ted in arranging the details. In extent of
territory Austria was the principal gainer, her share being of
sufficient importance to receive a new name as the kingdom of Galicia;
the share of Prussia being West Prussia and Pomerania, with the
exception of Dantzic and the fortress of Thorn; while Russia took Polish
Livonia and the rich provinces to the east of the Dwina. But the
spoilers were not long contented with their acquisitions. In 1791
intrigues among the Polish nobles, probably fomented by the Czarina
herself, gave her a pretence for interfering in their affairs; and the
result was a second partition, which gave the long-coveted port of
Dantzic and a long district on the shore of the Baltic to Prussia, and
such extensive provinces adjoining Russia to Catharine, that all that
was left to the Polish sovereign was a small territory with a population
that hardly amounted to four millions of subjects. The partition excited
great indignation all over Europe, but in 1772 England was sufficiently
occupied with the troubles beginning to arise in America, and France was
still too completely under the profligate and imbecile rule of Louis XV.
and Mme. du Barri, and too much weakened by her disasters in the Seven
Years' War, for any manly counsels or indication of justice and humanity
to be expected from that country.]

[Footnote 2: Grotius (a Latinised form of Groot) was an eminent
statesman and jurist of Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. He was a voluminous author; his most celebrated works being a
treatise, "De jure belli et pacis," and another on the "Truth of the
Christian Religion."]

[Illustration: VIEW OF GARDEN, STRAWBERRY HILL, FROM THE GREAT
BED-CHAMBER.]

_UNSUCCESSFUL CRUISE OF KEPPEL--CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 8, 1778.

As you are so earnest for news, I am concerned when I have not a
paragraph to send you. It looks as if distance augmented your
apprehensions; for, I assure you, at home we have lost almost all
curiosity. Though the two fleets have been so long at sea, and though,
before their last _sortie_, one heard nothing but _What news of the
fleets?_ of late there has been scarcely any inquiry; and so the French
one is returned to Brest, and ours is coming home. Admiral Keppel is
very unlucky in having missed them, for they had not above twenty-five
ships. Letters from Paris say that their camps, too, are to break up at
the end of t