rved them at dinner. From Friday till
Saturday all was silence, and no coaches were permitted in the streets.
On Saturday at noon the bells rang, the people shouted, the coaches
moved again, and all was clamour. From a personal knowledge of the
people, Mr Harris pronounced that their defects arose from their
religion and from their priests; both of which, by keeping the lower
orders in a state of mendicity and the higher in a state of ignorance,
prevent the progress of the nation. Even at this period, their dislike
of the French was contemptuous and strongly marked.

The life of a diplomatic man is not unlike the life of a naval officer.
He has frequent opportunities of signalizing himself in a small way. The
cabinet is the admiral, commanding a large force, and acting on a large
scale. The diplomatist is the captain of the frigate, thrown out at a
distance to make his observations, and enabled to exhibit his
intrepidity and talent, through, from the smallness of his means, the
results may be equally small. In 1769, Sir James Gray returning to
England, left Mr Harris behind him as _charge d'affaires_. In the next
year Spain, always jealous of any foreign approach to her South American
possessions, fitted out a fleet for the purpose of expelling the British
colony from the Falkland Isles. Harris acted spiritedly on this
occasion. He instantly made so strong a representation to the Spanish
minister, the Marquis Grimaldi, that he threw him into evident alarm.
The letter to the British ministry which Harris wrote on the subject,
satisfied them of the advantage of making a vigorous remonstrance. The
result to the country was, that the colony, which had been seized, was
restored, and that the officer who seized it was disgraced by the
Spanish government. To Harris the whole transaction was regarded as
honourable, and entitling him to the favour of his government. The
result was, his being appointed, in 1771, as minister at the court of
the most subtle and busy monarch of Europe, Frederick the Second.

We now come to the partition of Poland, the most momentous transaction
of modern times; excepting the French Revolution, if even that
revolution was not its consequence. Mr Harris makes his first
communication on this important subject in March 1772. If we read his
whole letter, the brevity of his announcement is a model even to
diplomacy. He thus states the event to Lord Suffolk, then secretary of
state.

"Just as I am going