, and on matters hitherto so unobserved, that I consider
it, with pride, as a valuable New Year's gift to the present world; and
that posterity will accept it, as the like, for many years after, and
read it over on that anniversary, and call it their _Warning Piece_. I
must have my _Exegi-Monumentum_ as well as others.

FOOTNOTE:

[20] Or, to follow this affectation of silliness into more recent times,
is there anything in diplomatic history that could match Lord
Palmerston's proposal made to Marshal Soult (in 1839), to storm the
Dardanelles, in order to afford the Sultan the support of the
Anglo-French fleet against Russia?

CHAPTER III

To understand a limited historical epoch, we must step beyond its
limits, and compare it with other historical epochs. To judge
Governments and their acts, we must measure them by their own times and
the conscience of their contemporaries. Nobody will condemn a British
statesman of the 17th century for acting on a belief in witchcraft, if
he find Bacon himself ranging demonology in the catalogue of science. On
the other hand, if the Stanhopes, the Walpoles, the Townshends, etc.,
were suspected, opposed, and denounced in their own country by their own
contemporaries as tools or accomplices of Russia, it will no longer do
to shelter their policy behind the convenient screen of prejudice and
ignorance common to their time. At the head of the historical evidence
we have to sift, we place, therefore, long-forgotten English pamphlets
printed at the very time of Peter I. These preliminary _pieces des
proces_ we shall, however, limit to three pamphlets, which, from three
different points of view, illustrate the conduct of England towards
Sweden. The first, the _Northern Crisis_ (given in Chapter II.),
revealing the general system of Russia, and the dangers accruing to
England from the Russification of Sweden; the second, called _The
Defensive Treaty_, judging the acts of England by the Treaty of 1700;
and the third, entitled _Truth is but Truth, however it is Timed_,
proving that the new-fangled schemes which magnified Russia into the
paramount Power of the Baltic were in flagrant opposition to the
traditionary policy England had pursued during the course of a whole
century.

The pamphlet called _The Defensive Treaty_ bears no date of publication.
Yet in one passage it states that, for reinforcing the Danish fleet,
eight English men-of-war were left at Copenhagen "_the year befor