Note 341 — Chapter XIX

The following passages are those to which the text refers: “This week has given the public the most abandoned instance of official effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind. The minister’s speech last Tuesday is not to be paralleled in the annals of this country. I am in doubt whether the imposition is greater on the Sovereign or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament that a Prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his name to the most odious measures, and to the most unjustifiable public doctrines, from a Throne ever renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue. I am sure all foreigners, especially the King of Prussia, will hold the minister in contempt and abhorrence. He has made our Sovereign declare, ‘My expectations have been fully answered by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown have derived from the salutary measure of the definitive treaty. The powers at war with my good brother the King of Prussia have been induced to agree to such terms of accommodation as that great Prince has approved, and the success which has attended my negotiation has necessarily and immediately diffused the blessings of peace throughout Europe.’ The infamous fallacy of this whole sentence is apparent to all mankind; for it is known that the King of Prussia did not barely approve, but absolutely dictated as conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No advantage of any kind has accrued to that magnanimous Prince from our negotiation; but he was basely deserted by the Scottish Prime Minister of England. He was known by every Court in Europe to be scarcely on better terms here than at Vienna, and he was betrayed by us in the treaty of peace. What a strain of insolence, therefore, is it in a minister to lay claim to what he is conscious his efforts tended to prevent, and meanly to arrogate to himself a share in the fame and glory of one of the greatest Princes the world has ever seen!”—E.