n scene and banishing all thoughts of losses in the
West.[243]

The official publication of this report created a sensation even in
France, and was not the _bagatelle_ which M. Thiers has endeavoured to
represent it.[244] But far greater was the astonishment at Downing
Street, not at the facts disclosed by the report--for Merry's note
had prepared our Ministers for them--but rather at the official avowal
of hostile designs. At once our Government warned Whitworth that he
must insist on our retaining Malta. He was also to protest against the
publication of such a document, and to declare that George III. could
not "enter into any further discussion relative to Malta until he
received a satisfactory explanation." Far from offering it, Napoleon
at once complained of our non-evacuation of Alexandria and Malta.

"Instead of that garrison [of Alexandria] being a means of
protecting Egypt, it was only furnishing him with a pretence
for invading it. This he should not do, whatever might be his
desire to have it as a colony, because he did not think it worth
the risk of a war, in which he might perhaps be considered the
aggressor, and by which he should lose more than he could gain,
since sooner or later Egypt would belong to France, either by the
falling to pieces of the Turkish Empire, or by some arrangement
with the Porte.... Finally," he asked, "why should not the mistress
of the seas and the mistress of the land come to an arrangement and
govern the world?"

A subtler diplomatist than Whitworth would probably have taken the
hint for a Franco-British partition of the world: but the Englishman,
unable at that moment to utter a word amidst the torrent of argument
and invective, used the first opportunity merely to assure Napoleon of
the alarm caused in England by Sebastiani's utterance concerning
Egypt. This touched the First Consul at the wrong point, and he
insisted that on the evacuation of Malta the question of peace or war
must depend. In vain did the English ambassador refer to the extension
of French power on the Continent. Napoleon cut him short: "I suppose
you mean Piedmont and Switzerland: ce sont des----: vous n'avez pas le
droit d'en parler a cette heure." Seeing that he was losing his
temper, Lord Whitworth then diverted the conversation.[245]

This long tirade shows clearly what were the aims of the First Consul.
He desired peace until his eastern plans w