NAPOLEON'S DREAMS OF EASTERN CONQUEST 301

their boundaries as one might divide an estate into convenient farms or properties. His delight in this pastime attracted him instinctively toward Asia, where he saw that a genius for interminable war and auto- cratic administration would find illimitable scope in knocking down the old-fashioned rickety governments and rebuilding them symmetrically at leisure. His inclinations tallied, moreover, with his interests, since he could combine a taste for Asiatic adventure with an ardent desire to strike a blow at the English some- where on the land, as he could make nothing of them at sea. The project of an expedition against British India was constantly in his mind; but his first and last at- tempt at Asiatic conquest was the abortive occupation of Egypt and the march into Syria in 1798, with the declared object, among others, of " hunting the English out of all their Eastern possessions and cutting the Isthmus of Suez." The menace only served, as usual, to hasten English annexations in India. For on one side it accentuated the alarm and resentment with which the English were watching the intrigues of the French with the Marathas and the Sultan of Mysore, and the recruitment of French officers for the armies of those states. On the other side, the rapidly increas- ing predominance of the English and the overtures of the French misled the native princes into venturing for their self-protection upon the very steps that helped to precipitate their downfall. Now that England had completely recognized the immense value of her Asiatic