Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/262

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242
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Whitworth's arrival in the winter there remained 1700. Wordsworth, who went no farther than Calais, was indignant at this worship of Bonaparte.

"Lords, lawyers, statesmen, squires of low degree.
Men known and men unknown, sick, lame, and blind,
Post forward all, like creatures of one kind,
With first-fruit offerings crowd to bend the knee
In France before the new-born Majesty."

Whitworth found this throng of visitors politically mischievous. "It is absolutely necessary that we should stick to our text," he wrote to George Hammond on March 24th, 1803, "in order to do away with the impression which some of our rascally countrymen have given. I have for this last fortnight shut my door to Lord Lauderdale and all those of his stamp with which this city swarms." The Duke of Bedford, however, who conferred with Danton at Paris in the winter of 1792, and was again there, "seems perfectly aware," said Whitworth, writing on May 4th, "of the character and projects of the First Consul, and of the necessity (although he exaggerates the danger to ourselves) of imposing some restraint upon him if possible. . . . He conducts himself very properly. I wish I could say as much of many of my countrymen and countrywomen."[1]

Fox was by far the most notable of these visitors. He was accompanied by Mr. (afterwards Lord) St.

  1. "England and Napoleon in 1803." By Oscar Browning.