All the owners of colonial property are very uneasy, and do not hide their annoyance against England on this score."[184] This interesting report gives a glimpse into the real thought of Paris such as is rarely afforded by the tamed or venal Press.

As Bonaparte's spies enabled him to feel every throb of the French pulse, he must at once have seen how great was the prestige which he gained by these first diplomatic successes, and how precarious was the foothold of the English Ministers on the slippery grade of concession to which they had been lured.

Addington surely should have remembered that only the strong man can with safety recede at the outset, and that an act of concession which, coming from a master mind, is interpreted as one of noble magnanimity, will be scornfully snatched from a nerveless hand as a sign of timorous complaisance.

But the public statements and the secret avowals of our leaders show that they wished "to try the experiment of peace," now that France had returned to ordinary political conditions and Jacobinism was curbed by Bonaparte.
"Perhaps," wrote Castlereagh, "France, satisfied with her recent acquisitions, will find her interest in that system of internal improvement which is necessarily connected with peace."[185] There is no reason for doubting the sincerity of this statement.

Our policy was distinctly and continuously complaisant: France regained her colonies: she was not required to withdraw from Switzerland and Holland.