I am, &c.,
(Signed)
George Canning.
His Excellency The Right Hon. Sir C. Bagot.
4. Private.
The Hague, February 13th, 1826.
My dear Canning,
You have fretted me to fiddlestrings, and I have a great mind not to give you the satisfaction of ever knowing how completely your mystification of me has succeeded. It was more than you had a right to expect when you drew from me that solemn and official lamentation which I sent you of my inability to decypher his Majesty’s commands; but, as the devil would have it, your success did not end here. The post which brought me the decyphers arrived at eleven o’clock at night, when I had only time before I sent off the other messenger to read your grave regret at what had occurred and to acknowledge the receipt of the mail.
The next morning Ferney and I were up by cock-crow to make out “la maudite dépêche;” and it was not till after an hour of most indescribable anxiety that we were put “out of our fear” by finding what it really was, and that “you Pyramus” were not Pyramus, but only “Bottom the weaver.”
I could have slain you, but I got some fun myself, for I afterwards put the fair decypher into Douglas’ hands, who read it twice without moving a muscle, or to this hour discovering that it was not prose; and returning it to me, declared that it was “oddly worded;” but he had always had a feeling that the despatch must relate to discriminating duties.