should have lagged behind the far surer instincts
of English public opinion it is difficult to say. Hawkesbury's
despatch of four days later supplies an excuse for his contemptible
device of pretending not to see this glaring violation of the Treaty
of Luneville. Referring to the events at Lyons, he writes:

"Extravagant and unjustifiable as they are in themselves, [they]
must have led us to believe that the First Consul would have been
more anxious than ever to have closed his account with this
country."

Doubtless that was the case, but only on condition that England
remained passive while French domination was extended over all
neighbouring lands. If our Ministers believed that Bonaparte feared
the displeasure of Austria, they were completely in error. Thanks to
the utter weakness of the European system, and the rivalry of Austria
and Prussia, he was now able to concentrate his ever-increasing power
and prestige on the negotiations at Amiens, which once more claim our
attention.

Far from being sated by the prestige gained at Lyons, he seemed to
grow more exacting with victory. Moreover, he had been cut to the
quick by some foolish articles of a French _emigre_ named Peltier, in
a paper published at London: instead of treating them with the
contempt they deserved, he magnified these ravings of a disappointed
exile into an event of high policy, and fulminated against the
Government which allowed them. In vain did Cornwallis object that the
Addington Cabinet could not venture on the unpopular act of curbing
freedom of the Press in Great Britain. The First Consul, who had
experienced no such difficulty in France, persisted now, as a year
later, in considering every uncomplimentary reference to himself as an
indirect and semiofficial attack.

To these causes we may attribute the French demands of February 4th:
contradicting his earlier proposal for a temporary Neapolitan garrison
of Malta, Bonaparte now absolutely refused either to grant that
necessary protection to the weak Order of St. John, or to join Great
Britain in an equal share of the expenses--L20,000 a year--which such
a garrison would entail. The astonishment and indignation aroused at
Downing Street nearly led to an immediate rupture of the negotiations;
and it needed all the patience of Cornwallis and the suavity of Joseph
Bonaparte to smooth away the asperities caused by Napoleon's direct
intervention. It needs only a slight acquai