own unquestioned supremacy in that land, the Act of Mediation might be
reckoned among the grandest and most beneficent achievements. As it
is, it must be regarded as a masterpiece of able but selfish
statecraft, which contrasts unfavourably with the disinterested
arrangements sanctioned by the allies for Switzerland in 1815.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVII

THE RENEWAL OF WAR

The re-occupation of Switzerland by the French in October, 1802, was
soon followed by other serious events, which convinced the British
Ministry that war was hardly to be avoided. Indeed, before the treaty
was ratified, ominous complaints had begun to pass between Paris and
London.

Some of these were trivial, others were highly important. Among the
latter was the question of commercial intercourse. The British
Ministry had neglected to obtain any written assurance that trade
relations should be resumed between the two countries; and the First
Consul, either prompted by the protectionist theories of the Jacobins,
or because he wished to exert pressure upon England in order to extort
further concessions, determined to restrict trade with us to the
smallest possible dimensions. This treatment of England was wholly
exceptional, for in his treaties concluded with Russia, Portugal, and
the Porte, Napoleon had procured the insertion of clauses which
directly fostered French trade with those lands. Remonstrances soon
came from the British Government that "strict prohibitions were being
enforced to the admission of British commodities and manufactures into
France, and very vigorous restrictions were imposed on British vessels
entering French ports"; but, in spite of all representations, we had
the mortification of seeing the hardware of Birmingham, and the
ever-increasing stores of cotton and woollen goods, shut out from
France and her subject-lands, as well as from the French colonies
which we had just handed back.

In this policy of commercial prohibition Napoleon was confirmed by our
refusal to expel the Bourbon princes. He declined to accept our
explanation that they were not officially recognized, and could not be
expelled from England without a violation of the rights of
hospitality; and he bitterly complained of the personal attacks made
upon him in journals published in London by the French _emigres_. Of
these the most acrid, namely, those of Peltier's paper, "L'Ambigu,"
had already received the reprobation