_Peace Illumination_, 1802 (Vol. iv., p. 23.).--The story referred to by
MR. CAMPKIN does not appear to be so apocryphal as he supposes. Southey,
who was an eye-witness of the illuminations, gives it as an indisputed
fact. His words are:
"We entered the avenue immediately opposite to M. Otto's, and
raising ourselves by the help of a garden wall, overlooked the
crowd, and thus obtained a full and uninterrupted sight of what
thousands and tens of thousands were vainly struggling to see. To
describe it, splendid as it was, is impossible; the whole building
presented a front of light. The inscription was 'Peace and Amity:'
it had been 'Peace and Concord,' but a party of soldiers in the
morning, whose honest patriotism did not regard trifling
differences of orthography, insisted upon it that they were not
_conquered_, and that no Frenchman should say so; and so the word
Amity, which can hardly be regarded as English, was substituted in
its stead."[2]
[Footnote 2: _Letters from England, by Don Manuel Alvarez
Espriella, translated from the Spanish_ (3 vols. 12mo. London,
1807), vol. i. lett. 8. p. 93.]