Austrians as by the fire of the British cruisers. Mélas succeeded in dividing it, in taking Nice, and driving Suchet beyond the Var, while Massena had been compelled to throw himself into Genoa. Such was the posture of affairs when Bonaparte entered Italy in May. His army of 60,000 or 70,000 men crossed the Alps in four columns. Bonaparte himself crossed the great St. Bernard, the natural obstacles of that route having been surmounted with great skill and indomitable perseverance; another column passed Mont Cenis, a third the Simplon, a fourth the St. Gothard. Bonaparte entered Milan June 2nd, and proclaimed the re-establishment of the Cisalpine Republic. Mélas was thus placed between Bonaparte’s army and that of Suchet; while the fourth column of the French, under Moncey, had marched upon Brescia, to cut off the retreat of the Austrians into the Venetian States. It became necessary, therefore, for Mélas to fight a battle in order to restore his communications. On the 9th of June, Lannes defeated the Austrians under Ott at Montebello, near Casteggio. On the 14th, Mélas, having passed the Bormida opposite Alessandria, gave battle to Bonaparte at Marengo. The action began at eight o'clock in the morning, and towards the close of the day the Austrians appeared to be victorious. The right wing of the French had been turned; Mélas, secure of victory, had entered Alessandria to refresh himself, when Desaix, arriving with his division, broke the Austrian left, which had extended itself too much, and compelled a body of 5,000 Austrian grenadiers, posted in the village of Marengo, to surrender. Desaix, however, was killed in the engagement. The Austrians recrossed the Bormida under cover of the night, and the French remained masters of the field. This battle, which had so nearly become a defeat for Bonaparte, but which he was accustomed to speak of as one of his most glorious achievements, although tacticians reproach him with having committed several mistakes, proved nevertheless decisive. Mélas, an old man of eighty, completely lost his head. Great was the astonishment at the French headquarters on the following day, at receiving from him proposals for an armistice. The Convention of Alessandria, signed June 16th, is one of the most disgraceful capitula­tions recorded in history. Mélas, on condition of being allowed to retire beyond the Mincio, abandoned the whole of Piedmont and Lombardy, as far as the Oglio; also Genoa. This city had been captured with the aid of the English fleet under Admiral Keith, June 4th, and had been revictualled by the English. The Austrian commander therefore had no right to surrender it; had he possessed ordinary resolution, Genoa would have served him as a point d'appui, and the English being masters of the sea, he could always have received provisions and reinforcements. After this short, but brilliant campaign, which had lasted less than six weeks, Bonaparte returned to Paris, leaving Massena to reconquer Italy, in case it could not be recovered by negotiation.

German Campaign, 1800

Meanwhile the campaign upon the Rhine had been opened April 25th. The French army, under Moreau, passed the Rhine at six different points between Kehl and Dreienhofen. The Austrians were now commanded by Kray. The Arch­duke Charles having pronounced himself in favour of a peace with France, Thugut and the English party had procured his removal from the army in Germany, under pretence of making him commander-in-chief in Bohemia. Great Britain, after the defection of Paul I from the Coalition, had entered into treaties with the Electors of Bavaria and Mainz, and the Duke of Würtemberg, for supplying about 20,000 men. These had been added to the Austrian army concentrated at Liptingen and Stockach. Bonaparte, in order that Moreau’s success might not eclipse his own glory, had wished that general to stand on the defensive; but Moreau was by no means inclined to play so subordinate a part. Advancing from Basle, Moreau defeated Kray at Engen, May 3rd, at Moskirch, 5th, at Pfullendorf, 6th, while Richepanse repulsed the Austrians at Biberach, 9th, and Lecourbe at Memmingen, 10th. Kray now threw himself into Ulm, which had been newly fortified. But Moreau, having advanced into Bavaria, Kray again took the field, and crossing the Danube, marched down the left bank of that river. Moreau despatched Lecourbe against him with 30,000 men, who, crossing the river between Dillingen and Donauworth, defeated the Austrian rearguard at Hochstadt, June 19th. Kray now directed his march towards the Upper Palatinate, thus abandoning Bavaria to the French. Decaen entered Munich, June 27th. On the same day Lecourbe defeated Kray at Neuburg, who then took up a position at Ingolstadt. Affairs were in this state when news arrived of the cessation of hostilities in Italy; in consequence of which an armistice was also concluded for Germany, at Parsdorf, July 15th, which arrested the progress of the French towards Austria. The French were to occupy both the Rhenish Circles, all Swabia, and great part of Franconia and Bavaria, in order, as the Convention expressed it, to place the safety of property and of the established Government in this part of the Empire under the protection of the honor of the French army. Yet the contributions exacted by the French, reached in August the sum of twenty-four million thalers (£3,600,000 sterling)

