49

Prince Maurice's Parrot; Or, French Instructions to a British Plenipotentiary

British Library Newspapers. Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature, University of London.

Political Satire French British Treaty Paris Congress Castlereagh Talleyrand Abolition Slave Trade

This satirical article by the radical journalist William Hazlitt is deeply critical of the clause allowing France to continue the slave trade for five years which was included in the 1814 Treaty of Paris. Belittling Castlereagh, the British foreign minister, as the "parrot" of the French, Hazlitt condemns the diplomatic weakness and inadequacy of the Treaty of Paris: "the cries of Africa were lost among the nods and smiles and shrugs of these demi-puppets".

In The Examiner, Sunday 10 July 1814, issue 341. Reprinted in William Hazlitt, Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters (London: William Hone, 1819), 71-74 (see weblink).