388 BONAPARTE'S LETTER TO THE KING. [1800. to the King of Great Britain and Ireland. This letter, dated 5th Nivose,* is too interesting, as well as too laconic, to be abridged: "Called by the wishes of the French nation to occupy the first magistracy of the republic, I think it proper, on entering into office, to make a direct communication of it to your majesty. "The war, which for eight years has ravaged the four quarters of the world, must it be eternal? Are there no means of coming to an understanding? "How can the two most enlightened nations of Europe, powerful and strong beyond what their safety and independence require, sacrifice to ideas of vain greatness the benefits of commerce, internal prosperity, and the happiness of families? How is it that they do not feel that peace is of the first necessity, as well as of the first glory? "These sentiments cannot be foreign to the heart of your majesty, who reigns over a free nation, and with the sole view of rendering it happy. "Your majesty will only see in this overture my sincere desire to contribute efficaciously, for the second time, to a general pacification, by a step speedy, entirely of confidence, and disengaged from those forms which, necessary perhaps to disguise the dependence of weak states, prove only, in those which are strong, the mutual desire of deceiving each other. "France and England, by the abuse of their strength, may still for a long time, for the misfortune of all nations, retard the period of their being exhausted. But I will venture to say it, the fate of all civilized nations is attached to the termination of a war which involves the whole world.” Lord Grenville wrote on the 4th of January to Talleyrand, saying that his majesty, "seeing no reason to depart from those forms which have long been established in Europe for transacting business with foreign states," had directed him to return an official answer, which he enclosed. This answer breathed no spirit but that of determined hostility. Recapitulating the charges so often made against France, that she desired "the extermination of all established governments"-that "the most solemn treaties have only prepared the way for fresh aggression"-his majesty could not "place his reliance on the mere renewal of general professions of pacific dispositions." He required to be convinced "that, after the experience of so many years of crimes and miseries, better principles have ultimately prevailed in France." The conviction of such a change could only result from experience. "The best and most natural pledge of its reality and permanence would be the restoration of that line of princes which, for so many centuries, maintained the French nation in prosperity at home, and in consideration and respect abroad." Nevertheless, "his majesty makes no claim to prescribe to France what shall be the form of her government." As there existed "no sufficient evidence of the principles by which the new government will be directed,—no reasonable ground by which to judge of its stability," to persevere in a just and defensive war" was the only course which his majesty could at present pursue. 66 It was eighteen days after this answer was written that the correspon December 25th, according to the translation laid before Parliament; the 26th according to Thiers. 1800.] LORD GRENVILLE'S HOSTILE ANSWER. 389 dence was laid before Parliament. The letter of Bonaparte, and the answer, were, however, no secret. On the 1st of January, Grenville sent a copy of the letter to his brother, as "a curiosity "-"I need not tell you that we shall say, no." On the 3rd, he describes his answer, of which, he says, we have not hands enough to make sufficient copies. On the 16th he writes, "His Corsican Majesty's letters will be out on Monday." * It is not difficult to see that a haughty contempt for the attainment of almost regal power by a plebeian, was at the root of that fierce indignation which the British government had never evinced when they twice negotiated for peace with the Directory. It is difficult to understand how Pitt could have sanctioned such a letter as Grenville's. Yet on the 4th he wrote to Addington, "We have felt no difficulty in declining all negotiation under the present circumstances; and have drawn our answer as a sort of manifesto both for France and England, bringing forward the topics which seem most likely to promote the cause of royalty, in preference to this new, and certainly not less absolute, government." Lord Grenville found in Talleyrand one who saw the weak points of the "manifesto" at a glance, and exposed them with an irresistible logic. In his rejoinder of the 14th of January there is this passage: "The First Consul of the French Republic would not doubt that his Britannic Majesty recognized the right of nations to choose the form of their government, since it is from the exercise of this right that he holds his crown. But he has been unable to comprehend how to this fundamental principle, upon which rests. the existence of political societies, the minister of his Britannic Majesty could annex insinuations which tend to an interference in the internal affairs of the Republic, and which are not less injurious to the French nation, and to its government, than it would be to England and to his Majesty, if a sort of invitation were held out in favour of that republican government of which England adopted the forms in the middle of the last century, or an exhortation to recall to the throne that family whom their birth had placed there, and whom a revolution compelled to descend from it." Statesmen thinking and acting with Mr. Pitt could not approve of lord Grenville's letter. It is "too caustic and opprobrious," said Addington-" it has not quite enough of the character of moderation." Wilberforce writes, "I must say I was shocked at lord Grenville's letter; for though our government might feel adverse to any measure which might appear to give the stamp of our authority to Bonaparte's new dignity, yet I must say that, unless they have some better reason than I fear they possess for believing that he is likely to be hurled from his throne, it seems a desperate game to play-to offend, and insult, and thereby irritate, this vain man beyond the hope of forgiveness." § Cornwallis, six months after, designated Grenville's letter as "haughty and most unwise."