ded it into two large states, the East and the West:
"What matters," he would often say, "that two countries are separated by
rivers or mountains, that they speak different languages? With very
slight shades of variety France, Spain, England, Italy, and Germany, have
the same manners and customs, the same religion, and the same dress. In
them a man can only marry one wife; slavery is not allowed; and these are
the great distinctions which divide the civilised inhabitants of the
globe. With the exception of Turkey, Europe is merely a province of the
world, and our warfare is but civil strife. There is also another way of
dividing nations, namely, by land and water." Then he would touch on all
the European interests, speak of Russia, whose alliance he wished for,
and of England, the mistress of the seas. He usually ended by alluding
to what was then his favourite scheme--an expedition to India.

When from these general topics Bonaparte descended to the particular
interests of France, he still spoke like a sovereign; and I may truly say
that he showed himself more jealous than any sovereign ever was of the
dignity of France, of which he already considered himself the sole
representative. Having learned that a captain of the English navy had
visited the dockyard of Brest passing himself off as a merchant, whose
passport he had borrowed, he flew into a rage because no one had ventured
to arrest him.--[see James' Naval History for an account of Sir Sidney
Smith's daring exploit.]--Nothing was lost on Bonaparte, and he made
use of this fact to prove to the Council of State the necessity of
increasing the number of commissary-generals of police. At a meeting of
the Council he said, "If there had been a commissary of police at Brest
he would have arrested the English captain and sent him at once to Paris.
As he was acting the part of a spy I would have had him shot as such.
No Englishman, not even a nobleman, or the English Ambassador, should be
admitted into our dockyards. I will soon regulate all this." He
afterwards said to me, "There are plenty of wretches who are selling me
every day to the English without my being subjected to English spying."

--[During the short and hollow peace of Amiens Bonaparte sent over
to England as consuls and vice-consuls, a number of engineers and
military men, who were instructed to make plans of all the harbours
and coasts of the United Kingdom. They worked in secrecy, yet not
s