rt
further concessions, determined to restrict trade with us to the
smallest possible dimensions. This treatment of England was wholly
exceptional, for in his treaties concluded with Russia, Portugal, and
the Porte, Napoleon had procured the insertion of clauses which
directly fostered French trade with those lands. Remonstrances soon
came from the British Government that "strict prohibitions were being
enforced to the admission of British commodities and manufactures into
France, and very vigorous restrictions were imposed on British vessels
entering French ports"; but, in spite of all representations, we had
the mortification of seeing the hardware of Birmingham, and the
ever-increasing stores of cotton and woollen goods, shut out from
France and her subject-lands, as well as from the French colonies
which we had just handed back.

In this policy of commercial prohibition Napoleon was confirmed by our
refusal to expel the Bourbon princes. He declined to accept our
explanation that they were not officially recognized, and could not be
expelled from England without a violation of the rights of
hospitality; and he bitterly complained of the personal attacks made
upon him in journals published in London by the French _emigres_. Of
these the most acrid, namely, those of Peltier's paper, "L'Ambigu,"
had already received the reprobation of the British Ministry; but, as
had been previously explained at Amiens, the Addington Cabinet decided
that it could not venture to curtail the liberty of the Press, least
of all at the dictation of the very man who was answering the pop-guns
of our unofficial journals by double-shotted retorts in the official
"Moniteur." Of these last His Majesty did not deign to make any
formal complaint; but he suggested that their insertion in the organ
of the French Government should have prevented Napoleon from
preferring the present protests.

This wordy war proceeded with unabated vigour on both sides of the
Channel, the British journals complaining of the Napoleonic
dictatorship in Continental affairs, while the "Moniteur" bristled
with articles whose short, sharp sentences could come only from the
First Consul. The official Press hitherto had been characterized by
dull decorum, and great was the surprise of the older Courts when the
French official journals compared the policy of the Court of St. James
with the methods of the Barbary rovers and the designs of the Miltonic
Satan.[229] Nevertheles