prisoners at Verdun on the rupture of the peace of Amiens.  He gave his lordship instructions to propose to the British Government a new form of negotiations, offering to guarantee to England the Cape of Good Hope and Malta.  Some have been inclined from this concession to praise the moderation of Bonaparte; others to blame him for offering to resign these two places, as if the Cape and Malta could be put in competition with the title of Emperor, the foundation of the Kingdom of Italy, the acquisition of Genoa and of all the Venetian States, the dethronement of the King of Naples and the gift of his kingdom to Joseph, and finally, the new partition of Germany.  These transactions, of which Bonaparte said not a word, and from which he certainly had no intention of departing, were all long after the treaty of Amiens.

Every day brought with it fresh proofs of insatiable ambition.  In fact, Napoleon longed to obtain possession of the Hanse Towns.  I was, however, in the first place, merely charged to make overtures to the Senates of each of these towns, and to point out the advantages they would derive from the protection of Napoleon in exchange for the small sacrifice of 6,000,000 francs in his favour.  I had on this subject numerous conferences with the magistrates:  they thought the sum too great, representing, to me that the city was not so rich as formerly, because their commerce had been much curtailed by the war; in short, the Senate declared that, with the utmost goodwill, their circumstances would not permit them to accept the “generous proposal” of the Emperor.

I was myself, indeed, at a loss to conceive how the absurdity of employing me to make such a proposition was overlooked, for I had, really no advantage to offer in return to the Hanse Towns.  Against whom did Bonaparte propose to protect them?  The truth is, Napoleon then wished to seize these towns by direct aggression, which, however, he was not able to accomplish until four years afterwards.

During five years I witnessed the commercial importance of these cities, and especially of Hamburg.  Its geographical situation, on a great river navigable by large vessels to the city, thirty leagues from the mouth of the Elbe; the complete independence it enjoyed; its municipal regulations and paternal government, were a few amongst the many causes which had raised Hamburg to its enviable height of prosperity.  What, in fact, was the population of these remnants of the grand Hanseatic League of the Middle Ages?  The population of Hamburg when I was there amounted to 90,000, and that of its small surrounding territory to 25,000.  Bremen had 36,000 inhabitants, and 9000 in its territory; the city of Lubeck, which is smaller and its territory a little more extensive than that of Bremen, contained a population of 24,000 souls within and 16,000 without the walls.  Thus the total population of the Hanse Towns amounted to only 200,000 individuals; and yet this handful of men carried on an extensive commerce, and their ships ploughed every sea, from the shores of India to the frozen regions of Greenland.