The time was indeed ill-chosen for urging the ambassador to be moderate. Never was he so near the attainment of his object, so sure before long of having the Chevalier at his mercy. The humiliation he had just experienced had, moreover, greatly increased his irritation. He was awaiting the result of the trial for libel, counting on English law for the conviction of his enemy, and already keeping in readiness for his capture a few carefully chosen myrmidons, despatched to him, at his request, by the Duc de Praslin. “A vessel, manned by twenty-one armed men, was moored at Gravesend,” and they had “detached a little six-oared boat which lay between Westminster and London Bridge,” and into which he was to be put as soon as they had seized upon his person. The admirers whom d’Eon had found in the slums of London, among the mariners and the rabble of the port, came immediately to report this to him, by which means the Chevalier eluded once more the pursuit of the prematurely triumphant ambassador. D’Eon wrote letters to the Lord Chief Justice, the Earl of Mansfield, to Lord Bute and to Mr. Pitt, which he had printed, and which the newspapers published. In these letters he represented what plots were being laid against him, appealed to public opinion, and requested the ministers to take measures for his safety. Mr. Pitt alone replied by a few lines: Considering the extremely delicate nature of the circumstances, you will not, I trust, disapprove of my confining myself to regretting a state of affairs with regard to which I am unable to offer the advice you do me the honour of soliciting. The agitations fostered by d’Eon were sufficient to protect him against de Guerchy’s attempts, in a country where the liberty of the individual was so effectively safeguarded. Summer was approaching, and he set out for Staunton Harold, the seat of his friend, Earl Ferrers, while the ambassador returned to France on leave of absence.