ired to withdraw from Switzerland and Holland. Who
could expect, from what was then known of Bonaparte's character, that
a peace so fraught with glory and profit would not satisfy French
honour and his own ambition?

Peace, then, was an "experiment." The British Government wished to see
whether France would turn from revolution and war to agriculture and
commerce, whether her young ruler be satisfied with a position of
grandeur and solid power such as Louis XIV. had rarely enjoyed. Alas!
the failure of the experiment was patent to all save the blandest
optimists long before the Preliminaries of London took form in the
definitive Treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte's aim now was to keep our
Government strictly to the provisional terms of peace which it had
imprudently signed. Even before the negotiations were opened at
Amiens, he ordered Joseph Bonaparte to listen to no proposal
concerning the King of Sardinia and the ex-Stadholder of Holland,
and asserted that the "internal affairs of the Batavian Republic, of
Germany, of Helvetia, and of the Italian Republics" were "absolutely
alien to the discussions with England." This implied that England was
to be shut out from Continental politics, and that France was to
regulate the affairs of central and southern Europe. This observance
of the letter was, however, less rigid where French colonial and
maritime interests were at stake. Dextrous feelers were put forth
seawards, and it was only when these were repulsed that the French
negotiators encased themselves in their preliminaries.

The task of reducing those articles to a definitive treaty devolved,
on the British side, on the Marquis Cornwallis, a gouty, world-weary
old soldier, chiefly remembered for the surrender which ended the
American War. Nevertheless, he had everywhere won respect for his
personal probity in the administration of Indian affairs, and there
must also have been some convincing qualities in a personality which
drew from Napoleon at St. Helena the remark: "I do not believe that
Cornwallis was a man of first-rate abilities: but he had talent, great
probity, sincerity, and never broke his word.... He was a man of
honour--a true Englishman."

Against Lord Cornwallis, and his far abler secretary, Mr. Merry, were
pitted Joseph Bonaparte and his secretaries. The abilities of the
eldest of the Bonapartes have been much underrated. Though he lacked
the masterful force and wide powers of his second brother, yet at
Lun