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Terre Napoleon

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In the West Indies, France had lost Martinique and Guadeloupe during the
naval wars prior to Bonaparte's ascension to supreme authority. These
islands were restored to her under the Treaty of Amiens; were once more
captured by the British in 1809 to 1810; and were finally handed back to
France under the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Tobago and St. Lucia, taken
from France in 1803, were not restored.

The large island of San Domingo (the present republic of Haiti, the
Espanola of Columbus, and the first seat of European colonisation in the
west) had been occupied by French, Spanish, and British planters prior to
1796. The French had been there officially since Richelieu recognised and
protected the settlements made by filibusters early in the seventeenth
century. The decree of the revolutionary Assembly freeing the slaves in
all French possessions led to widespread insurrections. There were scenes
of frightful outrage; and above the storm of blood and horror rose to
fame the huge figure of the black hero, Toussaint L'Ouverture. At the
head of a negro army he at first assisted the French to overturn Spanish
rule; but having attained great personal power, and being a man of
astonishing capacity for controlling the people of his own race, and for
mastering military and governmental problems, he determined to use the
opportunity to found an autonomous state under the suzerainty of France.
By January 1801 Toussaint L'Ouverture was in possession of the capital.
But Bonaparte would not tolerate the domination of the black conqueror,
and despatched an expedition to San Domingo to overthrow his government
and establish French paramountcy. The result was disastrous. It is true
that Toussaint was captured and exiled to France, where he died miserably
in prison at Besancon in 1803; but the white troops under General Leclerc
perished of yellow fever in hundreds; the blacks retired to the mountains
and harassed the suffering French; whilst the vigilance of British
frigates, and the requirements of European policy, obviated all
possibility of effective reinforcements being sent. Gallic authority in
San Domingo ended ingloriously, for the negroes in 1803 drove the
debilitated chivalry of France in defeat and disaster to the sea, and
chose to be their ruler one who, like themselves, had commenced life as a
slave. Napoleon said at St. Helena that his attempt to subjugate San
Domingo was the greatest folly of his life.

In the Indian Ocean the French possessed the Isle of France (now, as a
British colony, called Mauritius) and Reunion. They had not yet
established themselves in Madagascar, though there was some trade between
the Mascareignes and the colonists of the Isle of France. Bonaparte
during the Consulate contemplated making definite attempts to colonise
Madagascar, and, early in 1801, called for a report from his first
colonial minister, Forfait. When he obtained the document, he sent it
back asking for more details, an indication that his interest in the
subject was more than one of transient curiosity. Forfait suggested the
project of establishing at Madagascar a penal colony such as the British
had at Port Jackson;* (* Prentout, L'Ile de France sous Decaen, 302.) but
subsequent events did not favour French colonial expansion, and nothing
was done.

The British captured Pondicherry and the other French settlements in
India in 1793, but agreed to restore them under the Treaty of Amiens. For
reasons which will be indicated later, however, the territories were not
evacuated by British troops, who continued to hold them till the
post-bellum readjustment of 1815 was negotiated.

A similar record applies to Senegal, in West Africa. It had been French
since the era of Richelieu, with intervals of capture, restoration, and
recapture. The British ousted their rivals once more in 1804, and gave
back the conquest in 1815.

A careful examination of these details reveals a remarkable fact.
Although the year 1810 saw the Napoleonic empire at the crest of its
greatness in Europe; although by that time the Emperor was the mightiest
personal factor in world politics; although in that year he married a
daughter of the Caesars, and thought he had laid plans for the foundation
of a dynasty that should perpetuate the Napoleonic name in association
with Napoleonic power--yet, in that very year, France had been stripped
of the last inch of her colonial possessions. The nation in whose
glorious Pantheon were emblazoned the great names of Montcalm and
Dupleix, of Jacques Cartier and La Salle, of Champlain and La
Bourdonnais, and whose inveterate capacity for colonisation of even the
most difficult kind can never be doubted by any candid student of her
achievements in this field, both before and since the disastrous
Napoleonic age, was now naked of even so much as a barren rock in a
distant sea upon which to plant her flag.

