A FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE ST.

DOMINGO--LOUISIANA--INDIA--AUSTRALIA "Il n'y a rien dans l'histoire du monde de comparable aux forces navales de l'Angleterre, a l'etendue et a la richesse de son commerce, a la masse de ses dettes, de ses defenses, de ses moyens, et a la fragilite des bases sur lesquelles repose l'edifice immense de sa fortune."-- BARON MALOUET, _Considerations historiques sur l'Empire de la Mer_.
There are abundant reasons for thinking that Napoleon valued the Peace of Amiens as a necessary preliminary to the restoration of the French Colonial Empire.

A comparison of the dates at which he set on foot his oceanic schemes will show that they nearly all had their inception in the closing months of 1801 and in the course of the following year.
The sole important exceptions were the politico-scientific expedition to Australia, the ostensible purpose of which insured immunity from the attacks of English cruisers even in the year 1800, and the plans for securing French supremacy in Egypt, which had been frustrated in 1801 and were, to all appearance, abandoned by the First Consul according to the provisions of the Treaty of Amiens.

The question whether he really relinquished his designs on Egypt is so intimately connected with the rupture of the Peace of Amiens that it will be more fitly considered in the following chapter.

It may not, however, be out of place to offer some proofs as to the value which Bonaparte set on the valley of the Nile and the Isthmus of Suez.