ch are raging throughout the whole world. I
have the honour to be, &c. &c.

"BUONAPARTE."

It is manifest that the Chief Consul was wonderfully ignorant of the
English constitution, if he really believed that the King (whose public
acts must all be done by the hands of responsible ministers) could
answer his letter personally. The reply was an official note from Lord
Grenville, then secretary of state for the department of foreign
affairs, to Talleyrand. It stated "that the King of England had no
object in the war but the security of his own dominions, his allies, and
Europe in general; he would seize the first favourable opportunity to
make peace--at present he could see none. The same general assertions of
pacific intentions had proceeded, successively, from all the
revolutionary governments of France; and they had all persisted in
conduct directly and notoriously the opposite of their language.
Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Germany, Egypt,--what country had been safe
from French aggression? The war must continue until the causes which
gave it birth ceased to exist. The restoration of the exiled royal
family would be the easiest means of giving confidence to the other
powers of Europe. The King of England by no means pretended to dictate
anything as to the internal polity of France; but he was compelled to
say, that he saw nothing in the circumstances under which the new
government had been set up, or the principles it professed to act upon,
which could tend to make foreign powers regard it as either more stable
or more trustworthy than the transitory forms it had supplanted."

Such was the tenor of Lord Grenville's famous note. It gave rise to an
animated discussion in both Houses immediately on the meeting of the
British Parliament; and, in both, the conduct of the ministry was
approved by very great majorities. When, however, the financial
preparations were brought forward, and it turned out that Russia was no
longer to be subsidised--or, in other words, had abandoned the league
against France--the prospects of the war were generally considered as
much less favourable than they had been during this discussion. In the
meantime the French government put forth, by way of commentary on Lord
Grenville's state paper, a pretended letter from the unfortunate heir of
the House of Stuart to George III., demanding from him the throne of
England, which, now that the principle of legitimacy seemed to be
recognised a