more numerous than the advanced guard of a continental army, had given
the impression that the military strength of England was gone for ever.
Thus the European courts thought themselves entitled to insult her; and
thus so diminutive a power as Prussia, however guided by an able and
politic prince, was suffered to despise her opinion. But the English
ministry themselves of that day palpably shared the general delusion;
and, to judge from their diplomatic correspondence, they seemed actually
to rely for the safety of England on the aid of the foreign courts. They
had yet to learn the lesson, taught them by the Revolutionary war, that
England is degraded by dependence of any kind; that she is a match for
the world in arms; that the cause of Europe is dependent on _her_; and
that the more boldly, directly, and resolutely she defies France, and
its allies and slaves, the more secure she is of victory. In the pursuit
of this false policy of conciliation and supplication, Harris was sent
to Petersburg, to counteract Prussia with the empress, and to form an
offensive and defensive alliance with Catharine. Count Panin was at that
time prime minister--a man of the old ministerial school, who regarded
diplomacy as the legitimate science of chicane, was a master of all the
littleness of his art, and was wholly under the influence of the King of
Prussia. The count was all consent, and yet contrived to keep the
ambassador at arm's-length; while the empress, equally crafty, and
equally determined not to commit herself, managed him with still greater
subtlety.

In speaking of the Empress Catharine, it is impossible to avoid alluding
to the scandals of her court. The death of her husband, suspicious as it
was, had left her sole mistress of an empire, and of the power of public
opinion, in a country where a sneer might send the offender to Siberia.
The wretchedly relaxed religion of the Greek church, where a trivial
penance atones for every thing, and ceremonial takes the place of
morals, as it inevitably does wherever a religion is encumbered with
unnecessary forms, could be no restraint on the conduct of a daring and
imperious woman. By some of that easy casuistry which reconciles the
powerful to vice, she had fully convinced herself that she ought, for
the sake of her throne, never to submit to matrimonial ties again; and
she adopted the notorious and guilty alternative of living with a
succession of partners. The ambassador's lette