not easy for him to find followers:  now there is a party almost in all countries, ready-made, animated with success, with a sure ally in the very centre of Europe.  There is no cabal so obscure in any place, that they do not protect, cherish, foster, and endeavor to raise it into importance at home and abroad.  From the lowest, this intrigue will creep up to the highest.  Ambition, as well as enthusiasm, may find its account in the party and in the principle.

[Sidenote:  Character of ministers.]

The ministers of other kings, like those of the king of France, (not one of whom was perfectly free from this guilt, and some of whom were very deep in it,) may themselves be the persons to foment such a disposition and such a faction.  Hertzberg, the king of Prussia’s late minister, is so much of what is called a philosopher, that he was of a faction with that sort of politicians in everything, and in every place.  Even when he defends himself from the imputation of giving extravagantly into these principles, he still considers the Revolution of France as a great public good, by giving credit to their fraudulent declaration of their universal benevolence and love of peace.  Nor are his Prussian Majesty’s present ministers at all disinclined to the same system.  Their ostentatious preamble to certain late edicts demonstrates (if their actions had not been sufficiently explanatory of their cast of mind) that they are deeply infected with the same distemper of dangerous, because plausible, though trivial and shallow, speculation.

Ministers, turning their backs on the reputation which properly belongs to them, aspire at the glory of being speculative writers.  The duties of these two situations are in general directly opposite to each other.  Speculators ought to be neutral.  A minister cannot be so.  He is to support the interest of the public as connected with that of his master.  He is his master’s trustee, advocate, attorney, and steward,—­and he is not to indulge in any speculation which contradicts that character, or even detracts from its efficacy.  Necker had an extreme thirst for this sort of glory; so had others; and this pursuit of a misplaced and misunderstood reputation was one of the causes of the ruin of these ministers, and of their unhappy, master.  The Prussian ministers in foreign courts have (at least not long since) talked the most democratic language with regard to Prance, and in the most unmanaged terms.

[Sidenote:  Corps diplomatique.]

The whole corps diplomatique, with very few exceptions, leans that way.  What cause produces in them a turn of mind which at first one would think unnatural to their situation it is not impossible to explain.  The discussion would, however, be somewhat long and somewhat invidious.  The fact itself is indisputable, however they may disguise it to their several courts.  This disposition is gone to so very great a length in that corps, in itself so important, and so important as furnishing the intelligence which sways all cabinets, that, if princes and states do not very speedily attend with a vigorous control to that source of direction and information, very serious evils are likely to befall them.