Harris advised his Government of the necessity of nourish-ing the Russian appetite, if her aid against the American Colonies was to be secured.
The following year the proposition of Sir James Harris assumes a milder form; he does not ask for an alliance. A Russian protest to hold France and Spain in check, if backed by a naval armament, will be acceptable to Eng-land. The Empress replies that she can perceive no occasion for such a measure. The Ambassador, with servile flattery, remonstrates that "A Russian Sovereign of the seventeenth century might well have spoken so, but since that epoch Russia has become a leading Power in Europe, and the con-cerns of Europe are hers also. If Peter the Great could behold the Russian navy allied to that of England, he would confess himself no longer the first of Russian rulers"-and so on in the same strain.
The Empress accepted this flattery, but rejected the Ambassador's proposals. Two months later, November 5, 1779, King George wrote to his "lady sister," the Czarina, an autograph letter in old-fashioned French. He no longer insisted on a formal protest, but would be satisfied with a simple demonstration. "The apparition merely "-such were his royal words-" of a portion of the Imperial fleet will suffice to restore and confirm the peace of Europe, and the League joined against England will at once vanish." Has ever another Power of the first order so abjectly sup-plicated?
But all this wheedling on the part of England failed of its object, and in 1780 the armed neutrality was proclaimed. England patiently swallowed the pill. To sweeten the dose her Government had previously proclaimed that the mer-chant vessels of Russia should not be stopped or hindered by English cruisers. Thus, without compulsion, England at that time surrendered the right of search. Soon after-ward the English diplomat assured the Cabinet at St. Petersburg that British vessels of war should not molest the subjects of the Empress in their commercial pursuits; and in 1781 Sir James Harris claimed as a merit for the
