'I have been extremely interested by it, and think it a most remarkable book, beyond measure severe, every line is written with a brand of frame, but I feel that my recollections and convictions assent the whole way… I image he does justice to the character of the Emperor, a great sovereign, not a great man; who thinks it would show weakness ever to forgive'. The reader continues to say that the book showed 'an indignation against oppression & fraud too well-grounded and too energetic not to be in great part genuine'.