-"The unprovoked insolence of lord Grenville's letter has placed us in a state of such embarrassment, that I must confess I have hardly a hope that we can extricate ourselves." || Bonaparte had written a conciliatory letter to the emperor of Austria, which also had been treated with "Court and Cabinets, &c." vol. iii. pp. 4, 5, 6. "Life of Sidmouth," vol. i. p. 249. "Life," vol. i. p. 248-Letter of January 9. S"Life of Wilberforce," vol. ii. p. 354-Letter of January 7. Il Cornwallis "Correspondence," vol. iii. p. 270-277. 390 HIGH PRICE OF CORN IN ENGLAND. The consequence was, Marengo. [1800. contempt. The correspondence with France again roused Fox into political activity. He wrote in January, "My letters tell me what I can scarce credit, that the ministers have given a flat refusal to the great Consul's proposition to treat. Surely they must be quite mad."* Fox again appeared in his place in Parliament; made one of his greatest speeches, which was a reply to an equally grand oratorical display by Pitt; and was in a minority of 64 to 265. In the House of Lords, Grenville delivered a speech of remarkable ability, but tending, even more than his letter, to make the quarrel with France a personal quarrel with Bonaparte. In the third year of the Republic, said the noble Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he imposed upon the French people, by the mouth of the cannon, that very constitution which he has now destroyed by the point of the bayonet. Treaties made and broken, with Sardinia, with Tuscany, with the petty States of Italy, were ratified and annulled by Bonaparte. Venice, Rome, Genoa, Switzerland, were examples of his perfidy. He pointed to Egypt to exhibit his falsehoods, his blasphemies, his hypocrisies, his multiplied violations of all religious and moral ties. "Having, therefore, such bases for us to form a correct opinion of his policy, can it be thought inconsistent to believe that he has no intention of fulfilling his engagements." + We can scarcely object to Thiers, when he says, "the English ministers, especially lord Grenville, employed, with regard to the First Consul, language the most offensive. They had not otherwise treated Robespierre." We look back upon the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century, and see much to prove the ambition, the bad faith, and the insolence of Bonaparte. But we cannot deny that the affronts of the ministry of Pitt and Grenville were sufficient to stir within him an unextinguishable hatred of England. The time was not opportune for rejecting overtures of peace. In the minds of the people, " peace" was always associated with "plenty." Scarcity and even famine were regarded, and not unjustly so, as consequences of war. The people of these islands were, throughout the year 1800, and partly in 1801, on the brink of famine. There had been a bad harvest in 1795, when Burke published his "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity." In a few pointed sentences he expressed the great economic truth which agitators conceal and pseudo-philanthropists despise: "Labour is a commodity like every other, and rises or falls according to the demand. . . . Wages have been twice raised in my time, and they bear a full proportion, or even a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision during the last bad cycle of twenty years. If we were wildly to attempt to force them beyond it, the stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall back upon them in a diminished demand; or, what indeed is the far lesser evil, an aggravated price of all the provisions which are the result of their manual toil." In saying that the squires of Norfolk had dined when they gave it as their opinion that the rate of wages ought to rise and fall with the market of provisions, he laughed at a theory which the squires of many a county would soon reduce to very efficient practice. The Berkshire justices, and "other discreet persons," decided, in * "Correspondence of Fox," vol. iii. p. 174. 1800.] 391 At DISTRESS AND RIOTS-ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE PRICES. 1795, that when the gailon loaf of 8lbs. 11ozs. should cost 1s., then every man should receive in wages, or in allowance from the poor-rates, 3s. weekly, and 1s. 6d. for the support of every other of his family; and in proportion as the price of bread rises or falls, 3d. to the man, and 1d. to every other of the family, on every penny which the loaf rises above a shilling. This Berkshire bread-scale was almost universally adopted in the agricultural counties; and thus, as the price of the loaf of bread continued to rise almost invariably from 1795 to 1800, the allowances from the rates were an encouragement to consume as much in a season of scarcity as in a season of abundance. Deficient harvests raised the price of wheat to 1348. a quarter in 1800, and to 156s. a quarter in the spring of 1801. The danger had become imminent, at the time when the conclusion of a peace offered by France might have opened our ports to importations which would have fed that large body of the artisan class that were not fed, without stint, by the operation of a bread-scale. In February, 1800, palliatives were resorted to. The sale of bread which had not been baked twenty-four hours was prohibited. The people were exhorted to economy by proclamation. Brown bread was to be eaten instead