Thus far Catherine had acted like other monsters of both sexes. Her next measures were as weak towards men as they were profane in the face of Heaven. In very silly manifestoes she endeavoured to justify her crimes; and dared even to call on the Most High as the instigator of her abominations, speaking of her husband but as her neighbour, and of his death as a judgment. Vain and contemptible was this attempt: it could blind none but those who would be willing to acquit her without it.
The Princess Daskau soon lost the favour she had so blackly merited; and Rosamouski, Hetman of the Tartars, whom many accused as the very assassin of his master, but who, as his friends urged, was forced into the conspiracy, went into a voluntary exile. Orloff had gained deeper hold on his mistress, and kept her in subjection. Panin, governor of her son, was another of the principal conspirators. Bestucheff, the late chancellor, was recalled; and thus he, Count Munich, Biron, once Duke of Courland, and master of the empire, with the various exiles of the late reigns, found themselves again together at Petersburgh.237
After the murdered Prince himself, no man was likely to be more affected by this revolution than the King of Prussia. The Russians, so lately his enemies, had not been pleased to become his allies. But, though the new Empress was necessitated to comply with the wishes of her subjects in withdrawing them from that service, she was not disposed in so critical a situation to renew the war, or to add provocation to a man whom she had deprived of so useful and essential a friend. She therefore only made the requisition of the thirty thousand Russians in his service, but allowed him for a few days to profit by their assistance, and extricate himself out of this new difficulty. He returned for answer, that he would only drive Marshal Daun from the hills before him, and her troops should return. He did so. This was taking his part with admirable presence of mind. He knew that Daun must in a day or two learn the departure of the Russian troops, and would attack him when weakened.
CHAPTER XIII.
Birth of the Prince of Wales.—Treasure of the Hermione.—Conquest of the Havannah.—Indifference of the Court on that event.—Negotiations for Peace.—Not popular in England.—Reception in France of the Duke of Bedford.—The Duc de Nivernois.—Beckford elected Lord Mayor.—Duel between Lord Talbot and Wilkes.—Lord Bute’s Delegates in the House of Commons.—Grenville and Lord Bute.—Union of Lord Bute and Fox.—The latter reproached by the Duke of Cumberland.—Lord Waldegrave and the Duke of Devonshire decline the proposal of Fox.—Disgust at the union of Bute and Fox.—Purchase of a majority to approve the Peace.—Fox’s revenge against the Duke of Devonshire.—The King and the Marquis of Rockingham.—Further severity to the Duke of Devonshire.
On the 12th of August, the Queen was delivered of a Prince of Wales; and the same morning the treasure of that capital prize, the Hermione, arrived in town in many waggons, and passed through the City to the Tower. The sum taken amounted to near eight hundred thousand pounds.
In the beginning of the following month came the first news from the Havannah; and before the end of it we learned the entire conquest of that important place by the three Keppels,238—the Earl of Albemarle, the Commodore and the Colonel his brothers. The honour they won was a little soiled by their rapaciousness and by our great loss of men: but to Spain the blow was of the deepest consequence, and the place irrecoverable by any force they could exert. Yet such a victory seemed to infuse as little joy into the Court of St. James’s as into that of Madrid. The Favourite and his creatures took no part in the transports of the nation; and, when he declined availing himself of any merit from the conquest, it was plain he was grieved either to have more to restore at the peace, or less reason for making that peace but on the most advantageous terms: but he was infatuated, and, breaking through all the barriers of glory, he sent the Duke of Bedford to Paris to settle the preliminaries, whence the Duc de Nivernois arrived for the same purpose.
Sullen and silent as Mr. Pitt was, and feeble and impotent as the faction of Newcastle, still the City and merchants showed some symptoms of indignation at this obstinate alacrity for treating. The Duke of Bedford was hissed as he passed through the principal streets; and treasonable papers were dispersed in the villages round London. But in France the Duke was received as their guardian angel. The most distinguished and unusual honours were paid to him; and the principal magistrate of Calais, thinking him descended from the other John Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry the Fifth, complimented his Grace (and no doubt felicitated himself on the comparison) on seeing him arrive with as salutary and pacific, as his great ancestor had formerly landed there with hostile intentions.
His counterpart, the Duc de Nivernois, had been long employed in negotiations at Rome and Berlin, but had not the good fortune to please at the latter Court, where the King even turned into ridicule his puny and emaciated little figure. His ill-health, the titles that had centred in his person, and had filled him with vanity (for he was Peer of France, Prince of the Empire, Grandee of Spain, and a Roman Baron), and his affection for polite learning, had disposed him to live in a retired circle of humble admirers, to whom he almost daily repeated his works both in prose and verse; but not without having attempted to soar higher. He had assumed devotion, in hopes of being Governor to the Dauphin: but, except in concluding the peace, which, considering our eagerness, he could not avoid concluding, he had never met with brilliant success in any of his pursuits; being, as the celebrated Madame Geoffrin239 said of him, “Guerrier manqué, politique manqué, bel esprit manqué, enfin manqué partout.” To England he bore no good-will: and though, till the treaty was signed, he concealed, as much as peevishness would let him, the disgust he took to this country, and was profuse in attentions to all, and in assiduity of court to the Favourite and his faction, yet, though he remained here a very little time after the signature, his nature broke forth, and scarce was enough good-breeding left to skin over the sore reluctance of a momentary stay.240
The nation was far less impatient than the Court for peace; and, though no great burst of spirit appeared against it, there were sufficient symptoms of ill-humour to warn the prime minister, that, without redoubling his industry and taking more solid measures, he might still be foiled in the attempt of forcing an inglorious peace on the nation. Beckford, who had been desirous of resigning his alderman’s gown, was, against his will, elected Lord Mayor; a mark of their good-will to his friend, Mr. Pitt. The North Briton spread the alarm as much as possible; but the flippancy of the author began to draw storms on his own head. Wilkes having in one of those papers ridiculed the flattery of Lord Talbot, who, officiating as Lord High Constable at the Coronation, had endeavoured to back his horse to the gate of Westminster Hall, that he might not turn his own back on the King, was challenged by Lord Talbot; and after a series of letters, which had more the air of a treaty than a defiance, and consequently reflected no great honour on either, they fought a bloodless duel on Bagshot Heath.
These little rubs having alarmed the Favourite, he began to consider how ill-qualified his delegates would be to support his treaty in the House of Commons, if either warmly or wittily attacked. It was too precious a cause to trust to Sir Francis Dashwood. Grenville had not much more credit, though more sense and gravity; but was tedious and ill-heard, and had been trained to such obsequious deference for Mr. Pitt, that at that time no man thought him likely or proper to be opposed to so capital a master. Grenville was besides unsatisfied; and, aiming higher, had been unwilling to risk an appearance