Francis II had at first hesitated to ratify the Convention of Alessandria. Only a few hours before the news of it arrived at Vienna, he had concluded with Great Britain a fresh treaty of subsidies (June 20th, 1800), by which, in consideration of an advance of two millions sterling, he agreed to continue the war with all his forces, in conjunction with England. That Power was to put at the disposal of the Emperor the troops which she had hired from the German Princes; and both the contracting parties agreed to make no separate peace with the French Republic before February 1st, 1801. When the Emperor dispatched Count St. Julien to Paris with the ratification of the armistice, that envoy was instructed to sound the First Consul respecting the possibility of a peace in which Great Britain and Naples should be included. St. Julien overstepped his instructions, and signed the preliminaries of an advantageous but separate peace, for which act he was committed to the fortress of Klausenburg, in Transylvania. The Cabinet of Vienna now endeavored to persuade the First Consul to include Great Britain in the negotiations; and the armistice, which had expired in Germany, September 10th, was a second time extended on the 20th for a period of forty-five days by the Convention of Hohenlinden; by which, however, Moreau insisted that Philippsburg, Ulm, and Ingolstadt should be placed in his hands.

The hopes of a peace were for the present frustrated. The English Cabinet was not inclined to grant the First Consul’s demand for a naval armistice, which would have released the ports of France from blockade, and enabled the French Government to reinforce and revictual their troops in Egypt and Malta. The last-named island surrendered to the English September 5th, after a blockade of nearly two years, which had reduced the French garrison to the last extremity of famine, and diminished its numbers to about 5,000 men. On the 12th of November the French gave the fortnight’s notice agreed upon of their renunciation of the armistice, and hostilities were resumed in Germany on the 28th. The Austrian army, now under the command of the Archduke John, crossed the Inn, and, after a trifling success at Ampfing, gave battle to Moreau at Hohenlinden, December 3rd. Here Moreau gained one of his most splendid victories. The Austrians lost 7,000 slain, and 11,000 prisoners, and near 100 guns; the most terrible defeat they had sustained in the two wars of the Revolution. They now retired behind the Enns, while the French pushed on to Linz and Salzburg. At the entreaty of Francis, his brother, the Archduke Charles, now resumed the command, but found the army so diminished and disorganized that he was compelled to propose another armistice, intimating at the same time that the Emperor had resolved upon a peace, whatever might be the views of his allies. Moreau, who was himself in a somewhat critical position, having advanced one hundred leagues beyond his supports, and being liable to an attack in the rear from the Austrians in Tyrol, deemed it prudent not to reject these offers. An armistice was accordingly concluded at Steyer, December 25th, 1800, for an indefinite period, though not less than thirty days, with fifteen days’ notice of its expiration. Just at this time the First Consul nearly lost his life by a conspiracy. A barrel full of combustibles, called the infernal machine, was exploded in the Rue St. Nicaise, now swallowed up in the Place du Carrousel, as Bonaparte was proceeding to the opera on the evening of December 24th. He had passed just in time to escape its effects, but upwards of fifty persons were killed. Two Chouans were executed for this attempt, which served only to strengthen Bonaparte’s power by enabling him to adopt stringent police measures.

Treaty of Lunéville, 1801

Meanwhile in Italy the armistice of Alessandria had also been prolonged by that of Castiglione, September 29th. General Brune, by whom Massena had been superseded in the command of the army of Italy, profited by this interval to occupy Tuscany, which had not been mentioned in the Convention. The armistice expired about the middle of November; but Brune did not commence any active operations till December 25th. The Mincio was passed, then the Adige, January 1st, 1801; after which Verona, Vicenza, and Treviso were rapidly occupied. At the same time the French army in the Grisons had entered Tyrol and occupied Trent, January 7th. But hostilities were suspended by a Convention signed at Treviso, January 16th, by which Peschiera, Sermione, Verona, Legnago, Ferrara, Ancona, were transferred to the French, and finally also Mantua. This armistice was followed by the Peace of Lunéville, February 9th. Count Cobenzl and Joseph Bonaparte, who, as plenipotentiaries for Austria and France, had met at Lunéville early in the previous November, when it was hoped that England might be included in the negotiations, now again proceeded thither to treat for a separate peace. Their conferences were secret, and the Ministers of no other Powers were admitted. Francis II undertook to sign the peace in the name of the Empire as well as his own; but the conditions stipulated in the name of the German Confederation were only what their deputation had already agreed to at Rastadt. The Adige was constituted the boundary of the Austrian possessions in Italy. The Duchy of Modena was annexed to the Cisalpine Republic, and the Duke of Modena was indemnified with the Breisgau. Tuscany and Elba were ceded to the Infant of Parma; the Grand Duke was to obtain an indemnity in Germany; Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine were to remain to the French, and the Princes injured by this cession were to have compensation in Germany. The independence of the Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian Republics was guaranteed.

