25, 1799).
"_French Republic--Sovereignty of the People-- Liberty and Equality._ "_Buonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, to his Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland._ "Called by the wishes of the French nation to occupy the first magistracy of the Republic, I have thought proper, in commencing the discharge of its duties, to communicate the event directly to your Majesty.
"Must the war, which for eight years has ravaged the four quarters of the world, be eternal?
Is there no room for accommodation?
How can the two most enlightened nations of Europe, stronger and more powerful than is necessary for their safety and independence, sacrifice commercial advantages, internal prosperity, and domestic happiness, to vain ideas of grandeur?
Whence comes it that they do not feel peace to be the first of wants as well as of glories?
These sentiments cannot be new to the heart of your Majesty, who rule over a free nation with no other view than to render it happy.
Your Majesty will see in this overture only my sincere desire to contribute effectually, for the second time, to a general pacification--by a prompt step taken in confidence, and freed from those forms, which, however necessary to disguise the apprehensions of feeble states, only serve to discover in the powerful a mutual wish to deceive.
"France and England, abusing their strength, may long defer the period of its utter exhaustion; but I will venture to say, that the fate of all civilised nations is concerned in the termination of a war, the flames of which are raging throughout the whole world.

I have the honour to be, &c.

&c.
"BUONAPARTE." It is manifest that the Chief Consul was wonderfully ignorant of the English constitution, if he really believed that the King (whose public acts must all be done by the hands of responsible ministers) could answer his letter personally.

The reply was an official note from Lord Grenville, then secretary of state for the department of foreign affairs, to Talleyrand.

It stated "that the King of England had no object in the war but the security of his own dominions, his allies, and Europe in general; he would seize the first favourable opportunity to make peace--at present he could see none.