f the historian, and the tongue of the orator, slow to
denounce the enormous measure of her perfidy. Throughout the whole of this
negotiation, on the result of which the destinies of Europe for a quarter
of a century were doomed to depend, there is not one single bright spot of
candour or of honesty to relieve the darkness of the picture. In
comparison with such treachery, Pennsylvanian repudiation is venial. The
subsidy, out of which England was swindled, was for the most part applied
to the further subjugation of Poland--the troops, for which she had
contracted and paid, were used as an impediment to, and not in furtherance
of, her designs. The language employed by the Prussian minister,
Hardenberg, at his last interview with Lord Malmesbury, was that of a
sturdy freebooter, who, far from seeking to conceal his real character,
takes glory in his shame, and demands a compulsory tribute for what he is
pleased to denominate protection. It may be said that Prussia afterwards
redeemed her error. We cannot see it. To the last she remained a gripping,
faithless, avaricious power; and could she have coexisted equal with
France, there is not a shadow of a doubt that she would have surpassed
that country in her appetite for acquiring plunder. In 1806, under a
different monarch, she made peace with Napoleon on the condition of
acquiring Hanover, the hereditary dominions of the occupant of the British
throne. It was only when the fact became evident that she was utterly
mistrusted throughout Europe; that no state, even the most insignificant,
could place any reliance upon her assurances; when, through her own
conduct, France made no scruple of using her as a contemptible tool, and
her old allies regarded her with looks of menace--that Prussia made a
virtue of necessity by attempting to restore her independence. Even then
her repentance was incomplete. Lord Morpeth, when sent, before the
disastrous battle of Jena, on a special mission to the Prussian
headquarters, found Frederick William III. so distracted between the
option of a British subsidy on the one hand, and the cession of Hanover on
the other, that, with the genuine feelings of an Englishman and a man of
honour, he could scarce restrain his indignation in the presence of the
vacillating king. In our mind, the videttes of Pichegru's army had a truer
estimate than our own cabinet of the value of such an alliance, when they
thus expressed themselves at the outposts:--"Englishme