hours, wafted me to Calais pier.

By the person who carried the dispatches to Citizen Mengaud, the
commissary for this department (_Pas de Calais_), I sent a card with
my name and rank, requesting permission to land and deliver to him a
letter from M. Otto. This step was indispensable: the vessel which
brought me was, I find, the first British flag of truce that has been
suffered to enter the harbour, with the exception of the Prince of
Wales packet, now waiting here for the return of a king's messenger
from Paris; and her captain even has not yet been permitted to go on
shore. It therefore appears that I shall be the first Englishman, not
in an official character, who has set foot on French ground since the
ratification of the preliminary treaty.

The pier was presently crowded with people gazing at our vessel, as
if she presented a spectacle perfectly novel: but, except the
tri-coloured cockade in the hats of the military, I could not observe
the smallest difference in their general appearance. Instead of crops
and round wigs, which I expected to see in universal vogue, here were
full as many powdered heads and long queues as before the revolution.
Frenchmen, in general, will, I am persuaded, ever be Frenchmen in
their dress, which, in my opinion, can never be _revolutionized_,
either by precept or example. The _citoyens_, as far as I am yet able
to judge, most certainly have not fattened by warfare more than JOHN
BULL: their visages are as sallow and as thin as formerly, though
their persons are not quite so meagre as they are pourtrayed by
Hogarth.

The prospect of peace, however, seemed to have produced an
exhilarating effect on all ranks; satisfaction appeared on every