ministers, their answer was obvious: "Our courts of law are open--we are
ourselves accustomed to be abused as you are, and in them we, like you,
have our only resource." The paragraphs in the _Moniteur_, on the other
hand, were, it was impossible to deny, virtually so many manifestoes of
the Tuileries.

Of all the popular engines which moved the spleen of Napoleon, the most
offensive was a newspaper (_L'Ambigu_) published in the French language,
in London, by one Peltier, a royalist emigrant; and, in spite of all the
advice which could be offered, he at length condescended to prosecute
the author in the English courts of law. M. Peltier had the good fortune
to retain, as his counsel, Mr. Mackintosh,[45] an advocate of most
brilliant talents, and, moreover, especially distinguished for his
support of the original principles of the French Revolution. On the
trial which ensued, this orator, in defence of his client, delivered a
philippic against the personal character and ambitious measures of
Napoleon, immeasurably more calculated to injure the Chief Consul in
public opinion throughout Europe, than all the efforts of a thousand
newspapers; and, though the jury found Peltier guilty of libel, the
result was, on the whole, a signal triumph to the party of whom he had
been the organ.

This was a most imprudent, as well as undignified proceeding; but ere
the defendant, Peltier, could be called up for judgment, the doubtful
relations of the Chief Consul and the cabinet of St. James's were to
assume a different appearance. The truce of St. Amiens already
approached its close. Buonaparte had, perhaps, some right to complain of
the unbridled abuse of the British press: but the British government had
a far more serious cause of reclamation against him. Under pretence of
establishing French consuls for the protection of commerce, he sent
persons, chiefly of the military profession, who carried orders to make
exact plans of all the harbours and coasts of the United Kingdom. These
gentlemen endeavoured to execute their commission with all possible
privacy; but the discovery of their occupation was soon made; they were
sent back to France without ceremony; and this treacherous measure of
their government was openly denounced as a violation of every rule of
international law, and a plain symptom of warlike preparation.

Ere hostilities were renewed, Buonaparte employed M. Meyer, president of
the regency of Warsaw, to open a negotiat