230 ANNUAL RE 
France, should be required to quit 
the territory of the British empire! 
It cannot be supposed that these 
requisitions, the aggregate of every 
thing that could insult or lower the 
country to whom they were made, 
could haye been urged with such 
amplitude and confidence, had not 
the negociations which had al- 
ready taken place, upon their seve- 
ral subjects in detail, sufficiently 
evinced the timid and wavering 
spirit which swayed the British 
councils, When Mr, Merry com- 
municated on the 4th of June M, 
Talleyrand’s conference with him, 
in which the latter urges the dis- 
gust M. Otto (late commissary of. 
prisoners, but whom Bonapaxte, in 
the prosecution of his system of hu- 
miliating as much as pogsible,Great 
Britain, elevated to the situation of 
resident at the court of St. James’s) 
could not but feel and experience, 
gt meeting at his majesty’s court, 
and at other places, the French 
rinces decorated with the insignia 
of the French orders; and that it 
was incumbent on the British go- 
yernment to remove those princes, 
their adherents, the French bishops, 
and other individuals, whose princi- 
ples were adyerse from the present 
state of things in France; Lord 
Hawkesbury in reply expresses 
no surprize or dissatisfaction at the 
novelty or insolence of such a 
demand, waives the subject of 
the insignia altogether, and con- 
tents himself with classing those 
illustrious indiyjduals, the objects of 
the tyrant’s hatred and fear, with 
other foreigners who might be resi- 
dent in the kingdom, and who, so 
jong as they should conduct them- 
€ The editor of The Political Registers 
GISTER,. 1803. 
selves agreeably to the laws of the 
country, could not be thence dis- 
missed ! 
On the 25th of the following 
month, M.Otto once more disturbs 
the tranquillity which ministers 
had so dearly purchased; and 
charges distinctly an emigrant of 
the name of Peltier with having 
published a libel abounding with 
the grossest calumnies against the 
Frencl government and nation: 
nor does he confine himself to Pel- 
tier alone, but implicates the editor 
of the Courier Francois de Lon- 
-dres, Cobbet,* and other writers, 
who resemble them, in the charge, 
and to-whom he desires to direct 
the attention of his majesty’s go- 
yernment; adding the threat, ‘ that 
writers would doubtless be found in 
France, willing to avenge their 
countrymen, by filling their pages 
with odious reflections on the most 
respectable persons, aud on the 
dearest interests of Great Britain.” 
* To this direct attack on the li- ~ 
berty of the British press, and to a 
notification as vulgar as insolent, 
the secretary of state in the foreign 
department, in reply, eagerly ex- 
presses the displeasure of himself 
and his colleagues at the particu- 
lar article complained of; their. - 
anxious desire to have the writer of’ 
it punisheg, as he so justly deserves 5 
then laménts in common with M. 
Otto, the license he complains of, 
and deplores the difficulty there is 
in proving the guilt of an individual 
so satisfactorily as to obtain the 
judgment of a court of law; and 
concludes by promising to refer the 
number of Peltier complained of 
to the king’s attorney general, to 
know 
ft oes Bere ee 