The arrangement concerning Tuscany was the result of a secret treaty between France and Spain, concluded at St. Ildefonso, October 1st, 1800. The possession of Tuscany was purchased by Spain for the Infant Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Parma, not only by the sacrifice of that Duchy, but also of Louisiana, the abandonment of six ships of the line, and the payment of a considerable sum of money. The transaction was finally arranged by the Treaty of Madrid between France and Spain, March 21st, 1801. The Prince of Parma, who had resided several years at Madrid, and had married one of Charles’s daughters, proceeded in the summer to Florence, where he was proclaimed “King of Etruria”, August 2nd. The Emperor, by his peace with the French Republic, had abandoned the King of the Two Sicilies to his fate. The Count de Damas, the commander of the Neapolitan army, claimed to be comprehended in the armistice of Treviso, as having acted under the commands of General Bellegarde, but, in fact, no stipulation had been made in favour of Naples in that Convention. Murat, who commanded a French army which was preparing to invade the Neapolitan dominions, would recognize no such claim, and under the circumstances, Ferdinand IV deemed it prudent to enter into negotiations with the First Consul. An armis­tice was concluded at Foligno, February 18th, 1801, followed by a treaty of peace, signed at Florence, March 28th, by which King Ferdinand engaged to shut his ports against all English and Turkish vessels, whether of war or commerce, till those nations should have concluded a peace with France. By the fourth Article, Ferdinand renounced his claims to the isle of Elba and the principality of Piombino in Tuscany, forming part of the new Kingdom of Etruria. These possessions, which really belonged to the family of Buoncompagni, were not, however, assigned to the Duke of Parma, and were eventually seized by the French. Elba was annexed to France by a decree of the Senate, August 26th, 1802, while the principality of Piombino was erected by Bonaparte into a fief of the French Empire, March, 1805, and bestowed on his sister Eliza and her husband, Felix Bacciocchi. There were also secret articles in the Treaty of Florence, by one of which the French were allowed to occupy the peninsula of Otranto, and part of the Abruzzi, with 16,000 men, and Soult entered the peninsula in April with the stipulated force. The object seems to have been to keep this army, at the expense of Naples, in readiness to be transported to Egypt or Greece.

Bonaparte, again supreme in Italy, did not manifest any hostility towards the Pope. The Papacy had remained in abeyance after the death of Pius VI (August 29th, 1799), till the election of Cardinal Chiaramonte by a conclave held at Venice, March 14th, 1800, under Austrian influence. As Bishop of Imola, Chiaramonte had displayed his approbation of the French democratic and revolutionary principles. On his elevation to the Papal Chair he assumed the title of Pius VII; but he continued to reside at Venice till after the battle of Marengo, when Bonaparte consented to his installa­tion at Rome. The maintenance of the Papal authority now formed part of Bonaparte’s policy in the restoration which he meditated of the Monarchical system in his own favour. On the 15th of July, 1801, he concluded a Concordat with Pius VII, by which the Papal authority, though in a modified form, was reestablished in France; an act extremely unpopular, and especially among the generals of the army.

The Coalition was thus gradually dissolving. Portugal was soon to be added to the list of seceding States. Bonaparte entertained a violent hatred of that country, now almost the only one of Europe that remained open to British commerce. Charles IV of Spain, one of whose daughters had married the Prince Regent of Portugal, displaying an unwillingness to coerce that kingdom, or to admit the passage of a French army for that purpose, Lucien Bonaparte was dispatched to Madrid, towards the close of 1800, to stimulate that Court to action. Assisted by the Prince of the Peace, Lucien persuaded Charles IV to publish a declaration of war against Portugal, February 18th, 1801. A French army having entered Spain in April, in order to march against Portugal, Charles, to disembarrass himself of so dangerous an ally, resolved to adopt more vigorous measures. A Spanish army soon overran a great part of Portugal, and compelled the Regent to conclude with Spain the Peace of Badajoz, June 6th, 1801; the chief article of which was, that the Portuguese ports should be closed against British vessels. The French troops were, however, still retained in Spain. The First Consul having expressed great dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Badajoz, and ordered his brother-in-law, Leclerc, to march upon Lisbon, Great Britain, which was then negotiating with France the Peace of Amiens, advised Portugal, under these circumstances, to reconcile herself with France, releasing her, for that purpose, from all the obligations she had contracted. A treaty between the French Republic and Portugal was accordingly signed at Madrid, September 29th. 1801. The neutrality of Portugal was established; though the article by which the Portuguese ports were to be closed against the English and open to the French can hardly be brought under that category. The British Cabinet, however, seeing that the effects of this treaty would cease on the conclusion of the peace with France, connived at, and even promoted, the treaty.

