The grand-duke had come to
demand the Princess of Wirtemberg in marriage. When we recollect the
fate of this unhappy monarch, murdered on the Russian throne, and
contrast it with the brilliancy of his early reception in the world, and
his actual powers when master of the diadem, a deeper lesson of the
instability of human fortune has seldom been given to man.

A laughable anecdote of Russian and Prussian discipline is told. All the
domestics belonging to the Imperial family of Russia have military rank;
the grand-duke's coachman and the king's going one evening to drink
together, a dispute arose about precedence. "What is your rank?" said
the Prussian. "A lieutenant-colonel," said the other. "Ay, but I am a
colonel," said the German, and walked first into the ale-house. This
came to the king's ears. The _colonel_ was sent for three days to
prison, and received fifty blows of the cane.

The ambassador now obtained a new instance of the favour of his court.
He was recalled from Prussia in 1776, and shortly after was appointed to
the most important of our embassies at that period, the embassy to
Russia.

The politics of England at this period bore an appearance of perplexity,
which evidently alarmed her cabinet, and which as evidently excited the
hopes of her enemies. At this period she had two enemies in Europe,
hostile in every thing except to the extent of open war--France, always
jealous and irreconcilable; and Prussia, which, from her dread of
England's interference in her Polish usurpations, pretended to believe
that England was conspiring with Austria against the safety of her
dominions. The feebleness with which the American war was carried on,
had deceived Europe into the belief that the power of England was really
on the point of decay. Foreigners are never capable of appreciating the
reality of English power. In the first place, because they prefer the
romantic to the real; and in the next, because, living under despotisms,
they have never seen, nor can comprehend, the effect of liberty upon
national resources. Thus, when they see a nation unwilling to go to
war--or, what is the next thing to reluctance, waging it tardily--they
imagine that this tardiness has its origin in national weakness; and it
is not until the palpable necessity of self-defence calls out the whole
energy of the people, that the foreigner ever sees the genuine strength
of England. The capture of two small armies in America, neither of them