agement; and it was left to Great Britain to
make the sole effort then attempted for the cause of Swiss
independence. For some time past the cantons had made appeals to
the British Government, which now, in response, sent an English agent,
Moore, to confer with their chiefs, and to advance money and promise
active support if he judged that a successful resistance could be
attempted.[226] The British Ministry undoubtedly prepared for an open
rupture with France on this question. Orders were immediately sent
from London that no more French or Dutch colonies were to be handed
back; and, as we have seen, the Cape of Good Hope and the French
settlements in India were refused to the Dutch and French officers who
claimed their surrender.

Hostilities, however, were for the present avoided. In face of the
overwhelming force which Ney had close at hand, the chiefs of the
central cantons shrank from any active opposition; and Moore, finding
on his arrival at Constance that they had decided to submit, speedily
returned to England. Ministers beheld with anger and dismay the
perpetuation of French supremacy in that land; but they lacked the
courage openly to oppose the First Consul's action, and gave orders
that the stipulated cessions of French and Dutch colonies should take
effect.

The submission of the Swiss and the weakness of all the Powers
encouraged the First Consul to impose his will on the deputies from
the cantons, who assembled at Paris at the close of the year 1802. He
first caused their aims and the capacity of their leaders to be
sounded in a Franco-Swiss Commission, and thereafter assembled them at
St. Cloud on Sunday, December 12th. He harangued them at great length,
hinting very clearly that the Swiss must now take a far lower place in
the scale of peoples than in the days when France was divided into
sixty fiefs, and that union with her could alone enable them to play a
great part in the world's affairs: nevertheless, as they clung to
independence he would undertake in his quality of mediator to end
their troubles, and yet leave them free. That they could attain unity
was a mere dream of their metaphysicians: they must rely on the
cantonal organization, always provided that the French and Italian
districts of Vaud and the upper Ticino were not subject to the central
or German cantons: to prevent such a dishonour he would shed the blood
of 50,000 Frenchmen: Berne must also open its golden book of the
privileged