d effect;
the armament was countermanded, the sailors disbanded, and the chances
of an extensive warfare avoided."

"_Lord North_," says the complacent writer from whom we have borrowed
the last lines, "_thus effectually served the cause of his ally_
(Catherine II.), _and facilitated the treaty of peace_ (of
Kutchuk-Kainardji) _between Russia and the Porte_." Catherine II.
rewarded Lord North's good services, first by withholding the aid she
had promised him in case of a war between England and the North American
Colonies, and in the second place, by conjuring up and leading the armed
neutrality against England. Lord North DARED NOT _repay, as he was
advised by Sir James Harris_, this treacherous breach of faith by giving
up to Russia, and to _Russia alone_, the maritime rights of Great
Britain. Hence the irritation in the nervous system of the Czarina; the
hysterical fancy she caught all at once of "entertaining a bad opinion"
of Lord North, of "disliking" him, of feeling a "rooted aversion"
against him, of being afflicted with "a total want of confidence," etc.
In order to give the Shelburne Administration a warning example, Sir
James Harris draws up a minute psychological picture of the feelings of
the Czarina, and the disgrace incurred by the North Administration, for
having wounded these same feelings. His prescription is very simple:
surrender to Russia, as our friend, everything for asking which we would
consider every other Power our enemy.

[13] It is then a fact that the English Government, not satisfied with
having made Russia a Baltic power, strove hard to make her a
Mediterranean power too. The offer of the surrender of Minorca appears
to have been made to Catherine II. at the end of 1779, or the beginning
of 1780, shortly after Lord Stormont's entrance into the North
Cabinet--the same Lord Stormont we have seen thwarting the French
attempts at resistance against Russia, and whom even Sir James Harris
cannot deny the merit of having written "_instructions perfectly
calculated to the meridian of the Court of St. Petersburg_." While Lord
North's Cabinet, at the suggestion of Sir James Harris, offered Minorca
to the _Muscovites_, the English Commoners and people were still
trembling for fear lest the _Hanoverians_ (?) should wrest out of their
hands "one of the keys of the Mediterranean." On the 26th of October,
1775, the King, in his opening speech, had informed Parliament, amongst
other things, that he had