so as to justify opposition.-The Duke then told me he "wished me well, but would never more talk with me on "business.. -I would have entered into further matter, "but he said he was busy, and took leave of me.—I said "I should ever acknowledge my obligations to him, and "act accordingly,-which he said was only words." With so many and such bitter adversaries, the prospects of the new administration were far from hopeful. Horace Walpole writes in October: "Whether peace or 66 war, I would not give Lord Bute much for the place "he will have this day twelvemonth."† And at nearly the same period Lord Chesterfield adds: "I should naturally think that this Session will be a stormy one; "that is, if Mr. Pitt takes an active part; but if he is pleased, as the Ministers say, there is no other Æolus to "blow a storm." It soon appeared, however, that the great ruler of the tempest was very far from pleased. 66 66 Such was the state and such the prospect of parties when the Parliament met on the 25th of November. The reception of His Majesty as he passed along the crowded streets indicated a decline of his popularity; and Lord Bute was hissed and pelted both in going and returning. Within doors nothing of importance occurred on this first day; Pitt was absent from gout, and Fox for re-election. But when the Preliminaries of Peace had been duly laid before both Houses, an Address in approbation of them was moved on the 9th of December by Lord Bute in the Lords and by Fox in the Commons. Lord Bute was answered by Lord Hardwicke at great length, and with his usual ability; but so small appeared the number of dissentients to the Treaty that the Opposition did not venture to call for a division. In the other House Pitt rose as soon as Fox had sat down, and inveighed against the peace with much eloquence and more exaggeration. There was scarcely an article that did not afford him topics of censure, nor was he sparing, in an account of his own previous negotiation, of reflections *Memoir by Lord Barrington, inserted in his Life by the Bishop of Durham, p. 73-85. (Unpublished.) To the Hon. H. S. Conway, October 4. 1762. 1763. 66 THE PEACE OF PARIS. 277 against Lord Bute. "I contended," he cried, "several "times in vain for the whole exclusive fishery, but I was "overruled; I repeat I was overruled, not by the foreign enemy, but by another enemy!"-This remarkable speech extended to the length of three hours and a half, although Pitt, even at the outset, was suffering an agony of pain from his gout; when he rose he was supported by two friends; as he proceeded he was allowed the indulgence, as yet unprecedented, of speaking from his. seat; and at the conclusion he was compelled to leave the House without taking part in the division. The result of that division was no more commensurate to his eloquence than the terms of peace had been to our triumphs in war;-319 Members were found to vote for the Preliminaries and only 65 against them. Cheered by such majorities, the Government sent instructions to the Duke of Bedford to proceed with the definitive Treaty. Though no material point was changed, several weeks were consumed in its negotiation. It was at length concluded on the 10th of February 1763, and from the place of its signature was called the Peace of Paris. By the withdrawal of France and England from the German contest, and by the previous secession of Russia and Sweden, Frederick and Maria Theresa were left to wage the war single-handed. For the Electorate of Saxony, of which by far the greater part was in Prussian hands, had long become a burthen instead of a benefit to Austria. But when so mighty an alliance had failed of success, what hope could remain to the Empress Queen alone? Accordingly, soon after the close of the campaign, she intimated her readiness for peace; a truce was forthwith concluded, and a negotiation begun. M. de Hertzberg on the part of Prussia, M. de Collenbach on the part of Austria, M. de Fritsch on the part of Saxony, met at the huntingpalace of Hubertsburg between Dresden and Leipsick. The terms of the treaty were not hard to adjust. derick had more than once declared, even at the lowest pitch of his fortunes, that he would not purchase peace at the sacrifice of even a single village, and though the Ministers of Maria Theresa struggled for the retention of Glatz, the only one of her conquests which still remained Fre to her, they speedily yielded, and all three parties were reinstated in the same territory as before the war. With this basis the peace was signed on the 15th of February. Six weeks afterwards Frederick made a public entry into his capital, which he had not seen for six years; he sat in an open carriage with Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick at his side; and the people of Berlin, thinned as they were in numbers, and well-nigh ruined in fortunes, by the long-protracted war, greeted with enthusiastic shouts the heroes of their country.* Never had any Sovereign waged so arduous a contest with more undeviating spirit or more varying success. Of ten pitched battles where he commanded in person he had been worsted in three and victorious in seven. Of six, where other chiefs directed the Prussian armies, every one, except only Prince Henry's at Freyberg, had been a defeat. According to Frederick's own computation he had lost in these terrible seven years 180,000 soldiers, while of Russians there had fallen 120,000, of Austrians 140,000, and of French 200,000. But such numbers, vast as they seem, give a most inadequate idea of all the misery, desolation, and havoc which this warfare had wrought. Pestilence had swept away many peaceful thousands; whole districts, especially in Brandenburg and Pomerania, were turned to wastes; all the best dwellings laid in ashes; the very seed-corn in part devoured, and none but women and children left to follow the plough. An officer reports that he rode through seven villages of Hesse in which he found only one single human being; a clergyman who was boiling horse-beans for his dinner. But no dangers could vanquish, no sufferings exhaust, the patriotic spirit of the Prussians. Seeing the independence of their country at stake, they scarcely even murmured or complained; they showed themselves ready in such a cause to encounter the worst perils with unshrinking courage, and endure the worst hardships with magnanimous patience. Their conduct as a people during the two appalling struggles of 1756 and * The population of Berlin, which in 1747 was 107,224 souls, had in 1761 declined to 98,238, of whom no less than 30,000 were reduced to subsist on weekly alms. (Preuss, Lebens-Geschichte, vol. ii. 349.) 1763. PATRIOTIC SPIRIT OF THE PRUSSIANS. 279 1813 has always appeared to me deserving of the highest admiration. From other countries and other ages History can show several chiefs as great as Frederick, and many chiefs greater than Blücher. How few, on the contrary, are the nations that, like the Prussian at these two periods, have stood firm against foreign invaders with the utmost energy and the utmost moderation combined,never relenting in their just hostility, and never venting it, like some southern races, in deeds of tumult and assassination,-proud of their martial renown, yet not blindly relying upon it, and always vindicating that pride by fresh achievements and accumulated glories. CHAPTER XXXIX, INDIA. IF in some fairy tale or supernatural legend we were to read of an island, seated far in the Northern seas, so ungenial in its climate and so barren in its soil that no richer fruits than sloes or blackberries were its aboriginal growth, -whose tribes of painted savages continued to dwell in huts of sedge, or, at best, pile together altars of rude stone, for ages after other nations widely spread over the globe had already achieved wondrous works of sculpture and design, the gorgeous rock-temples of Ellora, the storied obelisks of Thebes, or the lion-crested portals of Mycena;-If it were added, that this island had afterwards by skill and industry attained the highest degree of artificial fertility, and combined in its luxury the fruits of every clime,—that the sea, instead of remaining its barrier, had become almost a part of its empire, — that its inhabitants were now amongst the foremost of the earth in commerce and in freedom, in arts and in arms, -that their indomitable energy had subdued, across fifteen thousand miles of ocean, a land ten times more extensive than their own, that in this territory they now peacefully reigned over one hundred and twenty millions of subjects or dependents, the race of the builders of Ellora, and the heirs of the Great Mogul; -If, further still, we were told that in this conquest the rule of all other conquests had been reversed, that the reign of the strangers, alien in blood, in language, and in faith, had been beyond any other in that region fraught with blessings, that humanity and justice, the security of life and property, the progress of improvement and instruction, were far greater under the worst of the foreign governors than under the best of the native princes;-with what scorn might we not be tempted to fling down the lying scroll,-exclaiming that even in fiction there should be |