of white. Noble lords resolved to discourage the use of pastry in their families. the end of November, the prospect became more alarming. Importation was encouraged by excessive bounties. Great Britain did not grow enough corn, even in average years, for the subsistence of the people. The price of corn was always subject to extreme fluctuations. The whole tendency of the financial operations of the government was to raise prices to an unnatural height. The government, when the evil reached its culminating point at the end of 1800 and the beginning of 1801, was powerless, except to bring in a Brown Bread Bill. They did something more. They again suspended the Habeas Corpus Act, for the people were rioting. Pitt clearly saw the social danger to which these riots would lead: "Unless the magistrates and gentlemen are firm in discountenancing and resisting all arbitrary reductions of price, and regu-, lations of the mode of dealing, great mischief must follow." * Romilly saw the same mischief as the consequence of economic ignorance: Never, to be sure, were there such temptations held out to riot and insurrection as the resolutions which, in consequence of the late riots, have been entered into in different parts of the country respecting the price of provisions. . I cannot find that the least attempt has been anywhere made to undeceive the people; but, on the contrary, an opinion the most repugnant to common sense;—that is, that provisions of all kinds bear a higher price than the persons who deal in them can well afford to sell them at,-is, without the least inquiry upon the subject, everywhere acted upon as an established truth." The author of this History has a distinct recollection of his alarm, when, a child of nine years old, he saw a mob parading the streets of Windsor; breaking the windows of the bakers; and going forth in a body with the intention of burning a neighbouring mill. The military were called out. The mayor and aldermen sat on a Friday night in solemn deliberation on the imperative necessity of quieting the people by making provisions cheaper. There were difficulties in the way of this magnanimous resolve as regarded * "Life of Lord Sidmouth," vol. i. p. 262. 392 THE FIRST CONSUL'S CIVIL ADMINISTRATION. [1800. bread and meat. The worshipful body compromised the matter by solemnly proclaiming that when the butter-women brought their butter to market on the Saturday morning, they should not presume to ask more than a shilling a pound, under penalty of confiscation. In the spring of 1801 the high prices reached their maximum. On the 5th of March, the price of the quartern loaf was 1s. 10d. A good harvest came to ease the sufferings of the people; and in the middle of October the price of the quartern loaf had fallen to 114d. In 1801 the Poor Rates had risen to a sum exceeding four millions sterling, with a population of nine millions. The provision for the poor had doubled since 1783. How much temporary mischief was averted, and how much permanent evil was created, by the system of multiplying paupers by paying wages out of rates, is not necessary here to consider. Montholon, in his history of Napoleon at St. Helena, represents him as saying that when he made overtures of peace to England he "had need of war;" that Mr. Pitt's answer was impatiently expected. "When it arrived it filled me with a secret satisfaction; his answer could not have been more favourable." Bonaparte had, nevertheless, victories of peace to achieve as well as victories of war. He probably only wanted a breathing-time when he proposed to negotiate,-a truce rather than a lasting pacification. Nevertheless, the satisfaction which he derived from the rejection of his proposals is not a tribute to the soundness of the policy of the British cabinet. Bonaparte was thus enabled to persuade the French that his personal ambition was not the motive for a continuance of a war which brought so many sufferings to the great body of the people. Their desire for glory was at that time greatly diminished by their greater desire for rest under a settled government. By the vigour of his administrative genius he soon brought the civil institutions of France into working order. The Treasury of the Directory had depended upon forced loans, confiscations, and plunder of foreign countries. Bonaparte enforced a regular system of direct taxation, and compelled the functionaries to keep correct accounts. He established the system of prefectures-that system of departmental administration which, with little variation during sixty years, has always been an efficient support of every government, whether its objects were beneficent or despotic. He re-modelled the judicial system. He did many wise and good things which France would probably not so readily have received from any other authority than that of an incipient despotism. He did not hesitate to show the direction which his government was prepared to take for its conservation. He propitiated the Clergy; he organized a Police as one of the chief instruments of repressing new tendencies to Revolution; he destroyed that liberty of the Press which had kept the people in a ferment since 1789. "Every journal," said a decree of the Consul, "shall be immediately suppressed which shall insert any articles contrary to the respect due to the social pact, to the sovereignty of the people, and to the glory of the armies; or which shall publish invectives against the government and the nations which are friends or allies of the Republic, even if those articles should be taken from foreign journals.' He had given to the Consul Cambacérès the control over the judicial system; and to the Consul Lebrun the administration of the finances. He retained, as his own especial charge, the departments of War, Marine, Interior, Foreign Affairs, and Police. Never was there a more efficient machinery, |