ABSTRACT
IT is not often that a British Foreign Minister has been completely duped for a couple of months or more by an impudent secret agent of a hostile power, and induced to discuss with him matters of high importance, military and political, on which it was most essential that the enemy should be kept in the dark. Such, however, was the ill-luck of George Canning between September and November 1808. That the adventurer was ultimately detected, and went to the scaffold six months later, must have been a poor satisfaction to the Minister, when he reflected on the indiscretions of which he had been guilty.
