Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 by Arthur Bryant Page B

very unsatisfactory dispatch from Talleyrand, the Ambassador said good-bye to his friends. But the passports which were needed to obtain post-horses failed to arrive, and at midnight,* when he and his family were discussing what to do, a message was brought up that an official from the Foreign Ministry was at the door with an urgent message for a member of the Embassy Staff. It appeared that he had a proposal to make which might settle the differences between England and France in a few hours. An hour later a note arrived from Talleyrand requesting an audience on the following evening on a matter of momentous importance. Next day, when Whitworth was found to be still in Paris, the gloom of the capital turned to joy.
    At the interview that evening Talleyrand officially proposed that the sovereignty of Malta should be vested in Russia on the expiry of England's tenure. With such a Power to assure the island's integrity, he declared, the tenure could be as brief as the First Consul
    1 Browning, 191-5, 198-200; Minto, III, 285; Malmesbury, IV, 244; C. //. F. P., I, 323; Paget Papers, II,
    desired. When Whitworth insisted that it would have to be for at least ten years, pointing out that it was her own not Russia's security that his country sought, Talleyrand pressed him to refer the matter home for further instructions. In the end, sooner than incur the responsibility of precipitating war, the Ambassador agreed. He was disobeying orders, but he reflected that the French were giving ground.
    When the news of these events reached England on May 7th the country was expecting immediate war. The North Sea Fleet had been reinforced and Cornwallis had been ordered to hoist his flag at Torbay to resume the blockade of Brest. For all the deep regrets for peace lost, men asked only one thing: an early end to suspense and shilly-shallying. Already speculators on the Stock Exchange were turning national anxiety to inglorious gain with false rumours to unsettle the Funds.
    It was in such a mood and subject to such suspicions that the Cabinet met to discuss Whitworth's dispatch. Their decision was never in doubt. Talleyrand's proposal was dismissed as a trick to gain time. Previous British overtures to Russia to guarantee the integrity of Malta had failed, and her conditional agreement had only been obtained at the entreaty of France. It was known that Napoleon had been trying to bribe her with offers of Hanover and suggestions for a joint dismemberment of Turkey. Either Russia had already agreed with Paris to accept Malta, in which case her consent boded ill to England's Eastern interests, or,—as seemed more likely—after a delay of several weeks she would persist in her earlier refusal to commit herself. 1 And by that time the French battle fleet would be home and Napoleon's transports safe in the colonies.
    ' Whitworth was therefore told that the proposals were so loose, indefinite and unsatisfactory that the French Government could never Jiave expected them to be received seriously. His instructions were repeated with categorical orders to leave Paris in thirty-six hours if they were not agreed to at once.
    The last scene of the long drawn-out tragi-comedy was pure melodrama. It began on May 10th, the day the Cabinet's instructions arrived, with a row between Napoleon and his postillion, the great man's assumption of the reins, a headlong collision between his phaeton-and-six and a gatepost, and a spill into the public roadway. Next day, while the angry despot was nursing his bruises and the
    1 " Russia was now what she ever has been since she assumed a place amongst the greater Powers of Europe—cajoling them all and' courting flattery from them all, but certainly never meaning to take an active part on behalf of any of them."—,Malmesbury, IV, 246.
    British colony its expectations, a dispatch from St. Petersburg put a trump-card into his hands. The Czar had agreed to the French request to mediate over Malta. This was a major triumph