Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [95]
Thus it was that a government whose every instinct was for peace was forced to embark on a course that was likely to have the very opposite result. And here it should be stated very firmly that, if there was indeed unreasoning hatred of Napoleon and the French Revolution amongst the Pittites and Grenvillites and their ilk, these forces were at every turn given credibility and oxygen by Paris and its policies. For an account of the manner in which Addington’s mind was working, we can do no better than to turn once again to the diary of Lord Malmesbury. On 19 February 1803, Malmesbury was summoned to see the Prime Minister at Downing Street. Somewhat to his surprise, a weary and concerned Addington unburdened himself to him in embarrassing detail:
After many good-humoured expressions of regard and friendship, [Addington] said he had had it frequently in his wishes for some time past to . . . ask my opinion on points on which with him my sentiments would have great weight . . . After this preface he went on by stating in a very clear and distinct manner the system he had . . . acted on since His Majesty had first called him to take a share in his councils: that he at that period considered peace as an advisable and even necessary measure, from the state the continent was at the time of his taking office and from that of the Exchequer, not quite exhausted, indeed, but fatigued and so circumstanced as not to be able anywhere to hurt or make any impression on France; that, therefore, as soon as the expeditions to the Baltic and Egypt were over, peace became his immediate object. That peace certainly was then his favourite wish, and never could be but in his mind most desirable, but he never expected he would have lived even to have seen the day when he should stand accused of preferring peace when inglorious to the character or injurious to the interest of the country . . . Yet of this he did stand accused, and he had borne the accusation in silence . . . because he was conscious it was undeserved and because he felt within his own breast a complete vindication of his conduct . . . The time was now near when this justification would become manifest . . . His maxim, he declared, from the moment he took office was, first, to make peace, and then to preserve it, under certain reservations in his mind, if France chose and as long as France chose, but to resist and bear all clamour and invective at home till such time as France (and he ever saw it must happen) had filled the measure of her folly, and had put herself completely in the wrong, not only by repeated acts of unprovoked insolence and presumption, but till these acts were, from their expressions and inference, declaratory of sundry intentions the most hostile and adverse to our own particular interest, a violation of treaty and dangerous to the interest of Europe . . . Simple acts of insolence and impertinence, however grating, he had passed over, because he never would put on a par the sober and ancient dignity of Great Britain with the infatuated mushroom arrogance of Bonaparte. Acts of this kind lost their impression when we considered by what sort of a character they were committed . . . It was as if a sober man was to resent the impertinence of one drunk [or] for a gentleman to commit himself with a carman . . . It was for this [that], although he had treasured them up, he had advised no notice to be taken of various little foolish tricks, insults of omission and commission, which Bonaparte had practised