On another occasion Mr. Thornton applied to me for my services, and I had once more the pleasure of rendering them.  He wished to procure some information respecting an Englishman named Baker, who had gone to Terracina, in the Campagna di Roma, for the benefit of sea-bathing.  He was there arrested, without any cause assigned, by order of the commandant of the French troops in Terracina.  The family of Mr. Baker, not having heard from him for some months, became very uneasy respecting him, for they had not the least idea of his arrest.  His relations applied to Mr. Thornton, and that gentleman, notwithstanding the circumstances which, as I have stated, prevented our frequent intercourse, hesitated not a moment in requesting me to furnish him with some information respecting his countryman.  I lost no time in writing to M. Alquier, our Ambassador at Rome, and soon enabled Mr. Thornton to ease the apprehension of Mr. Baker’s friends.

I had every opportunity of knowing what was passing in Italy, for I had just been invested with a new dignity.  As the new King of Naples, Joseph, had no Minister in Lower Saxony, he wished that I should discharge the function of Minister Plenipotentiary for Naples.  His Ministers accordingly received orders to correspond with me upon all business connected with his government and his subjects.  The relations between Hamburg and Naples were nearly nil, and my new office made no great addition to my labours.

I experienced, however, a little more difficulty in combining all the post-offices of Hamburg in the office of the Grand Duchy of Berg, thus detaching them from the offices of Latour and Taxis, so named after the German family who for a length of time had had the possession of them, and who were devoted to Austria.

After some days of negotiation I obtained the suppression of these offices, and their union with the postoffice of the Grand Due de Berg (Murat), who thus received letters from Italy, Hungary, Germany, Poland, part of Russia, and the letters from England for these countries.

The affair of the post-offices gained for me the approbation of Napoleon.  He expressed his satisfaction through the medium of a letter I received from Duroc, who at the same time recommended me to continue informing the Emperor of all that was doing in Germany with relation to the plans of the Confederation of the North.  I therefore despatched to the Minister for Foreign Affairs a detailed letter, announcing that Baron Grote, the Prussian Minister at Hamburg, had set off on a visit to Bremen and Lubeck.  Among those who accompanied him on this excursion was a person wholly devoted to me; and I knew that Baron Grote’s object was to offer to these towns verbal propositions for their union with the Confederation of the North, which the King of Prussia wished to form as a counterpoise to the Confederation of the Rhine, just created by Napoleon.  Baron Grote observed the strictest secrecy in all his movements.  He showed, in confidence, to those to whom he addressed himself, a letter from M. Haugwitz, the Minister of the King of Prussia,