questions in dispute. The decision of Napoleon remained the same: "I will
not let them have two Gibraltars in the Mediterranean, one at the entrance
and another in the middle." The ambassador quitted Paris on the 12th of
May, journeying by short stages, as if still to avert the inevitable
rupture between the two nations; at the same time General Andreossy,
accredited at the court of George III., quitted London. The two
ambassadors separated on the 17th of May at Dover, sorrowful and grave, as
men who had striven to avert indescribable sorrows and struggles from
their country and the world.

It was the harsh and barbarous custom of the English navy to fall upon the
merchant vessels of an enemy's country immediately peace was broken. Two
French ships of commerce were thus captured on the day following the
departure of General Andreossy for Paris. The First Consul replied to this
act of hostility by causing to be arrested, and soon afterwards interned
at various places in his territory, all the English sojourning or
travelling in France. Some had recently received from Talleyrand the most
formal assurances of their safety. "Many English addressed themselves to
me," said Napoleon in his "Memorial de Sainte-Helene;" "I constantly
referred them to their government. On it alone their lot depended."
England did not claim its citizens, it resolutely persisted in leaving
upon its author the full weight of this odious act, disapproved by his
most faithful adherents. No Frenchmen were annoyed on English soil.

Europe was agitated and disquieted, still entrenched in its neutrality,
more or less malevolent, and terrified at the consequences it foresaw from
the renewal of the strife between France and England. "If General
Bonaparte does not accomplish the miracle that he is preparing at this
moment," said the Emperor of Germany, Francis II., "if he does not pass
the straits, he will throw himself upon us, and will fight England in