formerly been of the first importance to France, but which the revoJutionary army of negroes, who had defended them throughout the war, now threatened to wrest from the parent state. The second project was still bolder. It was to place the Cisalpine republic, which the treaty of Luneville had declared independent, absolutely in the power and at the discretion of the first consul. In pursuance of the first project, a considerable army and fleet had been for a long time collecting at Brest, L'Orient, and Rochefort, which consisted of twenty-three ships of the line, five of which were Spanish, and 25,000 land troops, and which sailed on the 14th of December. The British government was, not without reason, jealous of such a force, and somewhat anxious about its final destination; but having received express assurances from France that its only object was to take possession of the colonics, and restore them to regular government, they at length consented to their sailing, without waiting for the conclusion of the definitive treaty ! They however collected a flect at Bantry Bay, under the command of admiral Mitchell, which was destined as a fleet of observation, to watch their motions in the West Indies. When the crews of these vessels understood that they were about to be sent thither, notwithstanding the war appeared at an end, a spirit of mutiny spread pretty universally through the fleet, but particularly on board the ships Temeraire and Formidable. It was, however, soon subdued by the decided conduct and spirit of the officers; and fourteen of the ringleaders, who had most of them borne an excellent character before the mutiny, were tried by a court martial, condemned, and executed. The mutiny thus at an end, and completely subdued, a squadron of seven sail of the line proceeded to the West Indies to reinforce the fleets on that station, and prevent the possibility of any attack upon our possessions in that part of the world. Such were the principal events which concluded the year 1801. CHAP. CHAP. VII. Commencement of the Year 1802.-Opposite Opinions on the General State of Affairs at that Period. Tardiness of the Negotiation at Amiens— accounted for.-Projects of Bonaparte sets off for Lyons to meet the Cisalpine Deputies-conferences with them in private.-The Consulta publicly submit the new Constitution of the Cisalpine Republic to him, and solicit him to accept the Presidency.- Constitution of the Italian R-public-Bonaparté returns to Paris.-Additional Acquisitions of France in the Month of January-Louisiana-Parma, &c.-Ella. I majority nad impatiently was the opinion of a vast burden which the bulk of the na was now to be withdrawn; that the substituted taxes were to be such as would press solely on the opulent part of the community; and that vast reductions were to take place in our military and marine establishments. that the year 1802 commenced under circumstances highly auspicious. The termination of our arduous struggle for every thing dear to Britons, with an enemy, the torrents of whose success we alone could stem, and from which we had retreated, as far as our own In another point of view our immediate interests were affected, situation was not less flattering: with honour; unimpaired resources; the atrocities of the French revoluadditional territory; the character tionary government, and the desof our army and navy at the high- potism which succeeded them, and est point of reputation; our mari- to which they inevitably tended, time regulations and laws, contend- thoroughly satisfied the English ed for with the Northern Powers, mind upon the subject of democracy. gloriously established; a confidence And there was scarcely to be found in the pacific tone and temper of the at the close of the war an individual first consul of France; a belief that who would not have borne the the spirit of rebellion and disaffection pressures he had undergone, mulin Ireland was completely allayed, tiplied tenfold, rather than subject shone forth in the dazzling assur- our happy and tried constitution ances of the minister and those to the horrors attendant on innovawho acted with them: and these tion and revolution. The opening assurances were of too flattering a of the distilleries was a convincing nature not to meet with implicit and gratifying proof that plenty credit. Nor did it contribute in a bad once more established herself trifling degree to the general satis- in her favoured seat; and the faction, that it was universally un- ceasing of the provision contracts, derstood that the income tax, a and the quantity of foreign grain in our ports, in addition to the produce of the two successive plentiful harvests it had pleased Providence to send us, put an end to all apprehension of scarcity, and the markets once more were become reasonable and abundant. Yet were there not wanting some, and those too eminent for political sagacity, who saw this brilliant picture in a very different light with them, the peace was ill-timed, and ill-framed. While they acknowledged the abundance of our resources, and the high reputation of our fleets and armies, they contended that the advantages of the former, and the victories achieved by the latter, were thrown away in negotiation. If we had acquired territory, it was at the expense of our old allies, whom by now stripping of a portion of their dominions, we threw more completely within the power, or rather tyranny of France, who, on the contrary, by this treaty maintained her high tone of unity and indivisibility; who, far from parting with any thing she possessed by right of conquest at the time of the signing the preliminaries, was then, and since engaged in adding territory and empire to her already overgrown dominion. Of the tone and temper of the first consul, they were not equally sanguine with those, who saw in them the spirit of moderation and peace; on the contrary, they augured ill of both, from the activity which he manifested in seizing the first moments of this truce to send a vast armament to St. Domingo; his journey to the South, to establish himself in the sovereignty of Italy; the annexation, by private treaty, concluded with Spain on the 21st of March 1801, and which now became public, of Louisiana, and Parma with all its dependencies, and of the island of Elba, so long and so nobly defended by British valour*; his treaty with the Porte, inimical in the extreme to the interests of England in the Levant, and concluded surreptitiously with that power, as the price of the evacua tion of Egypt by the French troops, at the moment when, he knew, they were to a man prisoners to the British force; in fine, they were of opinion, that on the part of Bonaparté the peace was deceitful and hollow, and would last just long enough to witness the surrender of our conquests in all parts of the world, to our unrelenting enemy, and to enable him again to It is much to be regretted that the particulars of the gallant and glorious defence of this spot, by a handful of troops, under the command of leut. col. Airey, of the 8th regiment of infantry, against an infinitely superior French force, has