Details did not arrive till the 22nd, and then the ‘Courier’ published an account of the naval engagement off Boulogne, on which the caricature is evidently grounded: ‘The cause of the incessant firing on the French Coast, is now ascertained to be an engagement between the _Naiad_, 3 sloops, and a cutter, and 7 large French praams, each as large as a frigate, 11 gun brigs, and other small craft, 27 in all. The following letter gives an account of the engagement:--We took the Port Admiral in his praam, but afterwards ran off--However we took another, and brought her away--Buonaparte saw the engagement--he was in a boat with Marshall Ney.’ All accounts, though they do not agree in the number of French vessels engaged, are singularly unanimous as to the presence of Napoleon and Ney. ‘The first glorious exploit of the Invincible Flotilla. Devils among the Flats, or Boney getting into Hot Water’ (unknown artist, September 20, 1811), represents one of the Flotilla returning much damaged, and full of corpses, only the captain and a steersman alive on board. Napoleon, who is in another boat, is in a fearful rage, tries to get at him, and is restrained by one of his marshals (Ney)--who remarks, ‘Ma foi, take care, your Majesty will be in hot water up to the chin’--from throwing himself into the boiling water. ‘You scoundrel,’ says he, ‘how dare you run away when you were 27 to 5. I’ll order the guns of the batteries to sink every one of you.’ But the captain excuses himself, ‘Eh bien, mais, mon Empereur, you tell us de Jack Anglais be men, mais, by Gar, we find dem Devils.’ To which a man in Napoleon’s boat replies, ‘Very true Monsieur Ney, de devils Jack Bulls make hot water all over de Vorld.’ The spirit of Nelson appears, like a comet in the sky, darting lightning at the Flotilla. The year 1812 was not fruitful in caricature of Napoleon. In May, accompanied by Maria Louisa, he visited the eastern part of France, met the King and Queen of Saxony at Freyburg, and entered Dresden in state. There he met the Emperor and Empress of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Kings of Saxony, Naples, Würtemberg, Westphalia, and Bavaria, besides a heap of smaller potentates. The Emperor of Russia was not present; he had concluded an alliance with Sweden against France, an alliance which was afterwards, during this year, joined by Great Britain. In June, Napoleon visited Dantzig, and left it on the 11th. As a final measure, Count Lauriston was sent to Alexander, to see if the difference could be patched up, but the breach was made inevitable by the refusal of that monarch, or his ministers, to see him.