Free Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 by Arthur Bryant Page B

commanding the Mediterranean Fleet, felt it necessary to guard against a French reoccupation of Corfu and stationed a ship off the Maddalena Islands to save Sardinia from sudden rape. Napoleon's design to draw Russia into a conspiracy to partition the dissolving Ottoman Empire might still pass unnoticed in London, but it was ceaselessly canvassed by the British colony in Constantinople and Alexandria. From the banks of the Euphrates the British Consul wrote of intrigues in Persia and Afghanistan, while in Calcutta the Governor-General noted the arrival at the Courts of native princes of mysterious * officers from Paris with plans."to chase the English from Bengal." 2
    From every land such reports found their way to London and began to act, slowly but surely, on English opinion. They threw sudden shafts of light upon the drab and obscure political amphitheatre at Westminster where, before a backcloth of national inertia and apathy, a dull, "flat" Parliament debated Addington's encomiums on the national finances, and the Chairman of the Board of Control laboriously quoted trade statistics as though, wrote the indignant Canning, they were the sum total of political existence. They even invaded the trustful privacy of Brooks', where the buffs and blues were threatened by a second split of their sacred but dwindling ranks by those who had hopefully gone to gaze on the First Consul with their own eyes and had come back scared by what they had seen. In December the unpredictable Sheridan electrified the House by a speech blazing with patriotism in which he ridiculed his leader's belief that the only cause of rivalry between the two colintries was commercial. "I see in the physical situation and composition of the power of Bonaparte," he declared, "a physical
    1 Brownlow, 8-9; Granville, 1, 321; Minto, III, 256-8; Auckland, IV, 172-3; Fremantle, I, 33-4; Nicolas, V, 32; · de Selincourt, Early Letters, 312; Campbell, I, 405.
    2 Paget Papers, II, 43, 68; Mahan, Nelson, II, 184; Browning, 16-17, 33"» Castlereagh, V, 161, 172,175-6, 178^9; C. H. B. E., II, 89; H. M. C. Dropmore, VII, 86-7; Wellesley , I, 148-9; Auckland, IV, 169-70; Pellew, II, 80, 82; Fortescue, V, 142.
    necessity for him to go on in this barter with his subjects and to promise to make them the masters of the world if they will consent to be his slaves." He could only do so by conquering England. " This is the first vision that breaks upon him through the gleam of morning; that is his last prayer at night, to whatever deity he may address it, whether to Jupiter or to Mahomet, to the Goddess of Battles or to the Goddess of Reason."
    For though a despairing Canning asked if mind would ever have its share in politics again, Parliament was growing realist. The damned Doctor, as Creevey observed, was being " bullied out of his pacific disposition." Bonaparte might be advancing with Tarquin's ravishing strides, but they were observed in Downing Street. A t the end of October Lord Castle reagh joined the Cabinet. Chairman since the summer of the Board of Control wh ich supervised the political aff airs of India, this able young Ulsterman quickly made himself Dundas's successor as watchdog of Empire and Pitt's unofficial mouthpiece. He was far nearer the latter's prescient and prudent temper than the brilliant, impulsive Canning, who hated him for it. He was no orator—his long-winded, laborious speeches were a joy to the Opposition wits—nor, after his early services to the Tories in * the unappeasable strifes of his native land, was he without bitter enemies. But he had character, shrewdness and an instinct ive understanding of foreign aff airs. His influence on his weak and uncertain colleagues quickly became a major factor in policy.
    Castlereagh wished to avoid war as much as any man: But he saw that, though no present help could be looked for from Europe, his country must make a stand before long or face disaster. To delay until the cowed nations of the Continent were