e responsible to a large degree in laying the foundation of the
present menace to European concord. Napoleon's plan of unification
would have kept Prussian militarism in check. He looked, and saw into
the future, while Pitt and his supporters had no vision at all. They
played the Prussian game by combining to bring about the fall of the
monarch who should have been regarded as this country's natural ally,
and by undoing the many admirable safeguards which were designed to
prevent Prussia from forcing other German States under her dominion.
Napoleon predicted that which would happen, and has happened. He
always kept in mind the cunning and unscrupulous tricks of Frederick
and knew that if _his_ power were destroyed, that would be Prussia's
opportunity to renew the methods of the Hohenzollern scoundrel, the
hero of Thomas Carlyle, and the intermittent friend of Voltaire, who
made unprovoked war on Marie Theresa with that splendid Prussian
disregard for treaty obligations, and who then, with amazing
insolence, after the seven years' butchery was over, sat down at Sans
Souci in the companionship of his numerous dogs to write his memoirs
in which he states that "Ambition, interest, the desire of making
people talk about him carried the day, and he decided for war;" he
might have added to the majestic Hohenzollern creed, incurable
treachery, falsehood, hypocrisy, and cowardice!

But the law of retribution comes to nations as well as to individuals,
and after the disappearance of Frederick, Prussian ascendancy came to
an end and sank to the lowest depths of hopelessness before the
terrible power of Napoleon; after his fall, the old majestic arrogance
natural to their race began to revive. It took many years for the
military caste to carry their objectives to maturity, and had we stood
sensibly and loyally by our French neighbours, the tragedy that gapes
at us now could never have come to pass. Possibly the Franco-German
war would never have occurred had our foreign policy been skilfully
handled and our attitude wisely apprehensive of Germany's ultimate
unification and her aggressive aims. The generations that are to come
will assuredly be made to see the calamities wrought by the
administrators of that period, whose faculties consisted in hoarding
up prejudices, creating enmities, and making wars that drained the
blood and treasure of our land. We do not find a single instance of
Pitt or Castlereagh expressing an idea worthy o