HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
this discussion, that aggression, if 
there were any, was to be found 
solely, or at least primarily, in the 
conduct of the British press; and 
that France, reserving to herself, 
as she had threatened, the right and 
the power of retaliation, had sus- 
pended that species of attack or de- 
fence, till acquiescence or refusal 
to her demand, had authorized her 
to put her Journalists in activity. 
We anticipate the surprize of our 
teaders, when they shall be told, 
that in this war of words, the pre- 
lude to one of a more serious na- 
ture, the total reverse was the case: 
and that, at the moment when the 
freedom of the English press was 
stated by M. Otto, to have given 
the most serious offence tu the 
first consul, the French Journals 
teemed with the foulest, most ran- 
_ corous, and unqualified abuse, 
ef the constitution, the people, 
and even the person of the beloved 
monarch of Great Britain—and here 
it must be recollected, that the press 
of Paris, was as notoriously en- 
slaved, and under the controul and 
direction of the government, as that 
ef London was unshackled and out 
of the power of administration: 
and consequently, while the lucru- 
bations of the former might be con- 
sidered as a species of authorized 
State Paper, the latter were merely 
937 
the effusions of independent prin- 
ciple. 
Previously to the first representas 
tion, made by M. Otto, on the sub- 
ject of the press, and since the 
signature of the preliminaries, ne 
less than thirteen articles had ap- 
peared in the French official print, 
The Moniteur, directly levelled at 
the freedom of debate in the British 
parliament, denouncing those mem- 
bers of it, who presumed to ques- 
tion or comment on the actions of 
the first consul; and abounding in 
the grossest personal abuse of lord 
Grenville, Mr. Windham, and those, 
who acting with them*, had mani- 
fested their hostility to the prevail- 
ing system, and who were therefore 
odious in the eyes of Bonaparte. 
In the vast varicty of the other Pa- 
risian Journals, those topics were 
insisted upen, with equal or in- 
creased virulence. But, about the 
period of the beginning of June, also 
that of M. Otto’s first note, this 
species of warlare was organized, 
with all the precision of regular 
system. An English newspaper, 
named ‘The Argus,” was set up at 
Paris, under the auspices of the 
French> government, «which com- 
menced a recular series of personal 
attacks upon the king of Great 
Britain, his ministry, and his coun- 
try. The constitution of England, 
- ™ It has been urged, by a very able and respectable advocate of tie conduct of 
Ministers, that the abuse bestowed on those personages, in the French papers, wis 
doubtless beheld by government, with indignation; we should have thougiit so ton, 
had we not witnessed in the columns of those prints, notoriously attached to Mr. Aa- 
dington’s administration, amongst a profusion of other epithets, that littie band of pa- 
_ frivts, of whom lord Grenville aad Mr. Windham were considered the leaders, stis- 
‘matized by the appellation of “ sanguinary bloodhounds !!!" [f ought were wanting wo 
— embalm the character of these patriots, in the memory of a grateful posterity, to whuse 
_ @fforts it was owing, that the vital spark of British freedym was kept alive, till subse- 
uent events biew it into a flame; it would be, that at the same moment they were the 
objects of the vituperative scurrility of Bonaparte’s Journalists, aud of the Engi.sh 
Rewspapers, devoted ty the mpterests of Ke peacemakers of Amiens 
Gg > both 
