and Despard's conspiracy still agitated the public mind. In the month of
February a strong anti-Gallican sentiment was roused by Mackintosh's
powerful defence of the royalist Jean Peltier, accused and ultimately
convicted of a gross libel on the first consul. On March 8 came the
royal message calling out the militia, which heralded the rupture of the
peace.

The renewal of the war, fraught with so much glory and misery to both
nations, can have taken neither by surprise. The ink was scarcely dry on
the treaty of Amiens when fresh causes of discord sprung up between
France and Great Britain. More than one of these, indeed, had arisen
between the signature of the preliminary convention and the actual
conclusion of peace. During the negotiations, the first consul had, as
we have seen, never ceased to protest against the violent attacks upon
himself in the English press, while Cornwallis persistently warned his
own government against the menacing attitude of France in Italy and
elsewhere. The proclamation of the concordat in April, 1802, and the
recognition of Napoleon as first consul for life in August, however they
may have strengthened his position in France, were no legitimate
subjects for resentment in England; but his acceptance of the presidency
of the "Italian" republic in January, followed by his annexation of
Piedmont in September, revived in all its intensity the British mistrust
of his aggressive policy.

[Pageheading: _FRENCH AGGRESSIONS._]

The month of October witnessed a renewed aggression on Switzerland. A
French army, commanded by Ney, advanced into the interior of the
country, and forced the Swiss, who were in the midst of a civil war, to
accept the mediation of Napoleon. The new constitution which he framed
attempted, by weakening the federal government, to place the direction
of Helvetian external relations in the hands of the French first consul.
Our government vainly endeavoured to resist this interference by sending
agents with money and promises. In Germany the redistribution of
territory necessitated by the peace of Luneville was carried out
professedly under the joint mediation of France and Russia, but really
at the dictation of Napoleon. The final project, which destroyed all
except three of the spiritual principalities and all except six of the
free cities, was proposed by France on February 23, 1803, and accepted
by the Emperor Francis on April 27.

Against these rearrangements, Great Br