Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/298

 while exercising a predominating influence over Austria, whose power he had humbled; and, in the opinion of the French people, the insular position of England alone "prevented her from being absorbed into a French province," thus sinking beneath the domineering power of the French Dictator. The very thought of such humiliating conditions was totally incompatible with the independent spirit of Englishmen. The newspaper press, though at that time swayed by a spirit of party, yet still free, sounded the alarm, and attacked the ruler of France with an undaunted spirit, which Bonaparte could not endure. He lost all temper when complaining of the unmistakable opinions expressed of his conduct and intentions by the English press; though the too complaisant English ministers prosecuted the offending parties. In the midst of this excitement the question of the surrender of Malta arose, only to intensify the suspicions of the English people, the more so as Bonaparte was making prodigious preparations of a military and naval character in Holland.

Although Talleyrand on the 18th of February, 1803, in a conference, told Lord Whitworth that Sebastiani's mission was "purely commercial," his lordship on the same day received a message from the First Consul, appointing a personal interview to be held at the Tuileries three days afterwards, which revealed a very different state of things. This celebrated interview, which lasted two hours, had been