But now the time arrived which threatened to frustrate the patriotism
of the Maltese themselves, and all the zealous efforts of their
disinterested friend. Soon after the war had for the first time
become indisputably just and necessary, the people at large and a
majority of independent senators, incapable, as it might seem, of
translating their fanatical anti-Jacobinism into a well-grounded, yet
equally impassioned, anti-Gallicanism, grew impatient for peace, or
rather for a name, under which the most terrific of all wars would be
incessantly waged against us. Our conduct was not much wiser than
that of the weary traveller, who having proceeded half way on his
journey, procured a short rest for himself by getting up behind a
chaise which was going the contrary road. In the strange treaty of
Amiens, in which we neither recognised our former relations with
France nor with the other European powers, nor formed any new ones,
the compromise concerning Malta formed the prominent feature; and its
nominal re-delivery to the Order of St.
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