We have already mentioned the dissatisfaction of the Tsar Paul I at the reverses of his troops in Switzerland and Holland; a result which he attributed to the want of cordial cooperation on the part of Austria and England. Paul’s irritation was increased by the refusal of Austria to restore the King of Sardinia after the conquest of Piedmont, as well as that of England to give up Malta. He affirmed that Great Britain, by a Convention of December 30th, 1798, had agreed to restore that island to the Knights of St. John, of whom he had declared himself the Grand Master, while the British Cabinet denied that any such arrangement had been completed. Paul’s discontent was artfully fomented by Bonaparte. The First Consul, for whom Paul had conceived a vast admiration, on account of his anti-revolutionary tendencies, entered into an active correspondence with that autocrat, and excited his irascible temper by causing to be forwarded to him all the abusive pamphlets and articles published against him in England. By way of courting the Tsar, he sent back, newly clothed, and without ransom, the Russians who had been captured, and tuned the French journals to sound the autocrat’s praises. By these arts he induced Paul to make extensive preparations for an overland attack on the English possessions in India, as well as for marching on Constantinople, in order to compel the Turks to withdraw their forces from Egypt. To please his new friend, the Tsar even condescended to banish Louis XVIII from his dominions. That Prince now took up his abode at Warsaw. Paul not only withdrew from the Coalition, but at length, at the instigation of Bonaparte, took an active part against Great Britain, by joining the Northern Armed Neutrality.

The extraordinary nature of that war, or rather of the principles which then prevailed in France, led the French, and the English also, to adopt practices of naval warfare which cannot be reconciled with the commonly received Law of Nations. The Convention, rejecting the maxims formerly advocated by France respecting the privileges of the neutral flag, and even positive treaties with Denmark and other Powers, had, by a decree of May 9th, 1793, authorized French ships of war and privateers to seize neutral vessels carrying provisions, although also the property of neutrals, to an enemy’s port, as well as all goods belonging to an enemy. England, on her side, had by an instruction dated June 8th, 1793, authorized the arrest of vessels laden with grain destined for a French port, or a port occupied by the French armies; such vessels to be sent into some British harbour, where the cargo could be bought for the account of the English Government, or the captain be permitted, on giving sufficient security, to carry his cargo to some friendly port. And, in addition to the usual laws of blockade, it was insisted that a mere declaration, or, paper blockade, should be respected. This instruction was communicated to the neutral Powers, and its unusual provisions were justified on the ground that the French Government could not be regarded as a legitimate and established one. Such were the grounds urged by Mr. Hailes, the English Minister at Copenhagen, in a note to Count Bernstorff, the Danish Foreign Minister.

Meanwhile the English Admiralty had adopted the new doctrine, that neutral nations had a right to carry to foreign countries only their own produce and manufactures; according to which the payment for the cargoes and freight of several neutral vessels was refused. In order to cut off all commerce between France and her colonies by means of neutral vessels, Great Britain also proclaimed the principle that neutrals could not carry on, in time of war, a commerce forbidden to them by a belligerent Power in time of peace. These acts were wound up by a secret order issued by the English Government in March, 1794, enjoining captains to seize all vessels laden with provisions or naval stores, whatever might be their destination, and to bring them into a British port; where the crews were subjected to an inter­rogatory of twenty questions, of a truly inquisitorial nature.

These proceedings at length induced Sweden as well as Denmark to enter into a defensive alliance for the protection of their commerce, concluded at Copenhagen, March 27th, 1794. By Article X, the Baltic was declared closed. But this treaty could not preserve their commerce from Great Britain and France. After the establishment of the Directory, the injustice exercised by France towards neutral com­merce exceeded anything that had been done by England. The law of January 18th, 1798, established the monstrous principle that the quality of ships should be determined by their cargo; consequently, that every ship, laden wholly or in part with English merchandise, should be lawful prize, whoever might be the owner of the merchandise. This was virtually an order to every European Power to renounce all commerce with Great Britain.

The Kings of Sweden and Denmark, to protect the navigation of their subjects, appointed frigates and other armed vessels to sail at certain fixed periods and convoy merchant vessels bound for Lisbon and the Mediterranean. At first, indeed, vessels so escorted were suffered to pass by the British cruisers. The principle was first contested by Admiral Keith, in the case of a Danish frigate with convoy, near Gibraltar, in 1799. More flagrant instances occurred next year. On July 25th, 1800, the Danish frigate Freya, with a convoy of six vessels, was stopped by an English squadron at the entrance of the Channel, and, after some resistance, was con­ducted with its convoy to the Downs, where the vessels were searched, but nothing of a contraband nature discovered. A warm discussion ensued between the English and Danish Governments; Lord Whitworth was sent to Copenhagen, and a fleet of sixteen ships of war was dispatched to support his arguments. Count Bernstorff proposed the mediation of Russia, which was declined, and Denmark was compelled to yield. An arrangement was concluded, August 29th, by which the Danish convoys were suspended till some definite convention should be concluded; meanwhile the Freya and her convoys were released.

