Lord Castlereagh arrived on the Continent to confer with Lord Aberdeen, Lord Cathcart, and his own brother Sir Charles Stewart; and from this time the influence of the British legation was complete and paramount. The intervention of the English minister was indispensable, as I have before observed, to fortify the bonds of cohesion between the various cabinets, and more especially for the purpose of enforcing the principle, that no treaty was possible with Napoleon. In the conferences that took place between Metternich and M. de St. Aignan at Frankfort, the English legation observed that the Allies appeared rather inclined to a pacific arrangement, which would leave the Rhine as the boundary of the French empire, and would consequently include Belgium; but never would England have consented to a proceeding which would abandon Antwerp to France: she had too long coveted her fleet and great arsenal, and many had been the expeditions she had undertaken with that object! The opinion of Castlereagh was therefore inflexible; France, he declared, must be reduced within her ancient limits, and this resolution led to the conviction that with the ancient frontiers the ancient dynasty would be necessary. It was not that the English minister had entered into any engagements with the house of Bourbon; the Tories might consider the restoration of Louis XVIII. as a desirable circumstance after the general disorder that had existed in Europe, but it did not make one of the necessary conditions of a general peace, for the selfishly English interest was paramount over every other consideration. This state of affairs is evident in the correspondence between Lord Castlereagh and the French princes who had taken refuge in England; and though he might insinuate to the Comte d'Artois and the Duc d'Angoulême that they might appear on the Continent, he would not officially approve of their conduct, so as not to make the restoration a necessary condition for the re-establishment of peace. This caution affords an explanation of the Duke of Wellington's conduct after the battle of the Pyrenees; he made no objections to the Duke of Angoulême's presence in the south of France, but the white flag was not hoisted, because Lord Castlereagh was completely engaged in the negotiations at Châtillon.