Rupture of the Peace: The Colonial Policy of Napoleon

Great Britain's best excuse for the treaty of Amiens was that it seemed to bring the peace that she so sorely needed. “ It was a peace," says Sheridan, "that nobody would be proud of, but everybody would be glad of." Yet before eight months had passed, the British ministry knew that the peace could not be kept. By this treaty, France had regained all her lost colonies, and Napoleon was determined to make these the basis of a new colonial empire to take the place of that which Great Britain had destroyed in the Seven Years' War.

No sooner had the treaty been signed than Napoleon undertook to carry out his plan : (1) he reestablished the authority of France in Haiti in 1802, and made that place a base of operations in the West Indies; (2) he prepared an expedition to New Orleans, called upon Spain to issue an order closing the lower Mississippi to vessels of the United States, and demanded the transfer of the Louisiana territory to France; (3) he sent General Decaen to India to recover French control there (1802); and (4) for the purpose of claiming Australia for France, he planned to make use of a scientific expedition that had been sent to the island continent in 1800. This scheme was a grand one, even for Napoleon, and had it succeeded would have created a colonial empire for France that might have rivalled that of Great Britain.

But it did not succeed. The expedition to Haiti and St. Domingo failed, for twenty officers and thirty thousand men died in the fever swamps of those islands. Thereupon Napoleon abandoned the expedition to New Orleans, and sold Louisiana, in 1803, to the United States for $15,000,000, thus giving up his plan of a French empire in the western world. In the East he was no more successful. The attempt to annex Australia came to nothing, because British explorers had already claimed the island by right of first discovery, and were in actual possession of the coast. Before General Decaen and his fleet could reach India, war had broken out in Europe; and Sir Arthur Wellesley at Calcutta, by victories at Assaye and Argaum over the Mahrattas, rendered ineffectual ,any attempts of the French to recover their influence there.

In 1802 the British ministers began to suspect that Napoleon was preparing to cripple Great Britain by striking at her colonies and her commerce. They watched with suspicion his attempt to exclude from France British manufactures, such as hardware, cotton, and woollen goods; and they learned with great uneasiness of his various colonial enterprises. They believed that he would seize Malta in order to control the Mediterranean ; possibly attack Turkey, regain Egypt, and, with the Cape of Good Hope in his possession, overthrow the East India Company in India. It is hardly surprising that the Addington ministry, holding these suspicions, should have refused to give up Malta, in accordance with the treaty of Amiens, on the technical ground that Russia and Austria had not guaranteed the safety of the island, as by the terms of the treaty they were bound to do. Napoleon was enraged when he heard of Great Britain's refusal, and charged the British government with having broken the treaty. So strained had become the relations between France and Great Britain by May, 1803, that the Addington ministry, acknowledged by all to be too weak to cope with the situation, resigned, and Pitt was recalled as prime minister. On May 20 war was formally declared.

Renewal of War: Attempt of Napoleon to invade England

The regret that the nation felt at the renewal of war gave way at this juncture to a desire for revenge. Four days after war had been declared, Napoleon ordered that all Englishmen in France, between eighteen and sixty years of age, ten thousand in number, should be held as prisoners of war. By this unwarranted act he expressed his anger at the disturbance of his plans. There is reason to think that he wished to delay war for a year or two longer, until his navy should be ready, and his expedition to India and the South Seas should have accomplished its work. Had he possessed a fleet equal to that of Great Britain, he would have struck the first blow himself by invading England or Ireland. But Great Britain's declaration of war took him unprepared and threw his plans into disorder.

Nothing daunted, however, Napoleon entered the struggle with undiminished ardor, and by his own enthusiasm aroused the enthusiasm of France against "perfidious Albion." In Great Britain the war fever rose to the highest pitch. Volunteer regiments were equipped, coast defence was completed, and the navy began a running attack on French ports and seized the best of the French islands in the West Indies. Not content with these measures, the British government gave aid to conspiracies and plots against Napoleon. It paid money to further a famous plot of Cadoudal, which not only failed of its chief purpose, the assassination of Napoleon, but led to an act of retaliation, the execution of the innocent royalist, the duke of Enghien,—one of Napoleon's greatest blunders. All these conspiracies came to nothing, and in 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned emperor of the French as Napoleon I.

For a year Napoleon had been massing his forces at Boulogne for all invasion of England. But to cross the channel with an army demanded possession of that strait for the full time of the passage; and to obtain such possession it became necessary to get a part of the British fleet out of the way. For this purpose Napoleon despatched Admiral Villeneuve to the West Indies, that the latter might draw off Nelson's squadron in pursuit. Villeneuve, having accomplished his purpose, was to return with all speed, leaving Nelson behind, and after picking up the Spanish vessels, was to take up his station off Brest. It was hoped that the French fleet, outnumbering the remaining British ships under Admirals Calder and Cornwallis, would be able to guard the channel. But the plan miscarried. Villeneuve sailed for the West Indies and Nelson followed him. But on his return, the French admiral was confronted off Cape Finisterre by a part of the British squadron under Calder, and compelled to engage in a battle, on July 22, 1803, which seriously crippled him. Deeming this a sufficient misfortune to warrant delay, Villeneuve, instead of pushing on to the channel, turned back, and sought the harbor of Cadiz. Napoleon waited for him in vain at Boulogne ; all hope of an invasion of England vanished ; and the second attempt to overthrow Great Britain ended in failure.