that which would happen, and has happened.  He always kept in mind the cunning and unscrupulous tricks of Frederick and knew that if his power were destroyed, that would be Prussia’s opportunity to renew the methods of the Hohenzollern scoundrel, the hero of Thomas Carlyle, and the intermittent friend of Voltaire, who made unprovoked war on Marie Theresa with that splendid Prussian disregard for treaty obligations, and who then, with amazing insolence, after the seven years’ butchery was over, sat down at Sans Souci in the companionship of his numerous dogs to write his memoirs in which he states that “Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about him carried the day, and he decided for war;” he might have added to the majestic Hohenzollern creed, incurable treachery, falsehood, hypocrisy, and cowardice!

But the law of retribution comes to nations as well as to individuals, and after the disappearance of Frederick, Prussian ascendancy came to an end and sank to the lowest depths of hopelessness before the terrible power of Napoleon; after his fall, the old majestic arrogance natural to their race began to revive.  It took many years for the military caste to carry their objectives to maturity, and had we stood sensibly and loyally by our French neighbours, the tragedy that gapes at us now could never have come to pass.  Possibly the Franco-German war would never have occurred had our foreign policy been skilfully handled and our attitude wisely apprehensive of Germany’s ultimate unification and her aggressive aims.  The generations that are to come will assuredly be made to see the calamities wrought by the administrators of that period, whose faculties consisted in hoarding up prejudices, creating enmities, and making wars that drained the blood and treasure of our land.  We do not find a single instance of Pitt or Castlereagh expressing an idea worthy of statesmanship.  What did either of these men ever do to uplift the higher phases of humanity by grappling with the problem that had been brought into being by the French Revolution?

When we think of responsible ministers having no other vision or plan of coming to an understanding with the French nation except by their screams, groans, and odour of blood, it makes one shudder, and we wish to forget that the people allowed them to carry out their hideous methods of settling disputes.  A galaxy of brilliant writers has sung their praises in profusion, but while the present writer admires the literary charm of the penmen’s efforts, he does not find their conclusions so agreeable or so easy to understand.  There was never a time, in our opinion, even during the most embarrassing and darkest phases of the Napoleonic struggle, in which our differences with France were insoluble.  Napoleon, as I have said, never ceased to avow his willingness to make vital sacrifices in order that peace between the two peoples should be consummated.  The stereotyped cant of maintaining the “Balance of Power”