entreat you to consider this as very confidential intelligence) is, to conquer the whole Crimea for herself.

I shall conclude this long letter with a few observations, perhaps unnecessary, but which strike me forcibly. It is impossible that the Empress can sincerely wish to see peace restored between us and our enemies, since the success of her projects in the East necessarily depend on the House of Bourbon being fully employed with its own concerns; she therefore cannot be sincere in her measure as Mediatrix. It is equally impossible that in the present conjuncture the Emperor must not egregiously impose either on her or on his ally, France. If he means to go all the lengths he has promised the Empress, and they are as extensive as they can be, he must displease the Court of Versailles, and their alliance breaks up; on the contrary, if he does not intend keeping his word, and only holds this complaisant language to divert and amuse Her Imperial Majesty, it must end in a violent rupture between the two Imperial Courts, and that soon, since by the spring the Empress will certainly call upon him to make good his professions. It is for this reason that it is my opinion, and I have given it freely at home, that we should keep aloof, not precipitate ourselves, or be in haste to form any continental connexions. We have done without them for so many years, that a year more can be of no importance, and in less time than that the political horizon must clear up, the sentiments now in doubt be certified, and in every case a system will work itself out where we may have our choice of alliances, and instead of courting others (which I hate) be courted ourselves.

My indisposition, which is owing solely to the climate, will, I fear, lay me under the necessity of soliciting my recall. I have remained here five years, and I have gradually felt my health (naturally very good) decline from the day of my arrival. I shall have various reasons to regret this post, particularly the interesting scene it is likely to be involved in, for I heartily love the rocking of the battlements.

LETTER FROM SIR JAMES HARRIS TO SIR JOHN STEPNEY,

Petersburg, 15th, 26th Oct., 1782. MY DEAR STEPNEY,-I wrote you a few lines a post or two ago, merely to congratulate you on your arrival at your new residence. You fill a very important mission, are employed near the person of the greatest Monarch that perhaps ever reigned, and what will make your employ still more agreeable than that of your predecessors, that Monarch, since we have been wise enough at home to do justice to his sentiments, professes the most friendly and cordial attachment to us and our interests.

Count Goertz, his Minister here, by whose goodness this letter will reach you sooner than if I sent it by the post, acts towards me in perfect conformity to these professions, and I flatter myself he does me the justice to report in his despatches that I meet him more than half

way.

We are here, seemingly, on the eve of a great event ; everything looks as if a crisis was drawing near; indeed, I have so often waited for this crisis, so often thought it at hand, and so often been disappointed, that I may say of myself,

"Expectat dum difluat amnis, at ille

Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum."

I remember in Spain a grandee's wife, who thought herself with child for ten years running, and regularly called out every four or five months for the midwife. I think we are somewhat here in the same situation, and till I see the infant I shall doubt the pregnancy. Nothing in the present conjuncture puzzles me so much as the conduct of the Emperor, and, like Basil, I cannot help asking, qui est ce qu'on trompe ici? tout le monde est dans le secret. I have such certain proofs of the existence of his connexion with France in its full force, that I cannot suppose him sincere in his assurances of

*The first part of this letter is intended to meet Frederick's private in-spection, which was inevitable, as it went in Count Goertz's bag.

seconding Her Imperial Majesty in the prosecution of a plan which is in direct opposition to the interests and sentiments of the Bourbons. Yet here he is believed to be sincere, and the Empress regulates her conduct on the sincerity of these assurances. Her views are extensive and ambitious, and the chimæra of reinstating the Eastern Empire may, for what I know, be comprised in her vast projects.

My first wish is, to see a Triple Alliance concluded between the Courts of Berlin, Petersburg, and Great Britain, or Quadruple by annexing Denmark to it. I know His Prussian Majesty is not averse to this system, and I hope to live long enough to see it accomplished.

I am somewhat better than I was a week back, but twenty years older in point of strength and looks than I was three months ago. I fear, however interesting the scene, I must either retire quite from it, or remove at least for one winter. These winters kill me, and will entirely ruin a constitution that nothing else has been able to shake, though as you may remember when we were colleagues in a less serious capacity it has had its trials.

