Of Hares, Hounds and Red Herrings
Scarcely had his well-known voice reached the ears of his wide-ranging brethren, when they, knowing him to be, of late, held in high esteem by the huntsman at Whitehall,* joined in the jovial cry, and from Downing Street to St James’s* and from St James’s to the ’Change, there burst forth one universal hark-forward,* and every fool you met shook you by the hand, and laughingly told you, that the French had been defeated by the Russians with the loss of 40,000 men, all their baggage and artillery, with ten generals made prisoners, and Bonaparte mortally wounded.
In this way the chase continued until the next day about noon, when the French Bulletins, down to the 48th in number, and in date so low as the 3rd of January,* three days later than the date of the battles, arrived;* and, as they spoke of no battle, after that of the 26th of December,* which, the newspapers had acknowledged was in favour of the French, the pack seemed rather to slacken in the pursuit.
* Whitehall is a street in London where many Government offices are to be found; consequently, the name has long been used as shorthand for the civil service and various departments of Government including the Admiralty and the War Office. The ‘chief huntsman’ was presumably William Windham (1750–1810), who was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies when the reports appeared in January 1807. The Prime Minister (referred to by his residence in Downing Street) was William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, at the head of a short-lived coalition.
* St James’s Palace in Pall Mall, a royal residence which was (and still is) the administrative centre of the Royal Family.
* The Royal Exchange in London, the centre of London’s business dealings.
* A hunting cry, encouraging an advance to help the hounds ahead. It is sometimes written ‘hike forrard’, reflecting the way huntsmen traditionally pronounce it. The opposite is hark back.
* French newspapers were banned by the Government during the war, but not all journalists were content with parroting the Government’s line. John Walter (1738-1812), founder of The Times, paid for a small boat to shuttle to-and-fro across the Channel to pick up bulletins from French fishermen.
* The French had modest victories over the Russians at Pułtusk and Golymin on the 26th of December 1806, during Napoleon’s Poland campaign. The defeat of Napoleon reported in the British press was supposed to have taken place on December 31st, but French bulletins mentioned nothing after December 26th, and indeed no such battle ever took place.