nything more to do with England.
"Well," answers England, "who can help it? Negotiation was not quite of
our seeking. Let it so end!" [Dickens's Despatch, 25th September, 1730;
and Harrington's Answer to it, of 6th October: Seckendorf (in Forster,
iii. 9), 23d September.]--Nay at dinner one day (Seckendorf reports,
while Fritz was on the road to Custrin) he proposes the toast, "Downfall
of England!" [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 11).] and would have had the
Queen drink it; who naturally wept, but I conjecture could not be made
to drink. Her Majesty is a weeping, almost broken-hearted woman; his
Majesty a raging, almost broken-hearted man. Seckendorf and Grumkow are,
as it were, too victorious; and now have their apprehensions on that
latter score. But they look on with countenances well veiled, and touch
the helm judiciously in Tobacco-Parliament, intent on the nearest harbor
of refuge.

Her Majesty nevertheless steadily persists; merely sinks deeper out of
sight with her English schemes; ducking till the wave go by. Messages,
desperate appeals still go, through Mamsell Bulow, Wilhelmina's Hofdame,
and other channels; nay Wilhelmina thinks there were still intentions
on the part of England, and that the non-fulfilment of them at the
last moment turned on accident; English "Courier arrived some hours
too late," thinks Wilhelmina. [Wilhelmina (i. 369, 384), and Preuss and
others after her.] But that is a mistake. The negotiation, in spite
of her Majesty's endeavors, was essentially out; England, after such a
message, could not, nor did, stir farther in the matter.

In that Writing-case his Majesty found what we know; nothing but
mysterious effects of female art, and no light whatever. It is a great
source of wrath and of sorrow to him, that neither in the Writing-case,
nor in Katte's or the Prince's so-called "Confessions," can the thing be
seen into. A deeper bottom it must have, thinks his Majesty, but knows
not what or where. To overturn the Country, belike; and fling the
Kaiser, and European Balance of Power, bottom uppermost? Me they
presumably meant to poison! he tells Seckendorf one day. [Dickens's
Despatch, 16th September, 1730.] Was ever Father more careful for
his children, soul and body? Anxious, to excess, to bring them up in
orthodox nurture and admonition: and this is how they reward me, Herr
Feldzeugmeister! "Had he honestly confessed, and told me the whole
truth, at Wesel, I would have made it up with him