different. The failure of Chatham's scheme for a grand Northern alliance in 1767, the inconstancy of the Empress Catherine, and the high-handed proceedings of the Three Powers against Poland, made him but little anxious to introduce the Northern Powers into the negotiation. Ultimately he even hoped to revert to the policy of earlier times when, as in the days of Elizabeth, of Cromwell and of Walpole, France was the ally and not the foe of England, and to oppose the alliance of the Western Powers to the aggressive designs and crooked policy of the Northern Courts.[1] Already in 1769 the idea of such an alliance had crossed his mind; but ancient national jealousies and the policy of Choiseul had rendered it impracticable. In the altered temper of the French nation however he expected to find the lever for a new and more enlightened policy, which Court intrigues and reactionary traditions would be powerless to break. The France of Louis XVI. was in his opinion as different from that of Louis XIV. as the character of the former from that of the latter monarch. Whoever, he said, had travelled in the country knew that public opinion was entirely changed. A spirit of individual as well as general independence prevailed; the rage of serving in armies was abated; men enjoyed consideration independently of any connection with the Court or of the Minister; liberal principles were gradually establishing themselves without regard to the old traditions of the government, and war either for the sake of Court caprices, or additional trade or additional territory, was coming to be regarded as an exploded superstition.[2]
Such were the views and objects of Shelburne; whether or no he would be able to carry them out, would depend on his own influence in the Cabinet, and the temper shown by Vergennes and the other French Ministers. The recent fall of Necker had put an end to the hope of
- ↑ The tortuous conduct of the Courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin may be traced in the Malmesbury Correspondence, i. 421 et seq. Of the former Sir James Harris writes to Mr. Fox on the 20th of May 1782. "Instability and levity have been its marked features since I have resided here" (i. 438), and he asks himself whether Count Goertz, the Prussian Ambassador, may not be "a most excellent comedian" (i. 444).
- ↑ Parliamentary History, xxvi. 554.