Before the arrival of Lord Whitworth in Denmark, the court 0f Copenhagen had notified to the Tsar the outrage committed on the Danish flag, and had invoked his interference. Paul I, who already thought that he had several causes of complaint against England, resolved to constitute himself the arbiter of the Baltic and the protector of neutral rights. Accordingly, without awaiting the result of the negotiations between England and Denmark, he addressed a circular to the Kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, who had all occasion to complain of insults to their flags, inviting them to revive the Armed Neutrality established in the reign of Catharine II in 1780. The Convention arranged between Great Britain and Denmark caused him at first to relax the measures which he had taken to carry out this policy; but the news of the seizure of Malta by the English goaded him to fury, and on November 7th, 1800, an embargo was laid on all British ships in the ports of the Russian Empire. This was a manifest violation of the Treaty of Commerce between Great Britain and Russia, of February 21st, 1797, which provided that, in case of a rupture, a term of at least a twelvemonth should be allowed to merchants to retire and dispose of their effects.

Gustavus Adolphus IV of Sweden was the first to adhere armed to the Russian proposition. In December, 1800, that Sovereign proceeded in person to St. Petersburg, to arrange with the Tsar the basis of the proposed association, and a series of treaties was signed forming a regular Quadruple Alliance, viz., between Russia and Sweden, and Russia and Denmark, December 16th, and on the 18th between Russia and Prussia. The main principles adopted by this confederacy were, that arms and ammunition alone are contraband of war, unless particular treaties with a belligerent determined otherwise; that goods belonging to the subjects of a belligerent Power are covered by the neutral flag, except contraband of war; that no port can be regarded as blockaded unless the blockade be real and effectual, rendering it dangerous to enter; that the declaration of an officer commanding a ship or ships of war, to the effect that there is nothing contraband on board his convoy, suffices to exempt it from search.

Mr. Drummond having demanded from the Court of Denmark a plain and satisfactory answer respecting the negotiations with Russia, Count Bernstorff, in reply, denied that the engagements which Denmark was about to contract were either hostile to Great Britain, or at variance with those of the Convention of August 29th; and he asserted that the principles, respecting which the Northern Powers were about to come to an agreement, so far from compromising their neutrality, were designed only to confirm it. In consequence of this note the English Government placed an embargo on all Russian, Swedish, and Danish vessels, January 14th, 1801; and at the same time orders were given for the invasion of the Danish islands in the West Indies, and for the preparation of a Baltic fleet. Meanwhile, the Tsar had recalled his Minister from Copenhagen, because the Court of Denmark had hesitated to ratify absolutely the treaty of December 16th. The King of Denmark, thus placed between two dangers, acceded unconditionally to the Armed Neutrality, February 27th, 1801.

The British Ministry, wishing to conciliate Prussia, had England laid no embargo on the ships of that Power, although she had Denmark joined the Northern League. Yet Prussia and Denmark concerted a project for excluding English vessels from the Elbe and Weser, to which also Paul I acceded. The Danes, however, used no reprisals against England, even in their own harbours, till March 29th, when an embargo was placed upon all English ships. At the same time 12,000 Danish troops occupied Hamburg, caused the buoys to be removed between Cuxhaven and Gluckstadt, put an embargo on all ships bound for England, and seized all English property that could be found in Hamburg. Another Danish corps of 3,000 men occupied Lübeck, April 5th. An English fleet, under Sir Hyde Parker and Lord Nelson, had already reached the entrance of the Kattegat on the 18th of March. On April 4th 24,000 Prussian troops entered the Electorate of Hanover by virtue of a convention with the Hanoverian Ministry. It has been thought that this occupation was arranged with the Cabinet of London, in order to prevent Hanover from being seized by the French. It is at all events certain that, even after this event, no embargo was laid in England upon Prussian ships, nor in Prussia upon those of England. Bremen was also taken possession of by Prussian troops, April 12th.

Nelson at Copenhagen.

We have thus explained at some length the origin of the Armed Neutrality of 1800, and of the short war with Denmark which ensued. Mr. Vansittart, who was sent as a special envoy to Copenhagen, having failed in his attempts to induce the Court of Denmark to withdraw from the Russian alliance, recourse was had to compulsion. The history of the expedition to Copenhagen under Sir Hyde Parker and Lord Nelson is well known. The Sound was passed by the English fleet with little or no damage from the guns of Kronborg Castle, while the Swedes on their side offered no resistance. On April 2nd, Lord Nelson, disregarding the signal of Sir Hyde Parker to withdraw from the combat, gained a decisive victory over the Danish fleet stationed in front of Copenhagen; but not without a brave and prolonged resistance on the part of the Danes, by which the English vessels were considerably damaged. On the following day Nelson proceeded to Copenhagen to arrange an accommodation. The Danish Government rejected some advantageous offers for a defensive alliance, but concluded a convention for an armistice of fourteen weeks (April 9th) : during which period the Danish fleet was to remain in its actual state, and the treaty with Russia of December 16th, 1800, that is, the Armed Neutrality, was, so far as concerned Denmark, to remain in abeyance. In the West Indies, Admiral Duckworth had, in the course of March, reduced the Danish islands of St. Martin, St. Thomas, and St. John, and the Swedish island of St. Bartholomew.

