prise and chagrin,
when he opened the subject of hiring Russian troops, the empress and
Panin answered with dignity that it was impossible to accommodate him;
that Russia's relations with Sweden, Poland, and Turkey were
unsettled, and that it was beneath her station to interfere in a
domestic rebellion which no foreign Power had recognized. This sudden
change in Catherine's attitude, which without doubt was the result of
court intrigue,[7] filled the English king with mortification and
disappointment, and compelled him to seek assistance where he finally
obtained it--in the petty states of the "Hessian" princes.

[Footnote 7: Two views have been expressed in regard to this. The
English historian Adolphus charges Frederick of Prussia and secret
French agents with having changed Catherine's mind, and he gives
apparently good authority for the statement. The secret seems to have
been known in English circles very soon after Catherine's refusal. On
November 10th Shelburne said in the House of Lords: "There are Powers
in Europe who will not suffer such a body of Russians to be
transported to America. I speak from information. The Ministers know
what I mean. Some power has already interfered to stop the success of
the Russian negotiation." Mr. Bancroft, on the other hand, concludes
(Vol. V., Chap. L., Rev. Ed.) that "no foreign influence whatever, not
even that of the King of Prussia, had any share in determining the
empress;" and Vergennes is quoted as saying that he could not
reconcile Catherine's "elevation of soul with the dishonorable idea of
trafficking in the blood of her subjects." But since Catherine, four
years later, in 1779, proposed to offer to give England effective
assistance in America in order to be assured of her aid in return
against the Turks, it may be questioned how far "elevation of soul"
prompted the decision in 1775. (See Eaton's "Turkish Empire," p. 409.)
In view of England's relations with most of the Continental Powers at
that time, Shelburne and Adolphus have probably given the correct
explanation of the matter.]

Success in this direction compensated in part for the Russian failure.
What the British agent, Colonel Faucett, was able to accomplish, what
bargains were struck to obtain troops, how much levy money was to be
paid per man, and how much more if he never returned, is all a
notorious record. From the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, Faucett hired
twelve thousand infantry; from the Duke of Brun