Page:Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.pdf/16

16 while Boulogne and Dunkirk were bombarded and blockaded by hostile squadrons, the ports of Dover and Calais were frequently visited by the packet boats, and the messengers of the courts of St. James and the Tuileries. At length Lord Hawkesbury, the English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, after a long, but secret correspondence with M. Otto, announced on the first of October, the signature of the preliminaries of peace between England on the one part, and Spain, France, and Holland, on the other. This intelligence diffused universal satisfaction all over the kingdom. Amiens, the town assigned for the discussion of the definitive treaty, had been the residence for some months of the ministers of the respective powers. The treaty was signed on the 17th of March.

Great Britain was now at peace with all the powers of Europe, and the sanguine minds confidently predicted a continuance of amity with France, and the repose of the continent. Happy presages! would they had been fulfilled!!

On the 6th of May, 1802, the definitive treaty of Amiens was presented to the French Tribunate, on which occasion Bonaparte was elected First Consul for life.

Unfortunately for the continuation of the promised happiness of this period, the war of words, which finally led to the rupture of the peace of Amiens, commenced soon after the treaty had been signed. In the month of July, M. Otto, the French minister at London, transmitted a note to Lord Hawkesbury, demanding, in the name of his government, the punishment of M. Peltier, for a gross libel which he had published on the First Consul and the whole French nation. To remove all grounds of complaint, an action was brought against Peltier who was found guilty; but the breaking out of war prevented his being brought up for judgment. More important grounds of quarrel