Of course it was more difficult to introduce letters than goods into Germany. Mail-bags must be consigned to some responsible person. They betrayed their origin moreover, and were thus a certain source of trouble in case of discovery at any point of the route by which they travelled. All letters addressed in English or bearing English post-marks were opened and read by the French officials before being destroyed. If they contained any reference to property, that property was liable to be seized and burnt as being English or of English origin. These risks were avoided for the present by sending all letters from England to correspondents in Altona, who enclosed them in fresh covers and re-posted them to Hamburg or to places beyond.
The following extract is from a letter written to the Secretary of the General Post-Office by Mr. Nicholas, British Consul at Altona, to whose judgment and knowledge of the various changes in the situation of affairs the Department was very frequently indebted.
“I am sorry to tell you,” Mr. Nicholas writes, under date of May 30th, 1807, “that we this moment receive the intelligence of Dantzig being in possession of the French on the 26th inst.... Such letters for that place as I may receive from you before this letter reaches you, I shall keep in my office until I receive your directions, as the French will at first look after all letters to discover British property.... I have made many inquiries how English letters sent under cover to merchants of this town addressed to Austria and Italy have gone. A banker of this place, Messrs. Israel and Dehn, assures me that they forward at least 50 to 200 a week, which he receives under cover from England, and that he has as yet never known one miscarry, nor heard of their being opened. I readily believe this, as to judge from the general conduct of the persons employed, their only object is to make money.... I am convinced that the mercantile correspondence is not interrupted in the least, and that the revenue alone suffers, as from what I saw in Husum, the practice of the merchants is to write on a very thin paper and put their letters under one cover. I observed some instances of this nature where certainly 30 or 40 letters were enclosed, and the postage charged was not the amount which ought to have been paid for five single letters.”
Mr. Nicholas was firmly persuaded that the patriotism of the Duke of Berg’s (Murat’s) agents in Hamburg was so far qualified by respect for the Post-Office revenues which they had seized as to leave them open to a bargain. He accordingly approached them secretly, and found them quite disposed to treat. The Duke’s Postmaster pledged himself that the letters should go safely; that they never had been, and never would be, opened; while Mr. Nicholas, who strongly urged the conclusion of this bargain, was persuaded that the greed of the Berg officials was an excellent pledge of their good faith.
Bourrienne, who, in addition to his other functions, was the Duke of Berg’s agent in Hamburg, has nothing to say about this negotiation, so strangely opposite to the policy of Napoleon that one might call it traitorous if one did not acknowledge that the base motive of pecuniary interest may have been mingled with a more honourable desire to avoid the total commercial ruin of the countries which the Continental System was crushing into bankruptcy.
For the English Government the question of good faith was not the only one to be considered. It was a strange proposal that a friendly treaty should be made with the agents of a hostile nation. The whole situation was extraordinary; but even if natural scruples could be set aside, even if honour permitted such a negotiation, it was clear that the ancient friendship of the Hamburg office would be jeopardized by concluding it. The French occupation would pass away, and the lawful owners of the Hamburg revenues would resume them in happier times. Nothing must be done which could be construed into a recognition by the British office of the violent usurpation of the French. And so the provisional agreement concluded by Mr. Nicholas was set aside, much to the disappointment of the Duke of Berg’s officials, who renewed their proposals more than once, but always with the same result. Probably this termination of the matter was lamented also by the English merchants, if indeed they knew of the negotiations; but they had more ground for complaint a few weeks later.
The device of forwarding letters under cover to Altona had, as Mr. Nicholas showed, proved successful; but the time was at hand when this channel was to be blocked. Holstein was already threatened by the French. Writing on the 29th July, an old correspondent of the British Post-Office warned the Secretary that in another fortnight Holstein would be beset. The crisis was more serious than the writer of the friendly warning knew. The treaty of Tilsit had been signed. The movement on Holstein was preparatory to a seizure of the Danish fleet, to be used against this country. The English Government struck hard and quickly, and within the period named a British fleet was working into position before Copenhagen.
What followed is well known; but the measures of the English were taken so secretly that the general public by no means understood what was going on, and two Packets arriving early in August at Tonningen, which for some time had been their station, were greatly perplexed on finding an English gun brig stationed at the mouth of the river Eyder, giving orders for no British vessels to pass.
Such orders did not in the opinion of the commanders justify them in carrying their mails back to England. Their vessels might be stopped, but boats were allowed to come and go as before; and the two commanders consequently went up the river in their boats, taking the mails with them.
When they approached the town they were hailed from the Danish quarantine cutter, with orders that unless the Packets came up to their usual anchorage, which happened to be exactly under the guns of the battery, the mails should not be landed. The captains insisted; the Danish officer grew furious, and actually proposed to flog the Danish pilots, who had accompanied the captains, for leaving the Packets outside the bar of the river.