perhaps be followed by one with America. We are sacrificing
all the essentials we _can_ recover, for a few words; and risking the
independence of this country, for the nominal supremacy over America.
France seems to leave us time for treating. She mad no scruple of
begging peace of us in '63, that she might lie by and recover her
advantages. Was not that a wise precedent? Does not she _now_ show that
it was? Is not policy the honour of nations? I mean, not morally, but
has Europe left itself any other honour? And since it has really left
itself no honour, and as little morality, does not the morality of a
nation consist in its preserving itself in as much happiness as it can?
The invasion of Portugal by Spain in the last war, and the partition of
Poland,[1] have abrogated the law of nations. Kings have left no ties
between one another. Their duty to their people is still allowed. He is
a good King that preserves his people; and if temporising answers that
end, is it not justifiable? You, who are as moral as wise, answer my
questions. Grotius[2] is obsolete. Dr. Joseph and Dr. Frederic, with
four hundred thousand commentators, are reading new lectures--and I
should say, thank God, to one another, if the four hundred thousand
commentators were not in worse danger than they. Louis XVI. is grown a
casuist compared to those partitioners. Well, let us simple individuals
keep our honesty, and bless our stars that we have not armies at our
command, lest we should divide kingdoms that are at our _bienseance_!
What a dreadful thing it is for such a wicked little imp as man to have
absolute power! But I have travelled into Germany, when I meant to talk
to you only of England; and it is too late to recall my text. Good
night!

[Footnote 1: A partition of Poland had been proposed by the Great
Elector of Brandenburgh as early as the middle of the seventeenth
century, his idea being that he, the Emperor, and the King of Sweden
should divide the whole country between them. At that time, however, the
mutual jealousies of the three princes prevented the scheme from being
carried out. But in 1770 the idea was revived by Frederic the Great, who
sent his brother Henry to discuss it with the Czarina. She eagerly
embraced it; and the new Emperor Joseph had so blind an admiration for
Frederic, that it was not hard to induce him to become a confederate in
the scheme of plunder. And the three allies had less difficulty than
might have been expec