164 



ANNUALR EGISTER, 1804. 





communication -with the disaftcctcd 

 in his majesty's dominions, and had 

 actually assembled on the coast of 

 France, a body of Irish rebels, for 

 the purpose of aiding their designs. 

 And that if any minister, accredited 

 to a foreign court, had held cor- 

 respondence with persons in France, 

 •with a view of obtaining informa- 

 tion of the projects of the French 

 government, or for any other legiti- 

 mate purpose, he had done no more 

 than ministers, under similar circum- 

 stance*, had been uniformly consi- 

 dered as having a right to do, with 

 respect to the countries with which 

 their sovereign was at war *". 



These positions of lord Hawkes- 

 biiry were connnented upon, some 

 time after, in a circular note from AI. 

 Talleyrand, addressed to the several 

 French diplomafic agents +. 



He observes, that the project con- 

 reived by the British government, 

 for the last half century, gradually 

 to abolish the tutelary system of 

 public law, which unites all civilized 

 nations, developed itself with a 

 frightfid progressioTi. The British 

 government is arraigned of audacity 

 in sporting with the faith of oaths, 

 and the most solemn treaties— that 

 maritime nations daily exjierienced 

 its tyranny— No longer did there 

 exist a theoretical system of naviga- 

 tion — No convention which had not 

 been scandalously violated, on every 

 shore and on every sea ; tiiat ncu- 

 - tral states, in exercising their rights 

 -ivith the most timid circumspection, 

 •were exposed to insult, pillage, and 

 extermination ; that now it attacks 

 rights collectively, and directs a 

 blow against morality itself, against 

 the religion of public law. — Diplo- 

 matic agents had at all times been 



* Vide Slate Papers, p. 600. 



considered as ministers of peace — 

 organs of conciliation — but the 

 British government wished them to 

 be the instigators of plots, the agents 

 of troubles, the directors of machi- 

 nations, vile spies, cowardly se- 

 ducers. They are ordered to fo- 

 ment seditions, to provoke and to 

 pay for assassinations ; and, it is at- 

 tempted to invest that infamous mi- 

 nistry with the inviolability which, 

 belongs to the mediators of kings, 

 and the pacificators of nations. — 

 That it was time to put an end to 

 the disastrous career of principles, 

 subversive of all society. 



The persons to whom these notes 

 were directed, •were ordered to de- 

 clare to the governments •where they 

 resided, that Bonaparte would not 

 recognize the English diplomatic 

 body in Europe, so long as the 

 British government did not abstain 

 from charging its ministers with 

 any warlike agency, and did not 

 restrain them within the limits of 

 their functions. 



On the 8th of April an article ap- 

 peared in the French official journal, 

 purporting to be the result of the 

 depositions of six surgeons, appoint- 

 ed to Inspect the body of general 

 Pichcgru, who had been found 

 strangled two days before, in th4 

 place of his confinement ; a la- 

 boured attempt was there made to 

 prove that he had committed sui- 

 cide : but, even from the circum- 

 stances related in that report, it 

 seems almtJst impossible that he 

 could himself have been the cause of 

 his death, in the manner described ; 

 and, indeed, tiie general belief is, 

 that Bonaparte, apprehensive of the 

 sensation that might be occasioned 

 by his trial or public execution, had 



f Vide State Papers, p. 657. 



caused 