never yet come in a satisfactory form before the public. That island, of the utmost importance as a military station, had by the bravery and great exertions of its small garrison, composed of Tuscans, Swiss, Corsicans, British marines and seamen, together with a few English merchants who had been obliged to quit Leghorn, been just rendered tenable, when a suspension of arms tk place, in consequence of the preliminary treaty of peace. The military operations in the isle of Elba were the last act of hostility between Great Britain and France; in point of real merit they have certainly not been surpassed by any event of the war, although their brilliancy has been in a considerable degree eclipsed, and prevented from exciting that interest to which they were justly entitled, from having occurred at a period, when the public attention was almost exclusively occupied with the more agreeable intelligence of the signature of preliminary articles of peace, and with the more important event of the surrender of the entire French army in Egypt to his majesty's force. 3 commence commence war with incalculable, faith to her allies, and her future perhaps irresistible advantages. In security.1 the reduction of our fleets and aimies, a weak and miserable economy was alone visible, which would not only, in a moment of future contest, lay us at the mercy of an enemy, whose vast projects and activity admitted of no such measure; but would, in such a case, induce a tenfold expense to replace them on a war establishment. To the Northern Powers we had conceded, under the name of convention, at a moment when we might have commanded and obtained concession. Nor did they consider the repeal of the income tax as a measure consistent with ound policy or judgment. It was, they maintained, a recurrence to the already overstrained funding ystem, to the unwise and burdensome mode of borrowing with deferred interest, which had been abandoned by the late minister as dangerous, if not ruinous in its consequences; whereas, by a manly perseverance in the tax, the public income would be, not only commensurate with the expenditure of each year, but the vast debt incurred by the nation would begin immediately to decrease, and at no distant period should we find our selves renovated in credit and in resources. And whilst they participated in the joy and thankfulness attendant on restored abundance, and the other prosperous statements, they insisted they were additional and powerful motives for a continuance of the war, rather than that we should have submitted to make a peace, like the present, so little to the honour of Great. Britain, who surrendered by it her national character, her good Such was the opinion of the few contrasted with that of the many; yet all began towards the middle of January to express surprise, mingled with impatience, at the delay of the signature of the definitive treaty, More than three months had elapsed since the signing of the preliminaries, and still was the nation left in anxiety and suspense as to its conclusion. The situation of lord Cornwallis at Amiens was awkward in the extreme, and suspicions began to be entertained that he was, as well as the country he represented, egregiously trifled with. It was also doubted, whether the permitting a vast armament to sail from the ports of France, pending the negotiation, was consistent with established usage or sound policy; and many were of opinion, that the being obliged to dispatch a fleet to the West Indies of men of war, in order to watch the motions of the French squadron, at a vast expense and inconvenience, was a bad foretaste of the blessings of peace. In the mean time Bonaparté, who appeared to consider the congress at Amiens, or the definitive treaty, as objects merely of secondary importance, prepared to set out for Lyons, for the ostensible purpose of conferring with a considerable number of the Cisalpine deputies, but rather, as it appeared in the event, for the object, of infinitely more importance to him, of being invested with the sovereignty of that country, under the title of president. Mr. Talleyrand, the minister of state for foreign affairs, preceded him, and arrived at Lyons on the 4th of January, He employed ployed his time, in the interval, between his arrival and that of the first consul, in conciliating and giving several magnificent and sumptuous entertainments to the Cisalpine deputies. Bonaparté left Paris on the 9th, at one o'clock in the morning, and reached Lyons on the night of the 11th. He was accompanied on his journey by madame Bonaparté, Chaptal, the minister of the interior, and many other personages of the first distinction in France. At his approach to Lyons, he was met and escorted by a brilliant troop of 150 volunteers, all natives of that town, young men of fortune, and fine appearance. Thus accompanied, he entered the city about ten o'clock in the evening, amidst the loudest acclamations and the most rapturous expressions of universal joy. On the grand staircase of the palace, appointed for his residence, the following most flattering and fulsome inscription met his eyes : 11th January, an. 10, Bonaparté, Vanquisher and pacificator, Arrived in this city and lodged in this palace; 500 Cisalpine deputies attended him, To fix, under his auspices, The laws and destinies of their country. At his view The arts awoke in this city, Commerce resumes its ancient splendour, And the grateful Lyonese, forming for him The first consul employed his time, for the ensuing fortnight, in publicly visiting the different manufactories and establishments of Lyons, and in privately conferring with the principal Cisalpine deputies. The people of Lyons, who had suffered, perhaps, more by the revolution and the war than any other city in France, were charmed with the attention of the first consul to their commercial interests, and his promises of protection and encouragement. The Cisalpine deputies were also in the same time prevailed upon to grant, with a degree of enthusiasm, that which was now the first object of Bonapaté's ambition. At the hall, where the consulta met, a splendid chair was prepared for Bonaparté, adorned with mili tary trophies; the room was decorated with various ornaments emblematic of his victories, and inscribed with mottoes applicable to him and his fortunes. The meetings of the consulta were private, and they at length appointed a committee of thirty to prepare a report of the actual state of the Cisalpine nation, and the means necessary for its future prosperity and happiness. This committee accordingly presented a report, such as might have been expected, declaring it absolutely necessary that Bonaparté himself should undertake the sole and exclusive management of their af fairs. This report was very long, and concluded in the following manner: "The history of the past revolutions of the Cisalpine republic has not been able to assist the researches of your committee. In fact, the men May his happiness be equal to his who have traversed those revolu The same wish that their ancestors 16 glory." tions, have either themselves not |