One chief bone of contention was Malta. Napoleon had set his heart upon getting Malta for himself, and England was equally bent on keeping him out of Malta. By the treaty of the preceding year, England had undertaken to evacuate the island, and to restore it to the knights of St. John. But the withdrawal of English troops had been of necessity delayed, until some means could be devised to save it from the grip of Buonaparte; and the First Consul, by deliberately breaking some of his own undertakings in the treaty, set England free as to her undertakings also. Therefore Malta still remained in the hands of England, as did Egypt and the Cape of Good Hope, each a source of jealous longing on the part of the First Consul. This state of tension steadily increased, until the breaking out of war became merely a question of days. Large numbers of English had seized the rare opportunity of a year free from fighting to travel in France; and at this time there were something like eight or ten thousand English, mainly of the upper classes, in that country. It was unknown to them that, pending negotiations, the First Consul caused careful returns to be sent to himself of the names and addresses of all English people then within French borders. This bears a suspicious look, when read in the light of his after act, and possibly he already had in his mind the step which was soon to scandalise all Christendom. The French papers heartily assured English travellers of their absolute safety, even supposing that war should break out, and doubtless the editors of those papers meant what they said. Few men, if any, French or English, could have foreseen what was coming. A homeward stampede took place, and the thousands were, by some accounts, rapidly reduced to hundreds. A good many lingered, however, not all detained, as were the Barons, by illness. War-clouds might threaten, but that private travellers should be affected by a declaration of war was a thing unheard of. In May, suddenly at the last, though the step had been expected, the English Ambassador was recalled from Paris, and immediately the French Ambassador was recalled from London. Meanwhile, as a second step, the English Government, issuing letters of marque, seized a number of French vessels, which happened then to be lying in English ports. This, it was said, actually took place before the Declaration of War could reach Paris. If so, even though the deed was within English rights, being sanctioned by previous centuries of custom, one must regret its extreme haste. But no excuse can be found for Napoleon's illegal and cruel act of reprisal, which indeed appeared to have been planned beforehand. Like a thundercrash came the order, before the close of May, arresting all peaceable English travellers or residents in France, and rendering them "Prisoners of War," or "Détenus," to be confined in France during the pleasure of the First Consul.