never make a peace of Utrecht,
should never, for any selfish object, abandon an ally even in the last
extremity of distress. The Continental war was his own war. He had been
bold enough, he who in former times had attacked, with irresistible
powers of oratory, the Hanoverian policy of Carteret, and the German
subsidies of Newcastle, to declare that Hanover ought to be as dear to
us as Hampshire, and that he would conquer America in Germany. He had
fallen; and the power which he had exercised, not always with
discretion, but always with vigor and genius, had devolved on a favorite
who was the representative of the Tory party, of the party which had
thwarted William, which had persecuted Marlborough, and which had given
up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip of Anjou. To make peace with
France, to shake off, with all, or more than all, the speed compatible
with decency, every Continental connection, these were among the chief
objects of the new Minister. The policy then followed inspired Frederic
with an unjust, but deep and bitter aversion to the English name, and
produced effects which are still felt throughout the civilized world. To
that policy it was owing that, some years later, England could not find
on the whole Continent a single ally to stand by her, in her extreme
need, against the House of Bourbon. To that policy it was owing that
Frederic, alienated from England, was compelled to connect himself
closely, during his later years, with Russia, and was induced to assist
in that great crime, the fruitful parent of other great crimes, the
first partition of Poland.

Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived Prussia of her only
friend, when the death of Elizabeth produced an entire revolution in the
politics of the North. The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who now
ascended the Russian throne, was not merely free from the prejudices
which his aunt had entertained against Frederic, but was a worshipper, a
servile imitator of the great King. The days of the new Czar's
government were few and evil, but sufficient to produce a change in the
whole state of Christendom. He set the Prussian prisoners at liberty,
fitted them out decently, and sent them back to their master; he
withdrew his troops from the provinces which Elizabeth had decided on
incorporating with her dominions; and he absolved all those Prussian
subjects, who had been compelled to swear fealty to Russia, from their
engagements.

Not content with c