Such is the picture of the French colonial system as it presents itself
during the period within which occurred the events described in this
book. These facts give poignancy to the reflection of the distinguished
philosophical historian who has written of his country: "A melancholy
consequence of her policy of interference in neighbouring states, and of
occupying herself with continental conquests, has always been the loss of
her naval power and of her colonies. She could only establish oversea
possessions on a durable foundation on the condition of renouncing the
policy of invasion that she practised in Europe during the centuries.
Every continental victory was balanced by the ruin of our naval power and
of our distant possessions, that is to say, the decrease of our real
influence in the world."* (* Leroy-Beaulieu, Colonisation chez les
Peuples Modernes, 1902 edition, 1 220.)

PART 3.

It would be simple to sum up the colonial situation of Great Britain in
the period under review, by saying that she gained just in the measure
that France lost. But such a crude formula would not convey a sufficient
sense of her actual achievements. The end of the great war left her with
a wider dominion than that with which she was endowed when she plunged
into the struggle; but it left her also with augmented power and
prestige, a settled sense of security, and a steeled spirit of
resolution--elements not measurable on the scale of the map, but counting
as immense factors in the government and development of oversea
possessions.

The details of the British colonial empire during the storm epoch, are as
follow:--

In Canada she governed a belt of country stretching from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, divided for administrative purposes into two areas, one of
which, Lower Canada--embracing the cities of Quebec and Montreal, and
including the basin of the St. Lawrence--was populated principally by
people of French origin. It would be too much to suppose that these
colonists, who jealously preserved the French language and the French
tradition, were indifferent to the doings of their kin across the water;
and there were, indeed, many who cherished the hope that events would so
shape themselves as to restore the authority of France in this part of
the New World. But the habitant was Roman Catholic as well as French, and
the hierarchy was profoundly distrustful of the regime which it regarded
as the heritage of the hateful ideas of 1789. We may speculate as to what
would have happened if Napoleon had set himself to woo the affections of
the French Canadians. But throughout the great wars Canada remained loyal
to the British connection, despite internal difficulties and discontents.

Great Britain also held Newfoundland, as well as those maritime provinces
which have since become federated as part of the Dominion.

In South America she possessed British Guiana, and for a period, as
related above, French Guiana also.

In the West Indies, in 1800, her flag flew over the entire crescent of
the Windward and Leeward groups from Granada to the Virgins; she was
mistress of Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, the "still vexd" Bermudas and the
whole bunch of the Bahamas; and she had interests in San Domingo. At the
Peace of Amiens she retained only Trinidad of the islands captured during
the war; and she presented no very stubborn resistance to the negro
revolt that lost her any further control over the largest of the sugar
islands.

She had the Cape of Good Hope in her custody in 1800, but weakly allowed
it to be bartered away by diplomacy at Amiens; only, however, to reassert
her power there six years later, when it became at length apparent to
British statesmen--as it surely should have been obvious to them
throughout--that Australia and India could not be secure while the chief
southern harbour of Africa was in foreign possession.

Ceylon was retained as a sparkling jewel for the British crown when so
much that had been won in fair fight was allowed to slip away. The
capture of Java (1811) and its restoration to the Dutch belong to a later
period; whilst the growth of British power in India scarcely falls within
the scope of a brief review of the colonial situation, though of great
importance in its effects.

Malta, which has usually been classed as a colony, though its principal
value is rather strategic than colonial, was occupied by the British in
September 1800, and the cat-footed efforts of Napoleonic diplomacy to get
her out of the island made it a storm centre in European politics in
these fiery years. Out she would not come, and did not. Neither Tzar nor
Emperor could get her out, by plot or by arms; and there she still
remains.

PART 4.

The position of the British in the South Seas demands special
consideration, as being immediately related to our subject. In 1800 the
only part of Australasia occupied by white people was Norfolk Island and
the small area at Port Jackson shut in between the sea and a precipitous
range of mountains that for thirteen years to come presented an
unconquerable barrier to inland exploration, despite repeated endeavours
to find a way across them. The settlement had spread only a few miles
beyond the spot where Governor Arthur Phillip had resolved to locate his
First Fleet company twelve years before. As yet no attempt had been made
to occupy Tasmania, which had been determined to be an island only two
years previously. New Zealand also was virgin ground for the European
colonist. The Maori had it all to himself.

