His Majesty's Ministers Were
In A Concessionary Mood.
By that treaty Great Britain surrendered all her
maritime conquests of recent wars, except Trinidad and Ceylon.
She gave
up the Cape, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo, Surinam, Martinique,
Guadeloupe, Minorca, and Malta.* (* Cambridge Modern History 9 75 et seq;
Brodrick and Fotheringham, Political History of England 11 9 et seq.) She
was eagerly desirous for peace. Bread was dear, and England seethed with
discontent. Napoleon was fully aware that he was in a position to force
concessions. King George's advisers were limp. "England," wrote
Thibaudeau, who knew his master's mind, "was driven by sheer necessity to
make peace; not so Bonaparte, whose reasons were founded on the desire of
the French nation for peace, the fact that the terms of the treaty were
glorious for France, and the recognition by his bitterest enemy of the
position which the nation had bestowed upon him."* (* Fortescue's English
edition page 18.) The value of Australia at this time was scarcely
perceived by Great Britain at all. Sydney was just a tip for human
refuse, and a cause of expense, not of profit or advantage. The only
influential man in England who believed in a future for the country was
Sir Joseph Banks; and he, in 1799, had written to Governor Hunter: "The
situation of Europe is at present so critical, and His Majesty's
Ministers so fully employed in business of the highest importance, that
it is scarce possible to gain a moment's audience on any subject but
those which stand foremost in their minds, and colonies of all kinds, you
may be assured, are now put in the background...Your colony is a most
valuable appendage to Great Britain, and I flatter myself we shall,
before it is long, see her Ministers made sensible of its real value."*
(* Banks to Hunter, February 1, 1799. Historical Records of New South
Wales 3 532.) If that was the feeling in 1799, we can imagine how a claim
to the right to found a French settlement in Australia during the
nerveless regime of Addington would have been received. It would not have
delayed the signing of the Treaty of Amiens by one hour. England at that
time would not have risked a frigate or spent an ounce of powder on
resisting such a demand. But the subject does not appear to have been
even mentioned during the negotiations.
Nor was it mentioned by Napoleon during the years of his captivity at St.
Helena. He talked about his projects, his failures, his successes, with
O'Meara, Montholon, Las Cases, Admiral Malcolm, Antommarchi, Gourgaud,
and others. Australia and the Baudin expedition were never discussed,
though Surgeon O'Meara knew all about Flinders' imprisonment, and
mentioned it incidentally in a footnote to illustrate the hardships
brought upon innocent non-belligerents during the Napoleonic wars.
Indeed, an interesting passage in O'Meara's Napoleon at Saint Helena* (*
Edition of 1888, 2 129.) causes a doubt as to whether Napoleon had a
clear recollection of the Flinders case at all.
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