troops were brought from Scotland. The question brought forth all the secret foes and lukewarm friends of Government. The Lord Marquis of Lansdowne rode one of the first horses."[1] The Bill nevertheless passed into law, after exciting much bitterness and anger in both Houses.
If Indian affairs had begun, European policy on which Oswald had foretold that Pitt would wreck his vessel, completed the estrangement of Lord Lansdowne from Pitt. After the death of Frederick the Great a gradual change came over the diplomacy of the English Government. Ever since the peace, England had aimed at preserving friendly relations with France. The wish of the deceased monarch having been to keep things quiet during the remainder of his life, and the preponderating power of the House of Hapsburg having been the chief object of his fears, he also had been anxious to cultivate good relations with the House of Bourbon. He even showed little anxiety to interfere in the affairs of Holland, where the struggles between the party of the Prince of Orange and the democratic party supported by France, had led not only to the triumph of the latter, but also to gross personal insults being offered to his niece the Princess of Orange. On the accession in 1786 of Frederick William II., a complete change took place. A Prussian army was marched into Holland, and the Prince of Orange was reinstated in all his rights and powers. It had been expected that France would support the democratic party, but the courage of the French ministers failed them at the last moment, when England declared that she would not remain a passive spectator of events. The complete victory of the Prussian army led by the Duke of Brunswick, was followed by the treaties of Loo and Berlin between England, Holland, and Prussia, and from that date they entered upon a long course of gratuitous intervention in the disturbed affairs of the Continent.
War had again broken out in the East, where the
- ↑ Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 367, 374.