A few days after the conclusion of the convention with Denmark, Sir Hyde Parker, leaving Nelson at Copenhagen, proceeded with twenty-eight ships into the Baltic. He appeared before the Swedish port of Carlskrona, April 19th, and summoned the commandant to make known his intentions. Gustavus IV, who had come to Carlskrona in person, directed the commandant to reply that the King of Sweden would remain faithful to his engagements with his allies. At this critical juncture hostilities were arrested by intelligence of the death of Paul I, and by the change of policy adopted by his son and successor, the Emperor Alexander, immediately on his accession to the Russian throne.

Although Paul I was loyal and generous, and not without a certain kind of intellect, his violence and eccentricities caused him to be dreaded and shunned. His recent policy and abandonment of the English alliance were also regarded by a powerful party with disapprobation. It was feared, too, that Paul would restore the Kingdom of Poland. Paul was murdered on the night of March 24th, and the next day it was given out that the Emperor had been carried off by apoplexy. Alexander I received the homage of the Court and Senate, and the announcement of a new reign spread an unconcealed joy through the Russian metropolis.

Alexander was no sooner seated on his father’s throne than a new line of policy was adopted. He abandoned the French alliance, and one of his first acts was to inform the English admiral that he accepted the proposal made by Great Britain to his predecessor, to arrange the differences which had produced the war; and Count Pahlen, one of the chief agents in the murder of Paul I, and now Minister of Foreign Affairs, requested a suspension of hostilities till he could receive the instructions of his Court. This demand was acceded to by Admiral Parker, and the Northern War terminated. At the instance of the Emperor of Russia the Danish troops evacuated Hamburg and Lübeck; the King of Prussia also showed himself willing to forward the views of Alexander. Nevertheless, the Prussian troops continued to occupy Hanover, till the preliminaries of a peace between that country and France had been ratified. A Congress was opened at St. Petersburg, and on June 17th, 1801, a conven­tion was concluded between Russia and Great Britain, which established a new maritime code. Great Britain obtained the recognition of two principles which were deemed of the highest importance: 1. That the flag does not cover the goods; 2. That vessels under convoy may be visited. On the other hand, the English Cabinet renounced some of its pretensions; especially the validity of what is called “a paper-blockade”. As between Russia and Great Britain arms and ammunition alone were declared contraband of war, to the exclusion of provision and building-timber; with other nations contraband goods were to be determined by treaty. By two separate articles the armistice between Great Britain and the Scandinavian kingdoms was prolonged for three months; and the Treaty of Commerce between Great Britain and Russia of February 21st, 1797, was renewed.

This convention excited considerable dissatisfaction in Denmark and Sweden. Danish blood alone had flowed in maintaining principles first proclaimed by Russia, but which that Power now abandoned. The Court of Copenhagen was, however, at length compelled to yield, and acceded to the Convention of St. Petersburg, October 23rd, 1801. Sweden held out longer, and did not adhere to the convention till March 30th, 1802. Great Britain, in conformity with it, restored the islands which she had taken from the two Scandinavian Powers.

The Coalition, for which the Emperor Paul had taken up arms, having been dissolved by the Peace of Lunéville, Alexander entered into negotiations for a peace with France and her allies. A treaty with Spain was first concluded at Paris, October 4th, 1801. The treaty with France was signed four days later (October 8th). A secret convention concluded between France and Russia, October 11th, was of more political importance than the treaty of peace. The two Powers agreed to act in intimate concert in arranging the affairs of Italy and Germany; that Russia should mediate the re-establishment of peace between France and the Porte; that France should withdraw her troops from Naples; that the King of Sardinia should be indemnified; that the Republic of the Seven Ionian Islands should be recognized and guaranteed; that the two Powers should unite to con­solidate the general peace, to establish a just equilibrium in the four quarters of the globe, and to assure the liberty of the seas.

