Alas! in these times, a spy’s office here is almost a sinecure: a dozen newspapers in the morning, and as many fresh ones every evening, rob us of all our business: a secret even in private affairs is a prodigy in London; but as to public matters, it is the patriot’s boast, that a free constitution abhors secrecy: and so indeed it seems; for, not only the minutest accounts of the army, the navy, and the taxes, but the minister’s letters, official instructions, and in short, every paper, the disclosure of which may serve opposition, and tend to prejudice the ministers by a premature discovery of their plans, are perpetually called for, and must lie on the tables of Parliament; where, as soon as they are once brought, their contents one way or other get into print; consequently, ... the French ministers are not only as much in possession of them as the English, but study them far more attentively, and to ten times more advantage than _they_ do who called for their disclosure in England⸺All this is bad encouragement to a spy at London. Bibliographically, the pamphlet raises questions that cannot be answered with complete certainty. How is the number of variant issues to be accounted for, and what are their relations to the _editio princeps_? The satire was originally written by Tickell in English and was then translated into bad French to circulate on the Continent as propaganda against the Franco-American alliance (see the extract from _The Monthly Review_ under the next entry, and that from Bachaumont’s _Mémoires_ further on in the present entry). However, the French version, purporting to be the “Cinquième Edition,” published “A La Haye,” and “revue & corrigée sur celles de Leipsic & d’Amsterdam,” appeared in England earlier than the English original (_La Cassette verte_ was noticed in _The Monthly Review_ for May 1779, p. 394; _The Green Box_ in the following month, p. 473). It seems most likely that the regular Cinquième and the Sixième Editions were printed on the Continent and that the variant issues were English reprints. Typographical evidence tends to confirm this supposition. The type and ornaments of the regular Cinquième Edition and the Sixième seem clearly not to be English. The variants, on the other hand, all appear to be English in origin, and it may be noted that their less elaborate ornaments give the impression of feeble imitation. There is evidence that the hoax was disliked in certain high quarters. In Louis Petit de Bachaumont’s _Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la republique des lettres en France_, 1780-89, appears an “Extrait d’une lettre d’Amsterdam du 22 Mai 1780,” which reads, in part: