"_Downing Street, April 10th_, 1796."
[26] _Official Note, extracted from the Journal of the Defenders of the
Country_.
"EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY.
"Different journals have advanced that an English
plenipotentiary had reached Paris, and had presented himself to
the Executive Directory, but that, his propositions not having
appeared satisfactory, he had received orders instantly to quit
France.
"All these assertions are equally false.
"The notices given in the English papers of a minister having
been sent to Paris, there to treat of peace, bring to
recollection the overtures of Mr. Wickham to the ambassador of
the Republic at Basle, and the rumors circulated relative to the
mission of Mr. Hammond to the Court of Prussia. The
_insignificance_, or rather the _subtle duplicity_, the PUNIC
_style_ of Mr. Wickham's note, is not forgotten. According to
the partisans of the English ministry, it was to Paris that Mr.
Hammond was to come to speak for peace. When his destination
became public, and it was known that he went to Prussia, the
same writer repeated that it was to accelerate a peace, and not
withstanding the object, now well known, of this negotiation was
to engage Prussia to break her treaties with the Republic, and
to return into the coalition. The Court of Berlin, faithful to
its engagements, repulsed these _perfidious_ propositions. But
in converting this intrigue into a mission for peace, the
English ministry joined to the hope of giving a new enemy to
France _that of justifying the continuance of the war in the
eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium of it
on the French, government_.
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