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1921 T&E CORUNNA PACKETS 537 a piece of mystification, and is at least hard to follow in detail. Those by which he tried to show that the Spanish trade of the Dutch would not be damaged were not likely to convince the merchant who set store by the trade with France. He pointed out that two routes were open, the safer route already in use with a sea-passage of 130 leagues in the open from Falmouth to Corunna, or the longer and more dangerous way with 200 leagues of coasting voyage from Barcelona to Genoa for Germany. The strongest objection with some of the Dutch, which had been published in some of the French gazettes, was that the English traders would profit from the system because they would get earlier information of the sailings of Spanish ships. Aglionby's two answers to this are complete : this earlier information would not in fact be profitable at all, and if it were the English had it already, because the packets were running, whether the Dutch chose to use them or not. Aglionby was answered in French by an author * whose remarks on the specific question of the post are less sincere and less important than those we have already noticed on the wider question of enemy trade. He argues that correspondence with France cannot be completely broken off : the frontier of the Spanish Netherlands, for instance, will always let things through, and in order to permit neutral trade with France it will be neces- sary to leave open certain channels which will also be available for the Dutch, by way of the north or through Switzerland, Savoy, Genoa, Lucca, Venice, or Rome. In any case the trade of bills of exchange cannot amount to much unless the trade of commodities goes on. Even if that were ended, the circulation of credit through France would be necessary to the allies : the merchants sometimes say that it is impossible to make large remittances without a circuit through France. To change this state of affairs, it would be necessary to divert the whole course of European commerce, for which a war of fifty years would be needed. This again, like Aglionby's argument on the course of the exchanges, seems to be mystification for the layman more than a serious argument. It was probably less effective for raising feeling against the English proposal than the violent attack of a little pamphlet in Dutch 2 which attributes it to the English greed for advantages from the profits of the post, from earlier information, from the chance of holding up the Dutch letters on any occasion of quarrel, and condemns it because of the uncertainties of sea transit, because it may give the French the hint of confiscating Dutch property in France, much greater 1 D., Quelque reponse, &c. 2 Remarques op het EngeU project, om alle de correspondentie op en over Vrankri/ck, van brieven van commercie af te snyden.