Bonaparte had justly calculated upon the inaction of the Prussian Government when he gave the order to General Mortier to enter Hanover; his next step proved the growth of his confidence in Prussia's impassivity. A French force was despatched to Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, in order to stop the commerce of Great Britain with the interior of Germany. The British Government immediately informed the Court of Berlin that it should blockade the Elbe and the Weser against the ships of all nations unless the French soldiers withdrew from the Elbe. As the linen trade of Silesia and other branches of Prussian industry depended upon the free navigation of the Elbe, the threatened reprisals of the British Government raised very serious questions for Prussia. It was France, not England, that had first violated the neutrality of the river highway; and the King of Prussia now felt himself compelled to demand assurances Bonaparte that the interests of Germany should suffer no further injury at his hands. A letter was written by the King to the First Consul, and entrusted to the cabinet-secretary, Lombard, who carried it to Napoleon at Brussels (July, 1803). Lombard, the son of French parents who had settled at Berlin in the reign of Frederick the Great, had risen from a humble station through his skill in expression in the two languages that were native to him; and the accomplishments which would have made him a good clerk or a successful journalist made him in the eyes of Frederick William a counsellor for kings. The history of his mission to Brussels gives curious evidence both of the fascination exercised by Napoleon over common minds, and of the political helplessness which in Prussia could now be mistaken for the quality of a statesman. Lombard failed to obtain from Napoleon any guarantee or security whatever; yet he wrote back in terms of the utmost delight upon the success of his mission. Napoleon had infatuated him by the mere exercise of his personal charm. "What I cannot describe," said Lombard, in his report to the King relating his interview with the First Consul, [103] "is the tone of goodness and noble frankness with which he expressed his reverence for your Majesty's rights, and asked for that confidence from your Majesty which he so well deserves." "I only wish," he cried at the close of Napoleon's address, "that I could convey to the King, my master, every one of your words and the tone in which they are uttered; he would then, I am sure, feel a double joy at the justice with which you have always been treated at his hands." Lombard's colleagues at Berlin were perhaps not stronger men than the envoy himself, but they were at least beyond the range of Napoleon's voice and glance, and they received this rhapsody with coldness. They complained that no single concession had been made by the First Consul upon the points raised by the King. Cuxhaven continued in French hands; the