of them were in arms against her. It was impossible, by the most lavish subsidies, any longer to resist France on the Continent, or to drive her within her ancient limits, and the security of England herself from invasion depended on the constant superiority of her navy to the united navies of France, Spain, and Holland. The war was unpopular; the nation was discouraged, and the mutiny of the Nore had disclosed the new and terrible danger of disaffection in the fleet. It soon, however, appeared that the chances of obtaining peace were very small. Of the five members of the Directory, three were evidently opposed to it, and two at least of the French Commissioners were fully prepared to carry out their views. The French at once demanded the relinquishment by the King of England of his old title of King of France, the restoration of the ships that had been taken at Toulon, and an equivalent for those which had been destroyed; and they raised a question about a mortgage, which they erroneously imagined to be held by England on the Netherlands for money granted to the Emperor. But discussion had not proceeded far on these points, before a new demand was made, which appeared absolutely to close the door to peace. It was, that England should immediately, and as a preliminary to all negotiation, restore everything she had conquered, not only from France, but also from the Batavian Republic and from Spain. Lord Malmesbury, unwilling at once to break off the conference, asked for further explanations and instructions, and he was confirmed in this course by a very strange and characteristic incident. On July 14, an English gentleman, who had been long residing at Lille, called on the Secretary of the Legation, and showed him a note from M. Pein, who was an intimate friend of his own, and a near relation of Maret. It contained these somewhat enigmatical words: 'It would perhaps be necessary, in order to press on the negotiation, that Lord Malmesbury should have the means of coming to an understanding, and preparing materials with the person who is in truth the only one in a position to conduct the affair. In that case it would be possible to procure for Lord Malmesbury an intermediary who has the entire confidence of the person in question, and who, like that person, has no other end than the interest of all, and an arrange CH. XXVIII. NEGOTIATIONS AT LILLE. 391 ment equally suitable to both parties.' The gentleman then proceeded to explain, that Pein was in the full confidence of Maret, and that this overture was made with the authorisation of Maret. In consequence of this communication, Ellis had a secret interview with Pein, who fully confirmed what had been said, and added that Maret's opinions on all political subjects were very different from those of the other plenipotentiaries; that he had been appointed by his intimate friend Barthélemy, who, with Carnot, was resolved, if possible, to gratify the ardent desire of the French nation for peace; that the other three Directors were of other sentiments, but that if the negotiation was prolonged and prudently conducted, they must in the end give way. A change of ministers in France, which happened within the next few days, appeared slightly to improve the prospect. De la Croix, who had shown himself violent and impracticable, and personally hostile to Lord Malmesbury, was replaced, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, by Talleyrand; and Pléville le Peley was made Minister of Marine, thus reducing the French plenipotentiaries at Lille to two, one of whom seemed sincerely anxious for peace. It was reported from Paris, that the Government there was extremely unstable, that a large and increasing party in the legislative councils were hostile to the Directory, and that another revolution was very probable, and Malmesbury justly said that the chances of peace depended much more on what took place at Paris, than on what took place at Lille. A secret understanding between Lord Malmesbury and Maret was speedily formed. It was chiefly arranged between Ellis and Pein, and the latter brought an assurance that Maret utterly disapproved of the recent demands of the Directory. Signs were devised by which Maret could communicate with Malmesbury at the conference, without being suspected by his own colleague. At the request of Maret, the reply of the English Cabinet to the French demand was privately submitted to him, before it was presented, and at his suggestion one of its arguments was strengthened. A confidential letter, in which Barthélemy expressed to Maret his deep sense of the absolute necessity of peace; of the absurdity of the recent demands; of the folly and instability that surrounded him, and of the supreme importance of gaining time, was duly read to the English Minister. The delay now came from the French side, and it was explained that it was owing to the fact that the French were putting pressure on their allies, in order to compel them to acquiesce in cessions to the English. This explanation was given, not by Maret, but by Le Tourneur, who, though he was not in the secret of his colleague, appears at this time, and during the remainder of the negotiation, to have been sincerely desirous of peace. It was added, that on the side of Spain the French found little difficulty, but that the Batavian Republic was obstinately opposed to cessions. In England, only Pitt, Grenville, and Canning were aware of the strange by-play that was going on, and two distinct series of despatches were written by Lord Malmesbury, one of which was intended to be laid before the Cabinet, while the other was intended only for the three Ministers. The English negotiators doubted the sincerity of the overtures that were made to them, and the reality of the causes of delay that were assigned, but it was plain that the official propositions of the Directory