The secret intelligence from Tilsit. New light on the events surrounding the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807

The secret intelligence from Tilsit. New light on the events surrounding the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807'The secret intelligence from Tilsit' has been the subject of intermittent historical discussion for almost 200 years. The term refers to the information that reached George Canning, the British foreign secretary, in the early hours of 22 July 1807 from a confidential source. This information was highly alarming from a British perspective: it suggested that Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon had discussed the possible formation of a maritime league against Britain during their early meetings at Tilsit and that Denmark, Portugal and Sweden were to be forced to join this league.This article begins by examining the historiography of the secret intelligence from Tilsit - the various speculations about its source and the ultimate revelation in the 1970s that it was contained in a letter to Canning, dated 21 July 1807, from the comte d'Antraigues, a French royalist émigré resident in London at that time. D'Antraigues's letter claimed that his information came from a Russian general who held a position close to Emperor Alexander.This is the cumulative outcome of previous historical research. What this article seeks to add is the identification of d'Antraigues's alleged informant as Prince Vassili Troubetzkoi, one of Alexander I's aides-de-camp at the time of Tilsit, and an analysis of reliability of the secret intelligence.The historiographical section is therefore followed by some details about d'Antraigues and Troubetzkoi and the relationship between them. D'Antraigues's letter to Canning is then printed both in the original French and in English translation, and Troubetzkoi is identified as d'Antraigues's alleged informant on the basis of evidence drawn from a wide range of different sources.Finally, the article moves on to discuss the reliability of the secret intelligence from Tilsit. Did d'Antraigues receive a letter from Troubetzkoi at all or did he invent it? And, in particular, how much credence should be given to the assertion that Alexander and Napoleon discussed the formation of a maritime league directed against Britain at Tilsit?A close analysis of the text of d'Antraigues's letter to Canning reveals that it is riddled with inaccuracies and suggests that it was written largely in order to secure for d'Antraigues a permanent refuge in Britain and an increased pension from the British government. However, d'Antraigues's letter contains several pieces of information that were not common knowledge when it was written. This makes it more likely than not that there was some kind of communication from Troubetzkoi, however much d'Antraigues embellished and embroidered its contents when writing to Canning.As for the claim that the creation of a maritime league against Britain was discussed at Tilsit, there is no confirmation in French and Russian sources of this assertion. The various treaties concluded between France and Russia at Tilsit are, however, hostile in letter and spirit towards British naval and commercial supremacy. It cannot therefore be excluded that some words concerning an anti-British maritime league passed between the two emperors at Tilsit without being committed to writing.The overall conclusion of the article is that Troubetzkoi was d'Antraigues's alleged informant and probably did send some sort of communication to d'Antraigues from Tilsit but that d'Antraigues's letter to Canning of 21 July 1807 contains too many inaccuracies to possess much value as a source for what happened at Tilsit.When the British government was heavily criticised by the opposition in parliament during the early part of 1808 for its attack on Denmark the previous year, Canning referred to the secret intelligence from Tilsit in order to justify the seizure of the Danish fleet. This does not, of course, prove that the secret intelligence was in reality a factor in the government's decision to act against Denmark. The question of what influence, if any, d'Antraigues's letter to Canning exerted on that decision is one that the author of the present article proposes to discuss in future publications

Jack Goody: The Culture of Flowers

Jack Goody: The Culture of Flowers Anmeldes af Nils Finn Munch-Peterse

John D. Barrow: Pi in the Sky. Counting, Thinking and Being

John D. Barrow: Pi in the Sky. Counting, Thinking and Being Anmeldes af Nils Finn Munch-Peterse

G. A. Harrison (ed.): Human Adaptation

G. A. Harrison (ed.): Human Adaptation Anmeldes af Nils Finn Munch-Peterse

Proper address and epistemic conditions for acting on sexual consent

It has recently been argued that to permissibly act on someone’s consent to sex, the agent must possess firsthand evidence of the consent directly from the consenter. This view is motivated by a case where it seems impermissible to act on testimonial knowledge of someone’s consent to sex. Although we agree that it is impermissible to act as if there is consent in this case, we argue that the explanation in terms of a lack of firsthand evidence is unmotivated, fails to draw the right moral boundaries, and comes with the theoretical cost of abandoning the search for general epistemic conditions for permissible action. Instead, we propose an explanation in terms of an ontological deficiency: a necessary condition on morally valid consent is unsatisfied in the relevant case. This is the condition that A consents to B φ-ing through speech act α only if α is properly addressed to B. Although this condition seems implicit in some existing accounts of consent, it has never been explicitly stated or put to theoretical use. In addition to explaining the above case without introducing special epistemic requirements for acting on consent to sex, the condition gives communicative accounts of consent an explanatory edge compared to attitudinal accounts

Recombinant deoxyribonucleoside kinase from Drosophila melanogaster can improve gemcitabine based combined gene/chemotherapy for targeting cancer cells

A recombinant deoxyribonucleoside kinase from Drosophila melanogaster with a deletion of the last 20 amino acid residues (named DmdNKΔC20) was hypothesized as a potential therapeutic tool for gene therapy due to its broad substrate specificity and better catalytic efficiency towards nucleosides and nucleoside analogs. This study was designed to evaluate the effect of DmdNKΔC20 for sensitizing human cancer cell lines towards gemcitabine and to further investigate its role in reversal of acquired drug resistance in gemcitabine-resistant cancer cell line. The DmdNKΔC20 gene was delivered to three different cancer cell lines, including breast, colon and liver cancer cells, using lipid-mediated transfection reagent. After transfection, gene expression of DmdNKΔC20 was confirmed by reverse transcription quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) and the combined effect of DmdNKΔC20 and gemcitabine based cytotoxicity was observed by cell viability assay. We further evolved a gemcitabine-resistant breast cancer cell line (named MCF7-R) through directed evolution in the laboratory, which showed 375-fold more resistance compared to parental MCF7 cells. Upon transfection with DmdNKΔC20 gene, MCF7-R cells showed 83-fold higher sensitivity to gemcitabine compared to the control group of MCF7-R cells. Moreover, we observed 79% higher expression of p21 protein in transfected MCF7-R cells, which may indicate induction of apoptosis. Our findings highlight the importance and therapeutic potential of DmdNKΔC20 in combined gene/chemotherapy approach to target a wide range of cancers, particularly gemcitabine-resistant cancers