It would have been better policy if, some months earlier, Bonaparte had been required to withdraw from Piedmont or from Switzerland, under pain of hostilities with England. Great Britain had as little technical right to retain Malta as Bonaparte had to annex Piedmont. The desire for peace had, however, led Addington's Government to remain inactive until Bonaparte's aggressions had become accomplished facts. It was now too late to attempt to undo them: England could only treat the settlement of Amiens as superseded, and claim compensation on its own side. Malta was the position most necessary to Great Britain, in order to prevent Bonaparte from carrying out projects in Egypt and Greece of which the Government had evidence independent of Sebastiani's report. The value of Malta, so lately denied by Nelson, was now fully understood both in France and England. No sooner had the English Ministry avowed its intention of retaining the island than the First Consul declared himself compelled to take up arms in behalf of the faith of treaties. Ignoring his own violations of treaty-rights in Italy and Switzerland, Bonaparte declared the retention of Malta by Great Britain to be an outrage against all Europe. He assailed the British Ambassador with the utmost fury at a reception held at the Tuileries on the 13th of March; and, after a correspondence of two months, which probably marked his sense of the power and obstinacy of his enemy, the conflict was renewed which was now to continue without a break until Bonaparte was driven from his throne. [Bonaparte and Hanover.]