The warmth of public opinion in England had obliged the minister to take up a fixed attitude; the consequences could not be doubtful. In vain Lord Whitworth retarded to the utmost limits of his power the departure for which he had received orders. The advances of Talleyrand and the concessions of the First Consul did not seriously touch the essence of the questions in dispute. The decision of Napoleon remained the same: "I will not let them have two Gibraltars in the Mediterranean, one at the entrance and another in the middle." The ambassador quitted Paris on the 12th of May, journeying by short stages, as if still to avert the inevitable rupture between the two nations; at the same time General Andréossy, accredited at the court of George III., quitted London. The two ambassadors separated on the 17th of May at Dover, sorrowful and grave, as men who had striven to avert indescribable sorrows and struggles from their country and the world. It was the harsh and barbarous custom of the English navy to fall upon the merchant vessels of an enemy's country immediately peace was broken. Two French ships of commerce were thus captured on the day following the departure of General Andréossy for Paris. The First Consul replied to this act of hostility by causing to be arrested, and soon afterwards interned at various places in his territory, all the English sojourning or travelling in France. Some had recently received from Talleyrand the most formal assurances of their safety. "Many English addressed themselves to me," said Napoleon in his "Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène;" "I constantly referred them to their government. On it alone their lot depended." England did not claim its citizens, it resolutely persisted in leaving upon its author the full weight of this odious act, disapproved by his most faithful adherents. No Frenchmen were annoyed on English soil.