The truce of St.Amiens already approached its close.

Buonaparte had, perhaps, some right to complain of the unbridled abuse of the British press: but the British government had a far more serious cause of reclamation against him.

Under pretence of establishing French consuls for the protection of commerce, he sent persons, chiefly of the military profession, who carried orders to make exact plans of all the harbours and coasts of the United Kingdom.

These gentlemen endeavoured to execute their commission with all possible privacy; but the discovery of their occupation was soon made; they were sent back to France without ceremony; and this treacherous measure of their government was openly denounced as a violation of every rule of international law, and a plain symptom of warlike preparation.
Ere hostilities were renewed, Buonaparte employed M.Meyer, president of the regency of Warsaw, to open a negotiation with the head of the House of Bourbon, then resident in Poland.

He proposed that Louis should execute a formal deed resigning for himself and his family all pretensions to the throne of France, and offered in return to put the Bourbon princes in possession of independent dominions in Italy.