Vienna he was kept aloof by Kaunitz, socially and from the foreign office. In Berlin he, as a traveller, was assured of protection. Frederic, though he refused to see him, promised his influence to prevent new treaties by England for German troops, and to troops destined for America forbade the transit through any part of his dominions.

Elliott, then British minister in Berlin, for a thousand guineas induced a burglar to steal the papers of Arthur Lee, but, on the complaint of Arthur Lee to the police, sent them back after reading them, and spirited the thief out of the kingdom. Against the rules of the court, he hurried to Potsdam: the king refused to see him; and a cabinet order, in his own handwriting, still preserves his judgment upon Elliott: "It is a case of public stealing, and he should be forbidden the court; but I will not push matters with rigor." And to his minister in London he wrote: "Oh, the worthy pupil of Bute! In truth, the English ought to blush for shame at sending such ministers to foreign courts."

The people of England cherished the fame of the Prussian king as in some measure their own, and unanimously desired the renewal of his alliance. The ministry sought to open the way for it through his envoy in London. Frederic replied: "No man is further removed than myself from having connections with England." "A scalded cat fears cold water,' says the proverb. If that crown would give me all the millions possible, I would not furnish it two small files of my troops to serve against the colonies."

"Never in past ages," he continued, some weeks later, "has the situation of England been so critical. Her ministry is without men of talent." "A glance at the situation shows that, if she continues to employ the same generals, four campaigns will hardly be enough to subjugate her colonies." "All good judges agree with me that, if the colonies remain united, the mother country will never subjugate them."

"My marine is nothing but a mercantile marine, of which I know the limits too well to go beyond them." "If the colonies shall sustain their independence, a direct commerce with them will follow, of course."

Having taken his position toward England, he proceeded

to gain the aid of France as well as of Russia against the annexation of Bavaria to the Austrian dominions; and in the breast of the aged Maurepas, whose experience in office preceded the seven years' war, there remained enough of the earlier French traditions to render him jealous of such an aggrandizement of the old rival of his country. The vital importance of the question was understood at Potsdam and at Vienna. Kaunitz, who made it the cardinal point of Austrian policy to overthrow the kingdom of Prussia, looked upon the acquisition of Bavaria as the harbinger of success. When Joseph repaired to Paris to win France for his design through the influence of his sister, Marie Antoinette, the Prussian envoy was commanded to be watchful, but to be silent. No sooner had the emperor retired than Frederic, knowing that Maurepas had resisted the influence of the queen, renewed his efforts; and, through a confidential French agent sent to him under the pretext of attending the midsummer military reviews at Magdeburg, the two kingdoms adjusted their foreign policy, of which the central points lay in the United States and in Germany.

France, if she would venture on war with England, needed security and encouragement from Frederic on the side of Germany, and his aid to stop the sale of German troops. He met the overture with joy, and near the end of July wrote with his own hand: "No; certainly we have no jealousy of the aggrandizement of France: we even put up prayers for her prosperity, provided her armies are not found near Wesel or Halberstadt." "You can assure de Maurepas," so he continued in August and September, "that I have no connection whatever with England, nor do I grudge to France any advantages she may gain by the war with the colonies." "Her first interest requires the enfeeblement of Great Britain, and the way to this is to make it lose its colonies in America. The present opportunity is more favorable than ever before existed, and more favorable than is likely to recur in three centuries." "The independence of the colonies will be worth to France all which the war will cost."

To preserve his own kingdom and the liberties of Germany, he pressed upon the French council an alliance of France, Prussia, and Russia. "Italy and Bavaria," he said, "would follow,

VOL. V.-16

and no alliance would be left to Austria except that with England. If it does not take place, troubles are at hand to be decided only by the sword." In his infirm old age, he felt his own powers utterly unequal to the renewal of such a conflict; and he saw no hope for himself, as king of Prussia, to rescue Bavaria and with it Germany from absorption by Austria, except in the good-will of France and Russia.

