Note 1 — WILLIAM PITT. ON HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 3, 1800.

Note 1, p. 24.—This is not quite a correct representation of Mr. Erskine’s declaration. He had not said that all discussion was rendered “impossible,” but that the treatment of the French minister by the English Government was “so harsh and irritating as to defeat all the objects of negotiation.” As a matter of fact, informal communications continued to pass between the two governments. But the agents of France were not accredited, and this fact threw upon England, in the judgment of the French, the responsibilities of the war. See “Parliamentary History,” xxxiv., 1289.