The “Times” and “Morning Post” were independent newspapers, and spoke only for themselves; but the “Courier” was supposed to draw inspiration from the Government, and commonly received the first knowledge of ministers’ intentions. In temper the “Courier” seemed obliged to vie with its less favored rivals. The President’s Annual Message of 1813 resembled in its opinion “all the productions of that vain and vulgar Cabinet;” it was “a compound of canting and hypocrisy, of exaggeration and falsehood, of coarseness without strength, of assertions without proof, of the meanest prejudices, and of the most malignant passions; of undisguised hatred of Great Britain, and of ill-concealed partiality and servility toward France.”[6] “We know of no man for whom we feel greater contempt than for Mr. Madison,” said the “Courier” of May 24. These illustrations of what the “Courier” called “exaggeration and falsehood, of coarseness without strength, of assertions without proof, of the meanest prejudices, and of the most malignant passions” were probably in some degree a form as used by the “Courier,” which would at a hint from the Ministry adopt a different tone; but announcements of official acts and intentions were more serious, and claimed more careful attention. Immediately after the capitulation of Paris, March 31, the Ministry turned its attention to the United States, and the “Courier” announced, April 15, that twenty thousand men were to go from the Garonne to America. Mr. Madison, the “Courier” added, had “made a pretty kettle of fish of it.” Twenty thousand men were about two thirds of Wellington’s English force, and their arrival in America would, as every Englishman believed, insure the success of the campaign. Not until these troops were embarked would the Ministry begin to negotiate; but in the middle of May the military measures were complete, and then the “Courier” began to prepare the public mind for terms of peace. These terms were the same as those announced by the “Times,” except that the “Courier” did not object to treating with Madison. The United States were to be interdicted the fisheries; Spain was to be supported in recovering Louisiana; the right of impressment must be expressly conceded,--anything short of this would be unwise and a disappointment. “There are points which must be conceded by America before we can put an end to the contest.”[7] Such language offered no apparent hope of peace; yet whatever hope existed lay in Castlereagh, who inspired it. Extravagant as the demands were, they fell short of the common expectation. The “Courier” admitted the propriety of negotiation; it insisted neither on Madison’s retirement nor on a division of the Union, and it refrained from asserting the whole British demand, or making it an ultimatum.