Bread Was Dear, And England Seethed With
Discontent.
Napoleon was fully aware that he was in a position to force
concessions.
King George's advisers were limp. "England," wrote
Thibaudeau, who knew his master's mind, "was driven by sheer necessity to
make peace; not so Bonaparte, whose reasons were founded on the desire of
the French nation for peace, the fact that the terms of the treaty were
glorious for France, and the recognition by his bitterest enemy of the
position which the nation had bestowed upon him."* (* Fortescue's English
edition page 18.) The value of Australia at this time was scarcely
perceived by Great Britain at all. Sydney was just a tip for human
refuse, and a cause of expense, not of profit or advantage. The only
influential man in England who believed in a future for the country was
Sir Joseph Banks; and he, in 1799, had written to Governor Hunter: "The
situation of Europe is at present so critical, and His Majesty's
Ministers so fully employed in business of the highest importance, that
it is scarce possible to gain a moment's audience on any subject but
those which stand foremost in their minds, and colonies of all kinds, you
may be assured, are now put in the background...Your colony is a most
valuable appendage to Great Britain, and I flatter myself we shall,
before it is long, see her Ministers made sensible of its real value."*
(* Banks to Hunter, February 1, 1799. Historical Records of New South
Wales 3 532.) If that was the feeling in 1799, we can imagine how a claim
to the right to found a French settlement in Australia during the
nerveless regime of Addington would have been received.
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