Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [96]
There was also some reason to believe that the very nature of the French regime suggested that it might well fold if confronted by opposition. On this subject Malmesbury is once again very interesting:
Friday, 4 February [1803]: Lord Pembroke at Park Place. He had passed three months at Paris; seen people of all descriptions; heard everybody; and, as he is an excellent observer and patient listener, great faith is due to his report. He said he could not have believed any person to be so universally disliked as Bonaparte if he had not daily proofs of it: this [is] occasioned by his rapid rise, by his intemperate character, by his tyranny, and the evident use he makes of his power. This hatred, however, leads to nothing: his power remains the same and he is obeyed implicitly. England is manifestly the great object of his hatred and jealousy, and all his plans, all his thoughts, go to attain the means of lowering, if not also of subduing it, but, although there is a sufficient degree of national ill-will towards us prevailing generally, yet so vexed and tormented were the French by the war that it must be some much stronger motive than simply national dislike that can again make them relish war. This feeling also makes them endure Bonaparte’s oppression and arrogance, which, bad as it is, is more tolerable than the system of violence in Robespierre’s time or the capricious and wanton violence of the Directory. The army in part partake of these feelings, and, although they might be tempted by the prospect of plunder, yet the great majority of them would fight with reluctance. The generals, too, who were formerly his companions, are jealous of Bonaparte. He cannot trust them with a command, and he dares not trust himself from Paris for any length of time.53
If these musings are a little unclear, greater clarity is evident from a conversation which Malmesbury had a fortnight later with Addington’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury: ‘Lord Hawkesbury said he thought the First Consul very like Paul [the late tsar], really mad, that his temper grew quite outrageous, and that his unpopularity amounted to perfect hatred. “It must be madness,” Lord Hawkesbury said.’54 But even if Napoleon was mad, in practical terms this made little difference. To quote Lord Hobart:
All speculations upon what such a man as Bonaparte will do under any circumstances must be too liable to error for us to trust to common reasoning upon any subject in which he is concerned. His intentions are warlike, his interest, in the view most people take of it, pacific, but as he is notoriously influenced by the utmost rancour and hatred of England . . . the only safe line for us to take is to be prepared for hostilities, and, indeed, I can see little expectation at present of their being avoided unless the prevailing sentiment in France, which unquestionably is for the maintenance of peace, should be declared in a way that may alarm him for the safety of his person and government.55
War, then, loomed. At this point, however, Napoleon was checked by gloomy reports from both the army and the navy. The former, it seemed, was in no state to go to war: the cavalry were short of horses and many units badly under-strength. As for the latter, things were even worse: as France’s programme of naval construction was still in the earliest of stages, a resumption of hostilities threatened renewed colonial and commercial disaster, and all the more so as the bulk of such seaworthy vessels as Napoleon possessed were at this time for the most part deployed in small groups in the Caribbean. Realizing that he had badly overplayed his hand, Napoleon therefore attempted to draw back. The agreeable and pacific Joseph Bonaparte was put in charge of relations with Britain; promises were made of a guarantee