These indispensable examples of severity did not check the manoeuvres of England, though they served to cool the zeal of her agents.  I used every endeavour to second the Prince of Ponte-Corvo in tracing out the persons employed by England.  It was chiefly from the small island of Heligoland that they found their way to the Continent.  This communication was facilitated by the numerous vessels scattered about the small islands which lie along that coast.  Five or six pieces of gold defrayed the expense of the passage to or from Heligoland.  Thus the Spanish news, which was printed and often fabricated at London, was profusely circulated in the north of Germany.  Packets of papers addressed to merchants and well-known persons in the German towns were put into the post-offices of Embden, Kuipphausen, Varel, Oldenburg, Delmenhorst, and Bremen.  Generally speaking, this part of the coast was not sufficiently well watched to prevent espionage and smuggling; with regard to smuggling, indeed, no power could have entirely prevented it.  The Continental system had made it a necessity, so that a great part of the population depended on it for subsistence.

In the beginning of December 1808 we remarked that the Russian courier who passed through Konigsberg and Berlin, was regularly detained four, five, and even six hours on his way to Hamburg.  The trading portion of the population, always suspicious, became alarmed at this chance in the courier’s hours, into which they inquired and soon discovered the cause.  It was ascertained that two agents had been stationed by the postmaster of the Grand Duchy of Berg at Hamburg, in a village called Eschburg belonging to the province of Lauenburg.  There the courier from Berlin was stopped, and his packets and letters opened.  As soon as these facts were known in Hamburg there was a general consternation among the trading class-that is to say, the influential population of the city.  Important and well-grounded complaints were made.  Some letters had been suppressed, enclosures had been taken from one letter and put into another, and several bills of exchange had gone astray.  The intelligence soon reached the ears of the Prince of Ponte-Corvo, and was confirmed by the official report of the commissioner for the Imperial and Royal Post-office, who complained of the delay of the courier, of the confusion of the packets, and of want of confidence in the Imperial Post-office.  It was impolitic to place such agents in a village where there was not even a post-office, and where the letters were opened in an inn without any supervision.  This examination of the letters, sometimes, perhaps, necessary, but often dangerous, and always extremely delicate, created additional alarm, on account of the persons to whom the business was entrusted.  If the Emperor wished to be made acquainted with the correspondence of certain persons in the north it would have been natural to entrust the business to his agents and his commissioner at