Both the preliminaries of London and the peace of Amiens had been hailed with joy by the industrial and mercantile classes of England. It is true the Christian sentiment of the country was shocked by the official restoration of the slave-trade on the part of France; but that feeling was momentarily stilled in view of the untold benefits to commerce which might justly be expected as the result of peace. In this expectation, however, the merchants were disappointed, for the Consulate immediately put in force certain arbitrary and annoying shipping regulations intended to limit any encroachments on its rigid protective policy. The pious philanthropy of England has ever seen missionary zeal go hand in hand with British commerce as the best means of simultaneously fulfilling England's destiny and ameliorating the world. Accordingly, public opinion again took up the cry against the slave-trade, and soon was so changed that the cheers of the multitude were turned into renewed execrations of Bonaparte. Thenceforward the influences which combined to create a warlike temper in England were cumulative. It was found by private citizens that the clause of the treaty which removed all sequestrations from their property in France was not easily enforced. Statesmen began to say that by a further extension of the system of federated states under French hegemony their maritime empire would insure nothing but the insignificant carrying-trade with the colonies, while the European commerce, which was far more important, would be delivered into other hands. The King feared lest, with the guarantee of territorial sanctity, which was its mainstay, absolutism itself would go.
The bitter discontent of the British was expressed in the public press almost before the ink was dry on the treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte, demanding the right to establish consuls in the chief ports of England and Ireland, designated the officials and sent them to their posts. Under the pretext that these men were spies, charged to make and forward to Paris plans of the harbors, they were seized, and forbidden to enter on their duties. Moreover, one Peltier, an emigrant, began without hindrance from the authorities to publish in London a French royalist journal, "L'Ambigu," which lampooned and abused the First Consul in a shameful but brilliant way. Two months after the date of the treaty Bonaparte began to remonstrate against such license. The English administration pleaded the freedom of the press under constitutional guarantees, and asserted the truth of the allegations brought against the consuls. Soon the tide of recrimination was in full flood, and the columns of the "Moniteur" were filled with matter similar to the offensive contents of the English press. The journals of Paris began to declare that "Carthage must be destroyed." It was the irony of fate that while in England the government could deny its responsibility for the utterances of the newspapers, Bonaparte, who had utterly destroyed the freedom of the press in France, could be held to strict account for every word printed.