In Egypt the departure of Bonaparte had spread discontent and dejection among the French army, and these feelings were mitigated only by their confidence in the great military qualities of Kléber, to whom the command had been left. The Turks effected another descent at Damietta, November 1st, 1799. They were repulsed with great loss; but Kléber, on learning that the Grand Vizier was approaching with a large army through Syria, and that he had taken the fortress of El Arisch, December 29th, deemed it prudent to enter into negotiations. These had been begun by Bonaparte before his departure, and he had recommended Kléber to follow them up. Kléber preferred to treat through English mediation rather than directly with the Turks. He had already had some correspondence with Sir Sidney Smith, and conferences were opened on board the Commodore’s ship, the  Tiger, December 22nd. Sir Sidney Smith was not authorized to treat by his Government; and, in fact, his negotiations with Desaix and Poussielgue, whom Kléber had deputed, were not conducted in the name of England, but of the Grand Vizier. The Tiger being driven out to sea by a violent storm, came to anchor at El Arisch, January 9th, 1800, where the camp of the Grand Vizier was then established. By a convention signed at this place January 24th, by Desaix and Poussielgue, and the plenipotentiaries of the Grand Vizier, an armistice in Egypt of three months was agreed upon; the Turks engaged to transport the French army, with arms and bag­gage, to France, and to provide for its subsistence.

Abercrombie at Aboukir.

Sir Sidney Smith, at the time this convention was arranged, had no reason to suspect that it would be distasteful to his Government. But meanwhile the English Cabinet, relying apparently on an intercepted letter of Kléber’s, in which the distress to which the French army had been reduced was painted in the most vivid colours, had resolved to listen to no terms with them short of a surrender as prisoners of war; and they had already given Lord Keith, their admiral in the Mediterranean, secret instructions to this effect. Sir Sidney Smith did not learn these orders till February 22nd, at Cyprus; and he immediately hastened to communicate them to Kléber lest that general should have reason to complain that he had been deceived. Kléber had already restored Salahieh, Katijeh, Belbeis, and Damietta to the Grand Vizier, when he received a summons from Lord Keith to surrender at discretion. He immediately resumed hostilities. The Turks were completely defeated at Heliopolis, March 20th. But Kléber was assassinated by a fanatical Turk, June 14th; when the command devolved on Menou, one of the most incompetent of the French generals. It became necessary to reduce him by force, and General Abercrombie was dispatched to Egypt with 17,000 men. Lord Elgin, British Minister at Constantinople, pressed the Porte to assist. But Paul I had inspired the Turks with a distrust of England; the Turkish armament was retarded, and Abercrombie, after waiting in vain for the Ottoman fleet, disembarked near Aboukir, March 1st, 1801, and after a sharp contest made himself master of that place. In the battle of Canopus, or Rhamanieh, March 21st, Menou was defeated with a loss of 1,700 killed, and 2,000 prisoners. But Abercrombie received a mortal wound, and Menou contrived to retreat in good order to Alexandria.

The command of the English army now devolved on General Hutchinson, who, being reinforced by 6,000 Turks, took Rosetta, April 19th. Reinforcements from the East Indies, under General Baird, as well as from the Cape of Good Hope, disembarked at Cosseir on the Red Sea, but came too late to be of any service. An army of 20,000 Turks, marching through Syria, had joined the English, June 5th; and General Belliard, commandant of Cairo, seeing no hope of resisting such superior forces, signed a capitulation, June 27th, 1801. By virtue of this capitulation, 14,000 men, including civil officers and scientific and literary men, were carried to Toulon free of expense; which port they reached in September. As Menou refused to include in the capitulation the garrison of Alexandria, that place was invested, and had to suffer all the horrors of a siege. At length, despairing of relief, which had been vainly attempted by Admiral Gantheaume, Menou was compelled to capitulate, August 30th. He did not obtain such advantageous terms as Belliard. The French were obliged to relinquish their Arab MSS., maps, and objects of antiquity, and to surrender their vessels and the greater part of their guns.

Peace between France and Turkey.

The Porte being assured of the evacuation of Egypt by the French, the preliminaries of a peace with France were signed at Paris, October 9th, 1801; but they were not converted into a definitive treaty till June 25th, 1802, after the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens between France and England. The Turkish dominions were to be placed in the status quo before the war; the French were to enjoy all their former privileges of navigation and commerce, and particularly were to have the right of entering the Black Sea. The Porte acceded to the treaty of Amiens.

