way, had his secret agents in every country of Europe, without
excepting England. Alison (chap. xxxvii. par. 89) says on this
matter of Drake that, though the English agents were certainly
attempting a counter-revolution, they had no idea of encouraging the
assassination of Napoleon, while "England was no match for the
French police agents in a transaction of this description, for the
publication of Regular revealed the mortifying fact that the whole
correspondence both of Drake and Spencer Smith had been regularly
transmitted, as fast as it took place, to the police of Paris, and
that their principal corresponded in that city, M. Mehu de la
Tonche, was himself an agent of the police, employed to tempt the
British envoys into this perilous enterprise."]--

At the same time that Bonaparte communicated to the Senate the report of
the Grand Judge, the Minister for Foreign Affairs addressed the following
circular letter to the members of the Diplomatic Body:

The First Consul has commanded me to forward to your Excellency a
copy of a report which has been presented to him, respecting a
conspiracy formed in France by Mr. Drake, his Britannic Majesty's
Minister at the Court of Munich, which, by its object as well as its
date, is evidently connected with the infamous plot now in the
course of investigation.

The printed copy of Mr. Drake's letters and authentic documents is
annexed to the report. The originals will be immediately sent, by
order of the First Consul, to the Elector of Bavaria.

Such a prostitution of the most honourable function which can be
intrusted to a man is unexampled in the history of civilised