must destroy all hopes of peace. It was probable, or at least possible, that Maret and Talleyrand, and the two members of the Directory, or at least some of them, were sincere in wishing for peace, and if the pressure of French public opinion or of the legislative councils, or the influence of Talleyrand, or any of the numerous political intrigues that were agitating Paris, displaced the majority in the Directory, and gave a casting vote to the peace party, the whole aspect of affairs might change. Pitt desired above all things peace, if it could be accompanied by the retention of such a portion of the many conquests of England as would in some degree save the dignity of a nation which had been everywhere triumphant upon the sea, and in some degree compensate by its commercial advantages for the ruinous sacrifices that had been made. If, however, such a peace could not be obtained, he desired that the French should make requisitions so manifestly unreasonable that the necessity for carrying on the war should be apparent to every Englishman.' On the whole, the situation seemed hopeful, though not sufficiently so to inspire confidence. 'Shall we be sent back or not, Malmesbury Correspondence, iii. 430. 1 CH. XXVIII. NEGOTIATIONS AT LILLE. 393 this time?' wrote Ellis. 'Seriously, the Directory is so strange a body, and this so strange a nation, that I have my doubts, and yet this letter surely contains some reasonable grounds for hope.' 'I am not without my apprehensions,' wrote Malmesbury, 'that you infer too much from what we transmit to too sanguine, or at least sanguine too soon. you; that you get Pray check this too eager hope. It is not to be justified. We may and probably shall have peace, but not soon, not on our own terms (I mean original terms), and it will be a work of labour and altercation to obtain some not very different from them.'1 There are few more curious pages in diplomatic history than the account in Lord Malmesbury's papers of these proceedings. Ellis and Pein continued to have frequent conferences, in which the affairs of the two nations seem to have been discussed with complete apparent frankness, and Malmesbury and his French colleagues were soon on the most cordial terms, and had more than one strangely undiplomatic conversation in their boxes in the theatre. But suddenly, like a thunderclap, the news broke upon the English plenipotentiary, that on August 10 the Portuguese Minister at Paris had signed a separate peace for Portugal, and that one of its articles, in direct defiance of the English treaty of 1703, forbade the English fleet to receive supplies in Portugal, and excluded during the war all but a limited number of English vessels from the Portuguese ports. The Court of Lisbon, it is true, ultimately refused to ratify this treaty, but from the time it was signed, the hopes of peace began to dwindle. Combined with the negotiations which were rapidly pressing on for a definitive peace with the Emperor, and with the preparations that were known to be making at the Texel, the Portuguese treaty fully confirmed Lord Grenville in his distrust of French diplomacy. 'The clandestine and precipitate manner,' he wrote, in which the business has been conducted, affords indisputable proofs of the total absence of a sincere and candid disposition for peace on the part of his Majesty's enemies;' and he drew up an official note about the proceedings of the Directory, in a strain which was so haughty, and so manifestly calculated to break off the negotiation, that Malmesbury took the very grave step of disobeying his instructions, Malmesbury Correspondence, iii. 434, 464. and not presenting it. Malmesbury was supported by Pitt, who still wished to negotiate, and still hoped for peace, and who, though startled and irritated by the Portuguese treaty, refused to look upon it as an insuperable obstacle. 'I think it,' he wrote, 'a natural, though an unworthy game, in those we are treating with; but I do not much expect that, if other points could be settled, this would stand in the way of peace.' At the beginning of the negotiation, Malmesbury had received a message which purported to come from Barras, one of the majority in the Directory, offering peace in return for a bribe of 500,000l.; but Malmesbury, believing the offer to be either unauthorised by Barras, or a trap laid by the Directory, took no notice of it. In the middle of August, a new message was brought to him by an American, who stated that the Portuguese peace had been purchased by a gift of ten or twelve millions of livres to the Directors, and that fifteen millions of livres, distributed between Rewbell and Barras, would secure a similar peace for England. He appears to have had no credentials, and nothing resulted from the overture. Extreme corruption, however, in French Government circles was one of the elements to be calculated on, and the English Ministers had some evidence that Barthélemy, and convincing evidence that Talleyrand, was at this time stockjobbing largely in the English funds.3 The hopes of peace were soon shattered by the coup d'état of the 18th fructidor, when the Triumvirate, who formed the majority of the Directory, brought a great body of troops into Paris, surrounded and dispersed the two legislative councils, and, on the pretext of a royalist plot, arrested a multitude of members who were opposed to them, and ordered the immediate imprisonment of their two colleagues. Carnot succeeded in escaping, and, at last, made his way to Geneva, but Barthélemy was arrested, and, next day, the triumvirs issued a law of proscription, which was sanctioned by the partisan remnant of the Malmesbury Corre pondence, iii. 489, 490, 497. 2 lbid. p. 491. That Pitt approved of Malmesbury's disobedience, I infer from the full approval of that dis obedience expressed by Canning, who Ibid. pp. 439, 153, 520. |