HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



237 



British government was extremely 

 desirous of making an exchange 

 of prisoners, on the principle of 

 man for man, and rank for rank. 

 But nothing could induce Buona- 

 parte to consent to this on any 

 reasonable terms.* Buonaparte 

 proposed to exchange French 

 prisoners, English, Spaniards, and 

 Portuguese. Our government 

 was willing to exchange French- 

 men for Englishmen as long as we 

 had a Frenchman to give up ; and 

 then, when this account should 

 be balanced, to give up French- 

 men, if any remained in our 

 hands, for the liberation of our 

 allies. 



The emperor told the Senate, 

 that the English orders in council 

 of 1806 and 1807, had torn in 

 pieces the public law of Europe. 

 A new order of affairs governed 

 the world. New securities had 

 become necessary. The annexa- 

 tion of the mouths of the Scheldt, 

 the Meuse, the Rhine, the Ems, 

 the Weser, and the Elbe, to 

 France, and the establishment of 

 an internal navigation between 

 France and the Baltic ; on which, 

 as was observed on another oc- 

 casion, to rest the right wing of 

 his immense empire. As to the 

 abdication of Lewis in favour of 

 his children, it was considered as 

 of no validity, not having been 

 previously concerted with the em- 

 peror. A navigation to be esta- 

 blished by means of a canal be- 

 tween the Baltic and the Seine, 

 to be completed in the space of 

 five years. These were the first 



and most important securities or 

 guarantees to which recourse had 

 been had in consequence of the 

 English orders in council. — The 

 Valais, the passage of the Alps 

 by the mountain of Simplon, a 

 road through which had been car- 

 ried on for ten )'ears, a measure 

 so useful both to France and Italy, 

 was united to the French empire. 

 His finances, he said, were in the 

 most flourishing state. He was 

 not under any necessity of calling 

 on his people for any new sacri- 

 fices for tiie support of his im- 

 mense empire. 



In the report of the minister of 

 foreign relations, that preceded 

 this imperial message to the se- 

 nate, it was emphatically observed, 

 that all the territories between the 

 Elbe and the Ems, were already 

 subjected to the domination of his 

 imperial majesty.f And so they 

 were: for French armies, attended 

 by crowds of custom-house offi- 

 cers, spread themselves over the 

 whole maritime coast of Ger- 

 many, and partly of Poland. 



The count of Seraonville, who 

 brought up the report of the Se- 

 natus Consiiltum for the annexa- 

 tion of Holland, the Hanse Towns, 

 and the Valais, to France, said, 

 »< At length, after a struggle, glo- 

 rious to France, ot ten years, the 

 most extraordinary genius that 

 ever Nature in her munificence 

 produced, had re-united, and held 

 in his triumphant hands, the scat- 

 tered wrecks of the empire of 

 Charlemagne." For recruiting the 

 French armies, 120,000 of the 



* See terms of convention for an exchange of prisoners of war proposed by Mr- 

 Mackenzie to M. de Moustier, Oct. 1810. — See also the printed letterof the British 

 government to the commissioners of the Board of Transports on this subject. 



t See Expose of the state of France. State Papers, p. 508. 