The means of defending the little colony, in the event of an attack
during the war which raged from five years after its foundation till
1802, and again from 1803 for twelve years more, were insignificant. The
population in 1800 numbered rather more than five thousand, only about
one-half of whom were soldiers, officials, and free people.* (* The total
population of Sydney, Parramatta, and Norfolk Island on January 1, 1801,
was declared to be 5100, of whom 2492 were convicts--1431 men, 500 women,
and 561 children. Of the remainder, 1887 were "free people," being
neither on the civil nor the military establishment.) The remainder were
convicts, some of them being Irishmen transported for participation in
the rebellion of 1798, including not a few men of education. These men
were naturally writhing under a burning sense of defeat and oppression,
and were still rebels at heart. They were incarcerated with a
miscellaneous horde of criminals made desperate and resentful by harsh
treatment. It is scarcely doubtful that if a French naval squadron had
descended on the coast, the authorities would have had to face, not only
an enemy's guns in Port Jackson, but an insurrection amongst the unhappy
people whom the colony had been primarily founded to chastise. The
immigration of a farming and artisan class was discouraged; and it is
scarcely conceivable that, apart from the officials, the gaolers, and the
military, who would have done their duty resolutely, there were any in
the colony who, for affection, would have lifted a hand to defend the
land in which they lived, and the regime which they hated.

There was at the Governor's command a small military force, barely
sufficient to maintain discipline in a community in which there were
necessarily dangerously turbulent elements;* (* In a report to Governor
King, April 1805, Brevet-Major Johnson pointed out that the military were
barely sufficient for mounting guard, and urged "the great want of an
augmentation to the military forces of this colony" (Historical Records
of New South Wales 6 183). Colonel Paterson, in a letter to Sir Joseph
Banks, 1804, remarked that "it will certainly appear evident that our
military force at present is very inadequate" (Ibid 5 454). John
Blaxland, in a letter to Lord Liverpool, 1809, wrote that "it is to be
feared that if two frigates were to appear, the settlement is not capable
of opposing any resistance" (Ibid 7 231). An unsigned memorandum in the
Record Office, "bearing internal evidence of having been written by an
officer who was in the colony during the Governorship of Hunter," pointed
out that "a naval force is absolutely necessary on the coast of New South
Wales...to protect the colony from an attack by the French from the
Mauritius, which would have taken place long ago if the enemy had
possessed a naval force equal to the enterprise" (Ibid 7 248 to 250).)
but he was destitute of effective vessels for service afloat. When the
navigator Flinders was wrecked in the Porpoise in August 1803--his own
exploring ship, the Investigator, being by this time
unseaworthy--Governor King had no other craft to give him for his return
voyage than the decrepit Cumberland, a mere leaky little barge hardly fit
for better uses than ferrying a placid lake. The colony was, in short,
simply a kraal for yarding British undesirables and housing their
keepers; its remoteness was an advantage for the purpose in view; and it
never seemed to strike the officials in England who superintended its
affairs, that the adequate defence of a gaol against foreign aggression
was an undertaking that called for exertion or forethought. The
unreluctant retrocession of the Cape to the Dutch in 1800 indicates that
the interest of defending Australia was lost sight of in the midst of
what appeared to be more pressing considerations.

It has been remarked above that there was a period when the peace of
Australia was imperilled. The danger was obviated, certainly not because
of the efficiency of the defence, but rather through lack of enterprise
on the part of the Admiral in command of the French squadron in the
Indian Ocean. It will be well to narrate the circumstances, together with
an incident which illustrates in an amusing manner the kind of man this
officer was.

After the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, Bonaparte sent out a squadron
commanded by Rear-Admiral Linois, conveying General Charles Decaen, who
was commissioned to administer the former French possessions in India,
which, under the terms of the treaty, were to be surrendered to France.
But when the expedition arrived at Pondicherry, the Governor-General of
India, Lord Wellesley, gave orders to his subordinates that no
concessions were to be made to the French without his express authority;
and as he stubbornly refused to give his warrant for surrendering an inch
of territory, there was nothing for General Decaen to do but sail away to
Mauritius, then, as already remarked, a French colony. Lord Wellesley
acted under secret orders from the Secretary of State, Lord Hobart, dated
October 17, 1802, only seven months after the treaty was signed, for the
British Government did not believe in the permanency of the peace and did
not desire the French to re-assert a footing in India, where their
presence, in the event of a renewal of hostilities, would be dangerous.

