ed
exile into an event of high policy, and fulminated against the
Government which allowed them. In vain did Cornwallis object that the
Addington Cabinet could not venture on the unpopular act of curbing
freedom of the Press in Great Britain. The First Consul, who had
experienced no such difficulty in France, persisted now, as a year
later, in considering every uncomplimentary reference to himself as an
indirect and semiofficial attack.

To these causes we may attribute the French demands of February 4th:
contradicting his earlier proposal for a temporary Neapolitan garrison
of Malta, Bonaparte now absolutely refused either to grant that
necessary protection to the weak Order of St. John, or to join Great
Britain in an equal share of the expenses--L20,000 a year--which such
a garrison would entail. The astonishment and indignation aroused at
Downing Street nearly led to an immediate rupture of the negotiations;
and it needed all the patience of Cornwallis and the suavity of Joseph
Bonaparte to smooth away the asperities caused by Napoleon's direct
intervention. It needs only a slight acquaintance with the First
Consul's methods of thought and expression to recognize in the
Protocol of February 4th the incisive speech of an autocrat confident
in his newly-consolidated powers and irritated by the gibes of
Peltier.[195]

The good sense of the two plenipotentiaries at Amiens before long
effected a reconciliation. Hawkesbury, writing from Downing Street,
warned Cornwallis that if a rupture were to take place it must not be
owing to "any impatience on our part": and he, in his turn, affably
inquired from Joseph Bonaparte whether he had any more practicable
plan than that of a Neapolitan garrison, which he had himself
proposed. No plan was forthcoming other than that of a garrison of
1,000 Swiss mercenaries; and as this was open to grave objections, the
original proposal was finally restored. On its side, the Court of St.
James still refused to blow up the fortifications at Valetta; and
rather than destroy those works, England had already offered that the
independence of Malta should be guaranteed by the Great Powers--Great
Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Spain, and Prussia: to this
arrangement France soon assented. Later on we demanded that the
Neapolitan garrison should remain in Malta for three years after the
evacuation of the island by the British troops; whereas France desired
to limit the period to one year. To thi