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The beginning of the path as he saw it with all its magnificence he had already found. It lay over the glittering heights of Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland and Wagram. Across it there was only one obstacle to prevent his reaching the culmination of his ambition, and that obstacle was England’s navy. Unless that could be removed, he would be forced to turn from the path over the heights and pass down into the valley of Borodino, Leipzig and Waterloo to the island prison of St. Helena. In boundless confidence in his destiny and in his own power to control it, he saw not the obstacle; or if he did, there was no doubt in his mind that he himself could remove it. Already he was all powerful on land, and he dreamed of being all powerful on sea.

It is not difficult to picture the dictator, supreme in his arrogance, facing the American, who was actually offering him the only chance there was to surmount the obstacle. Bonaparte had already learned who he was, a foreigner with few friends and no money, an unsuccessful artist in England, and an engineer in France without practise, a dreamer and inventor. Hardly the type of man to appeal to one who had already resolved to be an Emperor.