When the war was renewed, Linois, with his squadron, was still in the
Indian Ocean. The Isle of France was not a self-supporting colony, but
had to depend on money and supplies obtained either from Europe or from
the vessels of the East India Company, which, from time to time, were
captured by French privateers and men-of-war. When Nelson shattered the
naval power of France at Trafalgar in 1805, and vigilant British frigates
patrolled the whole highway of commerce from Europe to the Cape of Good
Hope, Decaen's position became precarious. The supplies sent out to him
were frequently captured by the enemy; and had it not been that Port
Louis became a regular nest of adventurous French privateers--"pirates,"
the British called them--who frequently found a rich prey in the shape of
heavily laden India merchantmen, his garrison must soon have been starved
out.

The incident to which reference has been made occurred in 1804, and is
probably without a parallel in naval history as an example of the effect
of audacity acting on timidity. It was known that a convoy of ships
belonging to the East India Company was to leave Canton early in the
year. Linois, with five vessels, including his flagship, the Marengo, 74
guns, sailed for the Straits of Malacca to intercept them. On February
14, near Polo Aor, to the north-east of Singapore, the French sighted the
convoy, sixteen Company ships, fourteen merchantmen and a brig, all laden
with tea, silks, and other rich merchandise.

The East India Company's vessels carried guns, but they were not equipped
for facing heavily armed men-of-war. Their crews were not trained
fighting men; they were deeply laden, and their decks were heavily
cumbered. Moreover, they were not protected by a naval squadron; and had
Rear-Admiral Linois been a commander of daring, initiative, and resource,
the greater part, or the whole, of this enormous mass of floating
treasure might have fallen like a ripe peach into his hands.

But he had to contend with an English sailor of astounding and quite
picturesque assurance in Nathaniel Dance, the commodore of the fleet.
Dance fully expected, when he left Canton, that he would meet French
raiders, though he was astonished when he saw five sail under the
tricolour bearing up towards him. But he had thought out what he intended
to do if attacked; and, partly by courage, partly by a superb piece of
"bluff," he succeeded completely.

Before sailing, the Company ships had been freshly painted. Their gun
embrasures showed up more fearsome to the eye of imagination than they
were in reality. Dance also carried blue ensigns, which were hoisted on
four of his craft when the French made their appearance. He resorted to
this device with the deliberate purpose of making the strongest vessels
of his convoy look like British men-of-war. In fact, he commanded a fleet
of opulent merchantmen, the best of which, by the mere use of brushes and
pots of paint, and by the hoisting of a few yards of official bunting,
were made to resemble fighting ships. But, wonder of wonders! this
scarecrow strategy struck terror into the heart of a real Rear-Admiral,
and, as a French historian somewhat lugubriously, but quite candidly,
acknowledges: "Les ruses de Dance reussirent; les flammes bleues, les
canons de bois, les batteries peintes, produisirent leur effet."

No sooner did the French squadron appear, than Dance drew up his convoy
in two lines, with the fifteen smaller vessels under the lee of the
sixteen larger ones, which presented their painted broadsides to the foe.
It was a manoeuvre which threatened a determination to fight, and Linois
was disposed to be cautious. He was puzzled by the number of ships,
having been informed by an American captain at Batavia that only
seventeen were to leave Canton. The larger fleet, and the blue ensigns
fluttering from four masts, imbued him with a spirit of reluctance which
he dignified with the name of prudence. As a naval historian puts it,
"The warlike appearance of the sixteen ships, the regularity of their
manoeuvres, and the boldness of their advance, led the French Admiral to
deliberate whether a part of them were not cruisers."* (* James, Naval
History 3 247. There is a contemporary account of the incident in the
Gentleman's Magazine (1804) volume 74 pages 963 and 967.) Linois did not
like to attack, as darkness was approaching, but argued that if the bold
face put upon the matter by the British were merely a stratagem, they
would attempt to fly in the night; in which case he would not hesitate to
chase them. But Dance did nothing of the kind. He had taken his enemy's
measure; or, to quote the French historian again, "il comprit l'etat
moral de son adversaire." He maintained his formation during the night,
keeping blue lights burning on the four ships which sported the blue
ensign, to enforce the illusion that they were the naval escort of the
convoy, and were eager for battle. In the morning Linois was quite
satisfied that he really had to contend with a fleet pugnaciously
inclined, which, if he tried to hurt them, would probably hurt him more.
Cheers broke from the British decks as the Marengo bore up. Dance then
manoeuvred as if his intention were to shut in the French squadron
between two lines, and rake them on both flanks. This clever movement so
scared the Rear-Admiral that he determined to run. A shot was fired from
his flagship, which killed one man and wounded another on the Royal
George; whereupon the British sailors fired their guns in return, and
kept up a furious, but quite harmless, cannonade for forty minutes. Not a
single French ship was hit; but under cover of the thick smoke which "the
engagement" occasioned, Linois and his squadron sailed away, and left the
cheering Britons in the peace which they so certainly required, but had
so audaciously pretended that they did not in the least degree desire.

