Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/478

458 August. to France. So accomplished a diplomatist as Paget could only despise the tricks which he was ordered to practice; and the Emperor, too well informed of the state of England to be the dupe of a shallow artifice, broke off the negotiations abruptly.

After so grave a failure, the step which prudence would have dictated would have been to do, in fact, what Paget had been told insincerely to suggest; that is, to come to terms with France, and give up Boulogne. Three years were already gone of the eight for which England was to keep it, and France would have acquiesced in some moderately favourable arrangement with respect to the debts for which it was held as security. If the Protector could not bring himself to part with it before the time, then, at least, he was bound to take care that it was adequately garrisoned. But he had allowed France to see that he considered himself as little bound to the letter of the treaty as themselves. Contrary to express stipulations, he had raised new forts outside the town, as well as at the mouth of the harbour. The neglect of engagements by the Court of Paris may reasonably have exempted the English from the strict observance of them;