When the misunderstanding took place, France and England might have
mutually reproached each other, but justice was apparently on the side of
France. It was evident that England, by refusing to evacuate Malta, was
guilty of a palpable infraction of the treaty of Amiens, while England
could only institute against France what in the French law language is
called a suit or process of tendency. But it must be confessed that this
tendency on the part of France to augment her territory was very evident,
for the Consular decrees made conquests more promptly than the sword.
The union of Piedmont with France had changed the state of Europe. This
union, it is true, was effected previously to the treaty of Amiens; but
it was not so with the states of Parma and Piacenza, Bonaparte having by
his sole authority constituted himself the heir of the Grand Duke,
recently deceased. It may therefore be easily imagined how great was
England's uneasiness at the internal prosperity of France and the
insatiable ambition of her ruler; but it is no less certain that, with
respect to Malta, England acted with decidedly bad faith; and
this bad faith appeared in its worst light from the following
circumstance:--It had been stipulated that England should withdraw
her troops from Malta three months after the signing of the treaty, yet
more than a year had elapsed, and the troops were still there. The
order of Malta was to be restored as it formerly was; that is to say, it
was to be a sovereign and independent order, under the protection of the
Holy See. The three Cabinets of Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg were
to guarantee the execution of the treaty of Amiens. The English
Ambassador, to excuse the evasions of his Government, pretended that the
Russian Cabinet concurred with England in the delayed fulfilment of the
conditions of the treaty; but at the very moment he was making that
excuse a courier arrived from the Cabinet of St. Petersburg bearing
despatches completely, at variance with the assertion of Lord Whitworth.
His lordship left Paris on the night of the 12th May 1803, and the
English Government, unsolicited, sent passports to the French embassy in
London. The news of this sudden rupture made the English console fall
four per cent., but did not immediately produce such a retrograde effect
on the French funds, which were then quoted at fifty-five francs;--a
very high point, when it is recollected that they were at seven or eight
francs