uld have been a check upon his
arrogance; but here was a genuine disciple of the Pitt school (that school
of ignorance and insolence), who sets himself up as the moral regenerator
of nations and as a distributor of provinces, while he is grossly ignorant
of the political system of the country on whose destinies he pretends to
decide so peremptorily. Had Castlereagh paid attention to what was going
forward in Germany in 1805, he would have seen too that of all powers
Prussia was the very _last_ who with any _shadow of justice_ could pretend
to an indemnification at the expense of Saxony. In the year 1805, the King,
then Elector of Saxony, strongly advised the Prussian Cabinet to forget its
ancient rivalry and jealousy of Austria and to coalesce with the latter
power, in resisting the encroachments of Napoleon, in order to prevent the
latter from attempting the overthrow of the whole fabric of the
constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, with the intricacy and fragility of
which no prince in Germany was better acquainted than the Elector of
Saxony. Prussia however was still reluctant to engage in the contest and
gave no support whatever to Austria. Napoleon defeats the Austrians at
Austerlitz and dictates peace. Six months after the Prussian Cabinet,
excited by a patriotic but rash and ill-calculating party, has recourse to
arms, not from any generous policy, but because she sees herself outwitted
by Napoleon, who refuses to cede to her Hanover in perpetuity. Prussia
begins the war and calls on Saxony, who always moved in her orbit, to join
her. To the Elector of Saxony this war (in 1806) appeared then ill-timed
and too late; but with that good faith, nevertheless, which invariably
characterized him, he remained faithful to his engagement and furnished his
quota of troops to Prussia. The Saxon troops fought nobly at the battle of
Jena. This battle annihilates all the power of Prussia, and lays Saxony
entirely at the mercy of the Conqueror; but Napoleon not only treats Saxony
with moderation, but with rare generosity; he does not take from her a
single village, but aggrandizes her and gives to her the Duchy of Warsaw
and to her Sovereign the title of King. Saxony becomes in consequence a
member of the confederation of the Rhine and is bound to support the
Protector in all his wars offensive and defensive. The Russian war in 1812
begins: every German state, Austria and Prussia in the number, furnishes
its contingent of troops. T