all the piastres and other property belonging
to the Company, and derived from the transaction great pecuniary
advantage,--though such advantage never could be regarded by a sovereign
as any compensation for the dreadful state into which the public credit
had been brought.

CHAPTER V

1805-1806.

Declaration of Louis XVIII.--Dumouriez watched--News of a spy--
Remarkable trait of courage and presence of mind--Necessity of
vigilance at Hamburg--The King of Sweden--His bulletins--Doctor Gall
--Prussia covets Hamburg--Projects on Holland--Negotiations for
peace--Mr. Fox at the head of the British Cabinet--Intended
assassination of Napoleon--Propositions made through Lord Yarmouth
--Proposed protection of the Hanse towns--Their state--
Aggrandisement of the Imperial family--Neither peace nor war--
Sebastiani's mission to Constantinople--Lord Lauderdale at Paris,
and failure of the negotiations--Austria despoiled--Emigrant
pensions--Dumouriez's intrigues--Prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin--
Loizeau.

I have been somewhat diffuse respecting the vast enterprises of M.
Ouvrard, and on the disastrous state of the finances during the campaign
of Vienna. Now, if I may so express myself, I shall return to the
Minister Plenipotentiary's cabinet, where several curious transactions
occurred. The facts will not always be given in a connected series,
because there was no more relation between the reports which I received
on a great variety of subjects than there is in the pleading of the
barristers who succeed each other in a court of justice.

On the 2d of January 1806 I learned that many houses in Hamburg had
received by post packets, each containing four copies of a declaration of
Louis XVIII. Dumouriez had his carriage filled with copies of this
declaration when he passed through Brunswick; and in that small town
alone more than 3000 were distributed. The size of this declaration
rendered its transmission by post very easy, even in France.

All my letters from the Minister recommended that I should keep a strict
watch over the motions of Dumouriez; but his name was now as seldom
mentioned as if he had ceased to exist. The part he acted seemed to be
limited to disseminating pamphlets more or less insignificant.

It is difficult to conceive the great courage and presence of mind
sometimes found in men so degraded as are the wretches who fill the
office of spies. I had an agent amongst t