navigation of the
Mississippi or limit the freedom of the port of New Orleans;
whether she press upon the Western States with any view to
conquest, or seduce them by her principles of fraternity (for which
indeed they are well prepared) she must infallibly alienate the
Atlantic States and force them into a straiter connection with
Great Britain.

"I have scarcely met with a person under whatever party he may rank
himself, who does not dread this event, and who would not prefer
almost any neighbours to the French: and it seems perfect
infatuation in the Administration of this country that they chuse
the present moment for leaving that frontier almost defenceless by
the reduction of its military establishment.

"I have, etc.,

"[Signed] EDW'D THORNTON."

* * * * *

No. II. is a report in "F.O.," France, No. 71, by one of our spies in
Paris on the doings of the Irish exiles there, especially O'Connor,
whom Napoleon had appointed General of Division in Marshal Augereau's
army, then assembling at Brest for the expedition to Ireland. After
stating O'Connor's appointment, the report continues:

"About eighty Irishmen were sent to Morlaix to be formed into a
company of officers and taught how they were to discipline and
instruct their countrymen when they landed in Ireland. McShee,
General de Brigade, commands them. He and Blackwell are, I
believe, the only persons among them of any consequence, who have
seen actual service. Emmett's brother and McDonald, who were
jealous of the attention paid to O'Connor, would not go to
Morlaix. They were prevailed on to go to Brest towards the end of
May, and there to join General Humbert. Commandant Dalton, a young
man of Irish extraction, and lately appointed to a situation in
the Army at Boulogne, translated everything between O'Connor and
the War Department at Paris. There is no Irish Committee at Paris
as is reported. O'Connor and General Hartry, an old Irishman who
has been long in the French service, are the only persons applied
to by the French Government, O'Connor for the expedition, and
Hartry for the Police, etc., of the Irish in France.

"O'Connor, though he had long tried to have an audience of
Bonaparte, never saw him till the 20th of May [1805], when he was
presented to him at the levee by Mars