Dance became temporarily a national hero. The Englishman enjoys a joke,
and at a period of extreme tension the impudent exploit of the commodore
provoked a roar of delighted and derisive laughter throughout the British
Isles. He was feted by the City of London, knighted by King George,
presented with a sword of honour, and endowed by the Company with a
handsome fortune.

On the other hand, Napoleon was furious. Linois "has made the French flag
the laughing stock of the universe," he wrote to his Minister of Marine,
Decres.* (* Correspondance de Napoleon I (1858 to 1870) volume 9 document
8024.) Again he said, "The conduct of Linois is miserable"; and in a
third letter, summing up in a crisp sentence the cause of so many French
failures on the blue water, he said: "All the maritime expeditions that
have been despatched since I have been at the head of the Government have
failed because our admirals see double, and have found, I do not know
where, that one can make war without running any risks;" "it is honour
that I wish them to conserve, rather than a few wooden vessels and some
men." It was while still smarting under this same indignity, and urging
his Minister to hurry the sending of ships with supplies for the support
of the Isle of France, that Napoleon made one of his most famous retorts.
Decres, with the obsequiousness of a courtier, had written that if the
Emperor insisted on ordering certain ships to be despatched, "I should
recognise the will of God, and should send them." "I will excuse you from
comparing me to God," wrote Napoleon; and, prodding the dilatory Minister
again to make haste, he wrote, "You can surely, to meet the needs of our
colonies, send from several ports vessels laden with flour. There is no
need to be God for that!"* (* Correspondance, volume 17 document 13,960.)

Now, if instead of the timid Linois, the French squadron in the Indian
Ocean had been commanded by an Admiral endowed with the qualities of
dash, daring, and enterprise, the consequences to the weak little British
settlement at Sydney would have been disastrous. After Trafalgar, British
interests in the South and the East were more amply safeguarded. But
before that great event, Linois had magnificent opportunities for doing
mischief. Port Jackson would have been a rich prize. Stores, which the
Isle of France badly needed, could have been obtained there plentifully.
Ships from China frequently made it a port of call, preferring to take
the route through the recently discovered Bass Straits than to run the
hazard of capture by crossing the Indian Ocean. It was just a lucky
accident that the enemy's admiral was a nervous gentleman who was afraid
to take risks. General Decaen, a fine soldier, openly cursed his nautical
colleague; but nothing could strike a spirit of vigorous initiative into
the breast of Linois. He was always afraid that if he struck he would be
struck at--in which view he was undoubtedly right.

Did Napoleon himself realise that there was so rich a prize in Port
Jackson? Not until it was too late. In 1810, when he was fitting out
another expedition for aggressive service in the Indian Ocean, he
probably remembered what he had read in Peron's account of the Voyage de
Decouvertes aux Terres Australes about the British colony there, and
directed that the new squadron should "take the English colony of Port
Jackson, which is to the south of the Isle of France, and where
considerable resources will be found" ("faire prendre la colonie anglaise
de Jackson"--sic),* (* Correspondance, volume 20 document 16,544.) But
the task was well-nigh hopeless then, and the squadron never sailed.
Probably it would not have reached the Indian Ocean if it had left
Europe, for the Cape, which was in Dutch hands when Linois had his great
chance, was recaptured by the British in January 1806. In 1810 Admirals
Pellew and Bertie were in command of strong British forces, and Lord
Minto, the Governor-General of India, was determined to root the French
out of the Isle of France, and clear India of danger from that source.
They succeeded, and Mauritius has been British ever since.

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