portunity of knowing what was passing in Italy, for I had
just been invested with a new dignity. As the new King of Naples,
Joseph, had no Minister in Lower Saxony, he wished that I should
discharge the function of Minister Plenipotentiary for Naples. His
Ministers accordingly received orders to correspond with me upon all
business connected with his government and his subjects. The relations
between Hamburg and Naples were nearly nil, and my new office made no
great addition to my labours.

I experienced, however, a little more difficulty in combining all the
post-offices of Hamburg in the office of the Grand Duchy of Berg, thus
detaching them from the offices of Latour and Taxis, so named after the
German family who for a length of time had had the possession of them,
and who were devoted to Austria.

After some days of negotiation I obtained the suppression of these
offices, and their union with the postoffice of the Grand Due de Berg
(Murat), who thus received letters from Italy, Hungary, Germany, Poland,
part of Russia, and the letters from England for these countries.

The affair of the post-offices gained for me the approbation of Napoleon.
He expressed his satisfaction through the medium of a letter I received
from Duroc, who at the same time recommended me to continue informing the
Emperor of all that was doing in Germany with relation to the plans of
the Confederation of the North. I therefore despatched to the Minister
for Foreign Affairs a detailed letter, announcing that Baron Grote, the
Prussian Minister at Hamburg, had set off on a visit to Bremen and
Lubeck. Among those who accompanied him on this excursion was a person
wholly devoted to me; and I knew that Baron Grote's object was to offer
to these towns verbal propositions for their union with the Confederation
of the North, which the King of Prussia wished to form as a counterpoise
to the Confederation of the Rhine, just created by Napoleon. Baron Grote
observed the strictest secrecy in all his movements. He showed, in
confidence, to those to whom he addressed himself, a letter from M.
Haugwitz, the Minister of the King of Prussia,

--[In July 1806, after Austerlitz, Napoleon had formed the
"Confederation du Rhin." to include the smaller States of Germany,
who threw off all connection with the German Empire, and formed a
Confederation furnishing a considerable army. ]--

--[The Emperor of Germany, Francis IL, had already in 1804, on