Bonaparte and the French Armada in the Caribbean

Bonaparte was desperate to get the british admiralty to say, ok, we won't mess with you. He did two things to get them to say this. One pretty obvious, the other pretty unconventional. If i do that, i'll just go ahead confirm general tuson and you guys can deal with a quasi independent slave state armed to the teeth,. 50 miles from jamaica. This was not irrational paranoia. This was a very plausible threat.