ENGLISH DIPLOMACY.—LORD WHITWORTH.—CHATHAM.—CASTLEREAGH.—CORNWALLIS.—FOX, &C.
Monday, 10th—The course of our conversation to-day led the Emperor to observe that nothing was so dangerous and so treacherous as official conversations with diplomatic agents of Great Britain. “The English Ministers,” said he, “never represent an affair from their nation to another, but as from themselves to their own nation. They care little what their adversaries have said or say; they boldly put forward what their diplomatic agents have said, or what they make them say, on the ground that, those agents having a public and acknowledged character, faith must be placed in their reports. It is in pursuance of this principle, Napoleon added, that the English Ministers published at the time, under the name of Lord Whitworth, a long conversation between me and Whitworth, the account of which was entirely false.”[22]
We who have been at St. Helena, we who have seen and been concerned in the facts alleged by Lord Bathurst, before the parliament of Great Britain, we all can affirm, before God and man, that the British Ministers have on that occasion fully deserved the just reproaches which they incurred at the time of Lord Whitworth. Many Englishmen, who were then at St. Helena, have acknowledged it to us, and have confessed that they blushed for their country!!
That ambassador had solicited an audience of the First Consul, and personal communications. The First Consul, who was himself fond of treating affairs directly, willingly assented. “But this proved for me,” said the Emperor, “a lesson which altered my method for ever. From this moment, I never treated officially of political affairs, but through the intervention of my minister for Foreign affairs. He at any rate could give a positive and formal denial; which the sovereign could not do.
“It is utterly false,” added the Emperor, "that any thing occurred in the course of our personal interview, which was not in conformity with the common rules of decorum. Lord Whitworth himself, after our conference, being in company with other Ambassadors, expressed himself perfectly satisfied, and added that he had no doubt all things would be satisfactorily settled. But what was the surprise of those same Ambassadors, when they read a short time afterwards in the English newspapers the report of Lord Whitworth, in which he charged me with having behaved in the interview with unbecoming violence! We had some warm friends amongst these Ambassadors, and some of them went so far as to express their surprise to the English diplomatist, observing to him that his report was very different from what he had said to them immediately after the conference. Lord Whitworth made the best excuse he could, but persisted in maintaining the assertions of the official document.