‘3. As to this I will repeat what I have said above. It is for the Government to order its agents to watch him. As for me I promise to neglect nothing in Paris, and if any positive facts reach me I will transmit them to the Directory. Only yesterday I ascertained where he lives and the places which he frequents. ‘4. It is quite certain that Poter has made purchases besides his Chantilly factory. To ascertain this it will merely be necessary to apply to the Senlis district. I remember having stated in my report of the 16th (_sic_) that Poter eighteen months ago was in everybody’s debt, and that now he had settled with everybody. This is perhaps what has given rise to the belief that he might have dealings with Pitt in France, for in fact his fortune at this moment is marvellous; but it may be the result of great speculations or of stock-jobbing, which in the last twenty months has made the fortune of so many. ‘I think I have dwelt enough on this subject. I repeat that my sole object has been to do my duty as surveillant. I will add this. Formerly entrusted with powers by the General Security Committee in the department of the Oise, I ascertained that Poter did much good at Chantilly, that he professed republican principles, and that I had even occasion to render him justice before the committee against the persecution which for eleven months he had been undergoing from the Chantilly revolutionary committee.’ These reports seem to have induced Barras to make Potter’s acquaintance and to send him first to Malmesbury[133] in Paris in 1796, and next to London in 1797, with an offer to conclude peace for a handsome bribe. On his return he warned the Directory that one of its members regularly communicated its deliberations to England. These relations with Barras probably protected him from further molestation during the Directory, but on the 13th December 1800 a police bulletin again denounced him as an English emissary sent to ruin French pottery and hat-making.[134] In 1800 he was a first-class medallist at the Paris Industrial Exhibition, and in 1802 he was one of the gold medallists to whom Napoleon gave a dinner. His Montereau factory, an old monastery where he employed a hundred men, was burnt down in 1802. He probably remained in France till 1814; he died in England three years later. Among the silver medallists in 1802 was White, a mechanical inventor, probably the uncle or grandfather of Dupont White, sub-Minister of Justice in 1848, President Carnot’s father-in-law. The exhibits also included a filter by Smith, an Englishman, perhaps the James Smith who in 1813 succeeded to Stone’s printing business.