While Frederic was encouraging France to strike a decisive blow in favor of the United States, their cause found an efficient advocate in Marie Antoinette. She placed in the hands of her husband a memoir which had been prepared by Count de Maillebois and Count d'Estaing, and which censured the timid policy of his ministers. The states of Europe, it was said, would judge the reign of Louis XVI. by the manner in which that prince will know how to avail himself of the occasion to lower the pride and presumption of a rival power. The French council, nevertheless, put off the day of decision. Even so late as the twenty-third of November 1777, every one of them, except the minister of the marine and Vergennes, Maurepas above all, desired to avoid a conflict. Frederic, all the more continued his admonitions, through his minister at Paris, that France had now an opportunity which must be regarded as unique; that England could from no quarter obtain the troops which she needed; that Denmark would be solicited in vain to furnish ships-of-war and mariners; that he himself, by refusing passage through any part of his dominions to the recruits levied in Germany, had given public evidence of his sympathy with the Americans; that France, if she should go to war with England, might be free from apprehension alike on the side of Russia and of Prussia.

So when the news of the surrender of Burgoyne's army was received at Paris, and every face, even that of the French king, showed signs of joy, Maurepas prepared to yield; but first wished the great warrior, who knew so well the relative forces of the house of Bourbon and England, to express his judgment on the probable issues of a war. Frederic, renewing assurances of his own good-will and the non-interference of Russia, replied: "The chances are one hundred to one that the colonies will sustain their independence."

Balancing the disasters of Burgoyne with the successes of Howe, he wrote: "These triumphs of Howe are ephemeral. The ministry may get funds, but where will they get twenty thousand men? I see no gate at which they can knock for auxiliaries." "England made originally an awkward mistake in going to war with its colonies; then followed the illusion of being able to subjugate them by a corps of seven thousand men; next, the scattering its different corps which has caused the failure of all its enterprises. I am of Chatham's opinion, that its ill success is due to the ignorance, rashness, and incapacity of its ministry. Even should there be a change in the ministry, the tories would still retain the ascendency." "The primal source of the decay of Britain is to be sought in the departure of its present government in a sovereign degree from the principles of British history. All the efforts of his Britannic majesty tend to despotism. It is only to the principles of the tories that the present war with the colonies is to be attributed. The reinforcements which these same ministers design to send to America will not change the face of affairs; and independence will always be the indispensable condition of an accommodation.”

At the same time, Frederic expressed more freely his sympathy with the United States. The port of Embden could not receive their cruisers, for the want of a fleet or a fort to defend them from insult; but he bade them welcome at Dantzic. He forbade the subsidiary troops, both from Anspach and Hesse, to pass through his dominions. The prohibition resounded throughout Europe, and he announced to the Americans that it was given "to testify his good-will for them." Every facility was afforded them to ship arms from Prussia. Before the end of 1777 he promised not to be the last to recognise the independence of the United States; and, in January 1778, his minister, Schulenburg, wrote officially to one of their commissioners in Paris: "The king desires that your generous efforts may be crowned with complete success. He will not hesitate to recognise your independence, when France, which is more directly interested in the event of this contest, shall have given the example."

CHAPTER XVII.

FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES.

DECEMBER 1777-APRIL 1778.

THE account of Burgoyne's surrender, which was brought to France by a swift-sailing ship from Boston, threw Turgot and all Paris into transports of joy. None doubted the ability of the states to maintain their independence. On the twelfth of December their commissioners had an interview with Vergennes. "Nothing," said he, "has struck me so much as General Washington's attacking and giving battle to General Howe's army. To bring troops raised within the year to this, promises everything. The court of France, in the treaty which is to be entered into, intend to take no advantage of your present situation. Once made, it should be durable; and therefore it should contain no condition of which the Americans may afterward repent, but such only as will last as long as human institutions shall endure, so that mutual amity may subsist forever. Entering into a treaty will be an avowal of your independence. Spain must be consulted, and Spain will not be satisfied with an undetermined boundary on the west. Some of the states are supposed to run to the South Sea, which might interfere with her claim to California." It was answered that the last treaty of peace adopted the Mississippi as a boundary. "And what share do you intend to give us in the fisheries?" asked Vergennes; for in the original draft of a treaty the United States had proposed to take to themselves Cape Breton and the whole of the island of Newfoundland. Explanations were made by the American commissioners that their later instructions removed all chances of disagreement on that subject.