MY LORD:--The short journey of Count von Haugwitz to Vienna, and the long
stay of our Imperial Grand Marshal, Duroc, at Berlin, had already caused
here many speculations, not quite corresponding with the views and,
perhaps, interests of our Court, when our violation of the Prussian
territory made our courtiers exclaim: "This act proves that the Emperor
of the French is in a situation to bid defiance to all the world, and,
therefore, no longer courts the neutrality of a Prince whose power is
merely artificial; who has indemnities to restore, but no delicacy, no
regard to claims." Such was the language of those very men who, a month
before, declared "that His Prussian Majesty held the balance of peace or
war in his hands; that he was in a position in which no Prussian Monarch
ever was before; that while his neutrality preserved the tranquillity of
the North of Germany, the South of Europe would soon be indebted to his
powerful mediation for the return of peace."

The real cause of this alteration in our courtiers' political jargon has
not yet been known; but I think it may easily be discovered without any
official publication. Bonaparte had the adroitness to cajole the Cabinet
of Berlin into his interest, in the first month of his consulate,
notwithstanding his own critical situation, as well as the critical
situation of France; and he has ever since taken care both to attach it
to his triumphal car and to inculpate it indirectly in his outrages and
violations. Convinced, as he thought, of the selfishness which guided
all its resolutions, all his attacks and invasions against the law of
nations, or independence of States, were either preceded or followed with
some offers of aggrandizement, of indemnity, of subsidy, or of alliance.
His political intriguers were generally more successful in Prussia than
his military heroes in crossing the Rhine or the Elbe, in laying the
Hanse Towns under contribution, or in occupying Hanover; or, rather, all
these acts of violence and injustice were merely the effects of his