y Powers in
preparing the attack for next year. Nobody could blame the Austrians
for plotting to reconquer what had belonged to them, and it is at
Vienna that their initiative has been demonstrated. At Berlin, the
discovery has been received with some resistance. They were proud of
the great Frederic as a warrior and a conqueror; they were not ready
to admire him as a quaker, and the victim of designing foes. He had
been quite willing to commence a new war when the occasion should
warrant it. He hoped, some day, to conquer Bohemia as he had
conquered Silesia, and to exchange it for Saxony. But the conditions
needed for such an enterprise did not exist, and he was in no hurry.
He concluded a very harmless Convention at Westminster, in January
1756; but he was not arming at a time when the scheme of Kaunitz was
about completed. It was midsummer before he knew the danger that
threatened him. Certain despatches which were opened as they passed
through the Prussian Post Office, others which were stolen, revealed
the whole plot. Without an ally, except the House of Hanover, and
such confederates from North-western Germany as English gold might
induce to join, he had to defend himself against Austria, Russia,
France, great part of Germany, and eventually Sweden and Spain. The
help of England was assured, for, in May, war had been declared
between England and France. But the English had not been preparing
for a very formidable effort. They at once lost Minorca, the advanced
post in the Mediterranean, from which they watched the Gulf of Lyons
and the naval arsenal of Toulon, and felt the loss so acutely that
they shot the admiral who had failed to relieve the place. Calcutta
too was taken, and the English perished in the Black Hole. In the
Lake region the French, at first, had the best of it.

Frederic underrated the value of the alliance, and mismanaged it
badly. He knew that there was a Whig dogma against letting England be
taken in tow by Hanover. The great propounder of the doctrine was
William Pitt, who now rose to power. Frederic did not know that this
turgid declaimer was as able, as powerful, as ambitious as himself,
and did not divine that he would make the German quarrel and the
compulsory defence of Hanover the means of occupying the military
forces of France until the contest for' oceanic empire was decided in
favour of England. Pitt declared that he would conquer America in
Germany. He armed one