[Buchholz, i. 88; Pfeffel,
_Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne_ (Park, 1776), ii.
522.] gave it what freedom he could to trade to the East. "Impossible!"
answered the Dutch, with distraction in their aspect; "Impossible, we
say; contrary to Treaty of Westphalia, to Utrecht, to Barrier Treaty;
and destructive to the best interests of mankind, especially to us and
our trade-profits! We shall have to capture your ships, if you ever send
any."

To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, diligently, for the space
of seven years,--to no effect. "We will capture your ships if you ever
send any," answered the Dutch and English. What ships ever could have
been sent from Ostend to the East, or what ill they could have done
there, remains a mystery, owing to the monopolizing Maritime Powers.

The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to expend itself in his
Adriatic Territories,--giving privileges to the Ports of Trieste and
Fiume; [Hormayr, _OEsterreichischer Plutarch,_ x. 101.] making roads
through the Dalmatian Hill-Countries, which are useful to this day;--but
could not operate on the Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's
Imperial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed the Diplomatic mind
for seven years to come, and made Europe lurch from side to side in a
terrific manner, proved a mere paper Company; never sent any ships,
only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honor to be." This was the third
grand Shadow which the Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank
world, as he strode after it; and this also ended in zero, and
several tons of diplomatic correspondence, carried once by breathless
estaffettes, and now silent, gravitating towards Acheron all of them,
and interesting to the spiders only.

Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately gentleman, stately
though shortish; fond of pardoning criminals where he could; very polite
to Muratori and the Antiquaries, even to English Rymer, in opening his
Archives to them,--and made roads in the Dalmatian Hill-Country, which
remain to this day. I do not wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and
addicted to solid taciturn field-sports. His Political "Perforce-Hunt
(PARFORCE JAGD)," with so many two-footed terriers, and legationary
beagles, distressing all the world by their baying and their burrowing,
had proved to be of Shadows; and melted into thin air, to a very
singular degree!

Chapter III. -- THE SEVEN CRISES OR EUROPEAN T