fore the conclusion of _definitive
treaties_ with America, France, and Spain, Holland condescended to
accede to _preliminaries of peace_, and this not in consequence of the
_Russian mediation_, but through the influence of _France_.

[15] How much was England not prejudiced by the Courts of Vienna and
Paris thwarting the plan of the British Cabinet of ceding Minorca to
Russia, and by Frederick of Prussia's resistance against the great
Chatham's scheme of a Northern Alliance under Muscovite auspices.

[16] The predecessor is Fox. Sir James Harris establishes a complete
scale of British Administrations, according to the degree in which they
enjoyed the favour of his almighty Czarina. In spite of Lord Stormont,
the Earl of Sandwich, Lord North, and Sir James Harris himself; in spite
of the partition of Poland, the bullying of D'Aiguillon, the treaty of
Kutchuk-Kainardji, and the intended cession of Minorca--Lord North's
Administration is relegated to the bottom of the heavenly ladder; far
above it has climbed the Rockingham Administration, whose soul was Fox,
notorious for his subsequent intrigues with Catherine; but at the top we
behold the Shelburne Administration, whose Chancellor of the Exchequer
was the celebrated William Pitt. As to Lord Shelburne himself, Burke
exclaimed in the House of Commons, that "if he was not a Catalina or
Borgia in morals, it must not be ascribed to anything but his
understanding."

[17] Sir James Harris forgets deducing the main inference, that the
Ambassador of England is the agent of Russia.

[18] In the 18th century, English diplomatists' despatches, bearing on
their front the sacramental inscription, "Private," are despatches to be
withheld from the King by the Minister to whom they are addressed. That
such was the case may be seen from Lord Mahon's _History of England_.

[19] "To be burnt after my death." Such are the words prefixed to the
manuscript by the gentleman whom it was addressed to.

CHAPTER II

The documents published in the first chapter extend from the reign of
the Empress Ann to the commencement of the reign of the Emperor Paul,
thus encompassing the greater part of the 18th century. At the end of
that century it had become, as stated by the Rev. Mr. Pitt, the openly
professed and orthodox dogma of English diplomacy, "_that the ties which
bind Great Britain to the Russian Empire are formed by nature, and
inviolable_."

In perusing these documents, there is