After the Peace of Lunéville, France had no active opponent except Great Britain. The First Consul was sincerely desirous of a peace with this country also. With the view of procuring it, M. Otto, who had been chargé d'affaires at Berlin, a man of conciliating manners and well acquainted with the English language and customs, was sent to London as commissioner for treating with regard to prisoners of war; and he availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded to open indirect communications with the English Ministers and other influential statesmen. These views were promoted by a change in the English Ministry. Pitt resigned office, February 9th, 1801, in consequence of his advocacy of Catholic emancipation; a measure which George III would not hear of. Pitt was succeeded as Premier by Henry Addington, the Speaker of the House of Commons; Lord Hawkesbury became Foreign Secretary instead of Lord Grenville, and Lord Hobart succeeded Mr. Dundas in the War Department. The new Ministers were inclined for peace. Immediately on their accession to office they dispatched to Paris one Messeria, a Corsican, to sound the intentions of Bonaparte, and to propose the opening of a conference. The First Consul’s inclination for peace had, however, at this time somewhat abated. He beheld in the North a formidable combination against England : the Emperor Paul I seemed warmly disposed to second all the French plans of aggression, while Egypt continued to be occupied by the troops of the Republic. Negotiations, indeed, still went on, but in a de­sultory manner. At the same time Bonaparte sought to create alarm in England by preparations for an invasion. Camps had been formed at different points on the French coast from Ostend to Brest; a large force was stationed at Boulogne, and a great many vessels and flat boats had been collected in the different harbours. Lord Nelson was specially commissioned to watch and frustrate these preparations; but though he was fully persuaded that an invasion could not be successfully attempted, the victor of Aboukir and Copenhagen failed in an attempt to destroy the French flotilla at Boulogne. The reverses of the French arms in Egypt, the death of the Emperor Paul, the dissolution of the Northern Confederacy, the ascendancy of British maritime power, discontents in Holland, Switzerland, and Piedmont, discussions in Germany respecting the execution of the Treaty of Lunéville, and the indemnification of dispossessed Princes, the state of public opinion in France, and other causes inclined the French Consul more seriously to peace. Preliminaries were signed at London, October 1st, 1801. Amiens was fixed upon as the place for negotiating a definitive treaty, which was to include Spain and the Batavian Republic; and conferences were opened early in December. Great Britain was represented by the Marquis Cornwallis, France by Joseph Bonaparte. The Chevalier D'Azara and M. Schimmelpenninck were the plenipotentiaries for Spain and Holland, but took no part in the general conferences; they were appealed to only when the interests of those Powers were concerned. Malta was the chief obstacle to an arrangement, and occasioned long and warm discussions. At length, however, the definitive Peace of Amiens was signed, March 27th, 1802. The following were the principal conditions. The Isle of Trinidad was ceded by Spain to Great Britain, and Ceylon by the Dutch: Great Britain restored all her other conquests. Portugal was to make some concessions to France in Guiana, and to cede to Spain the province of Olivença. The Republic of the Seven Ionian Islands was recognized. These islands, taken by the French from the Venetians, and recaptured by the combined Russian and Ottoman fleets, had been singu­larly enough erected into a Republic by the two most despotic governments in the world, as mutual jealousies would not permit their possession by either of the conquering Powers. They were nominally placed under the suzerainty of the Porte, but with Russian guarantee of their integrity. The British Cabinet preferred passing over North Italy in silence to recognizing the new Italian Republics. In the pre­ceding January, Bonaparte had caused himself to be elected President of the Cisalpine Republic, and had changed its name to that of the “Italian Republic”.

By Article X of the Treaty of Amiens, Malta and its dependent isles were to be restored to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who were to elect a Grand Master. No Frenchman or Englishman was to he admitted into the Order. Malta was to be evacuated by the British troops within three months after the exchange of ratifications, provided the Grand Master was ready to take possession, and that a garrison of 2,000 men, to be provided by the King of the Two Sicilies, had arrived. Half at least of the garrison was to be composed of Natives of Malta. The Maltese ports to be open to all nations except the States of Barbary. The present arrangement and the independence of the island, to be guaranteed by France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Prussia. The other more remarkable conditions of this Treaty were that the French troops should evacuate the Kingdom of Naples and the Roman State, and the British all the ports and islands in the Mediterranean and Adriatic. The French fisheries in Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence were to be restored to the footing they were on before the war. The House of Nassau was to be compensated for the loss of property accruing from the revolution in Holland : but the august and sovereign character of that House was ignored, nor was it stated whence the compensation was to be derived.

By the great mass of the English people, overwhelmed with the burdens of war, the Peace of Amiens was hailed with delight; the more discerning portion of the public foresaw that it was not likely to be durable. None of the objects of the war had in fact been obtained. All that England could show for her enormous expenditure of blood and treasure during a period of nine years, were the comparatively unimportant possessions of Trinidad and Ceylon, which belonged to the allies of France, while France herself, the principal party of the war, had not been deprived of a single possession, and found her influence on the Continent increased to a formidable extent by connivance at her annexations and by the republics which she had established in Italy and the Netherlands. In France, on the contrary, the Peace of Amiens prodigiously increased the renown of the First Consul, who appeared to have established by negotiations the acquisitions won by his arms. The Legislature resounded with his praises. It was declared that he was entitled to some signal mark of national gratitude; on May 8th he was re-elected Consul for an additional ten years, and a few months after (August 2nd, 1802) he was rewarded with the Consulate for life.