The Continental system which called out these faculties was as yet only a dream in Napoleon’s heart; and the story of the North Sea Packets might have been left untouched until that system began to develop itself, had it not happened by a curious chance of fortune that in the year 1798 a sort of rehearsal occurred of the dangers of that troublous time which was yet to come. The winter proved to be of extraordinary severity. The shores of Holland and Northern Germany were beset with ice; the rivers were all closed, and by a sudden turn of temperature the Post-Office was confronted with the identical situation which the masterful hostility of Napoleon created a few years afterwards. Before proceeding to speak of the difficulties thus created, it will be necessary to explain that the North Sea Packets by no means corresponded to the Falmouth model. Small as the Cornish Packets must appear in the eyes of our generation, accustomed to the vast dimensions of the floating palaces in which travellers of to-day make the Atlantic voyage, the Harwich and Dover boats were smaller still. Many of them indeed were of only fifty tons, while none exceeded eighty tons. The Harwich boats, which plied to Helvoetsluis as their normal port of call, were a trifle larger than the Dover Packets which undertook the shorter voyage to Calais, and they carried somewhat heavier guns. Three-pounders were found to be too heavy for the Dover boats, and had to be exchanged for two-pounders; but the Harwich Packets always carried four four-pounders, and at a later period some of them were allowed a couple of extra guns of the same calibre. In 1793, when the war broke out, the port of Calais was of course closed to English ships, and the mails for Italy and the Mediterranean could no longer cross France. The situation thus created was too familiar in the last century to occasion any embarrassment at the General Post-Office. In fact, the relations between the Postal authorities in London and Paris were in those days so much the reverse of cordial, even when the two countries were at peace, that the outbreak of hostilities seems to have been not altogether unwelcome at Lombard Street, as closing a channel of communication which had never been used without friction and dispute. The Dover station was at once closed, and the Packets transferred to Harwich, whence, after a short interval, the whole fleet of both stations was removed to Yarmouth, a port which was supposed to be more conveniently situated for the duties which lay before them. All the mails were forwarded to Helvoetsluis. The relations between the Post-Offices of England and Holland had always been good; and the Service worked well and smoothly until the French power menaced the integrity of Holland.