(Cypher.) The inclosed letter is for you yourself, not for Fitzherbert; I made use of this fetch to prevent the suspicion so much cypher would have given your Old Gentleman. Guard against his wiles, suspect his professions, and subtract a large portion from his fair words and from the specious advances he may make. He is certainly in the same state of perplexity as we are all, and I know manages with an equal distribution of his favour both us and our enemies. My letter au clair, you will conceive, is written to be read at Potzdam; I, however, am serious in wishing you to speak as I mention to the Prussian Ministry, and the facts in general are true.

LETTER FROM SIR JAMES HARRIS TO LORD GRANTHAM. Petersburg, Tuesday, 25th October, 5 November, 1782. MY LORD, Prince Potemkin has been most uncommonly attentive to me during my illness. He has either

written to me in his own hand, or sent one of his principal officers to me every day, and yesterday he came himself, and passed near two hours with me. If your Lordship knew the character of the man, these attentions would appear the more striking, as he never shews them to anybody, unless it be to the Empress herself.

Our conversation was friendly and right in every sense of the word, though, as I had no particular point to urge with him, nor he any particular object to communicate to me, it will not furnish materials for a despatch. He gave me a pleasing and humorous account of his journey, spoke with raptures of the climate, soil, and situation of Kerson, but was silent on its utility as a frontier fortress, or as a port to receive ships of war. He said he had been very near Oczakow, that it was a most contemptible place, and could not stand a week's siege. On my naming to him the deposed Khan, he said he was an absurd ridiculous fellow, piqued himself on being an imitator of Peter the Great, whom, however, he resembled in nothing but his cruelty. I have, &c.

EXTRACTS OF TWO DESPATCHES FROM SIR JAMES HARRIS TO
LORD GRANTHAM.

Petersburg, 1st, 12th November, 1782. THE dress of the ladies has lately undergone a severe reform. All trimmings, flounces, blondes, &c., are to be laid aside. The hair is not to exceed the height of two inches and a half, and the whole of the regulation (wise and judicious for more than one reason) tends to reduce the ornaments of the female person to a natural and decent standard.

The immense increase of the importation of French modes, millineries, and other similar productions, which, without exaggeration, run away with the whole benefit of the trade of Russia, was the first and serious reason for the reform I mentioned in my other despatch, as ordered to take place in the dress of the Russian ladies. Its being published at this particular moment, which, from the

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navigation being at an end, seems an improper one, was aimed at the Grand-Duchess, who returns passionately fond of the French nation, their dress and manners, and who, besides having settled a correspondence to be carried on in her hand with Made Bertin, and other French agents of a like cast, has no less than 200 boxes arrived or arriving here, filled with gauzes, pompons, and other trash, from Paris, together with new valets de chambre, and various designs for preposterous headdresses. It is impossible the Empress could have wounded Her Imperial Highness in a more sensible part. I am certain when the news of it reaches her,, which it will at Riga, that it will hurt her more feelingly than any event which might have affected the glory and welfare of the empire.

The state of my health, which I have not exaggerated, now renders my passing another winter here literally impossible. Let me entreat you, my dear Lord, to tell me whether you would have me formally and officially solicit my recall, or whether you would be kind enough to take the management of this business on yourself; I am most ready to trust these, and even dearer interests, entirely to your discretion and friendship. Allow me, however, to repeat, that I cannot, without the most certain injury to my health, and without the probable danger of not escaping as I have now done, prolong my residence here to a later period than that of July or August next, which last month, in this horrid climate, is the beginning of autumn, and its arrival has ever been the signal of my annual illness. In saying this, I speak the language of my physician, who, if I had not urged the impossibility of it, was for sending me out of the country this winter.

I have exhausted politics in my other letters. If I did not see that it would be acting in contradiction to the ruling opinion of the day, I should have expressed more clearly my misgivings relative to the sincerity of the King of Prussia. I have been so accustomed to his art and duplicity, and from experience know the numberless and astonishing means he has to convey intelligence of a kind the most suitable to his views and interests, where