The retirement of Pitt seemed to be an omen of utter ruin to the House of Brandenburg.His proud and vehement nature was incapable of anything that looked like either fear or treachery.He had often declared that, while he was in power, England should never make a peace of Utrecht, should never, for any selfish object, abandon an ally even in the last extremity of distress.The Continental war was his own war.He had been bold enough, he who in former times had attacked, with irresistible powers of oratory, the Hanoverian policy of Carteret, and the German subsidies of Newcastle, to declare that Hanover ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire, and that he would conquer America in Germany.He had fallen; and the power which he had exercised, not always with discretion, but always with vigour and genius, had devolved on a favourite who was the representative of the Tory party, of the party which had thwarted William, which had persecuted Marlborough, which had given tip the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip of Anjou.To make peace with France, to shake off, with all, or more than all, the speed compatible with decency, every Continental connection, these were among the chief objects of the new Minister.The policy then followed inspired Frederic with an unjust, but deep and bitter aversion to the English name, and produced effects which are still felt throughout the civilised world.To that policy it was owing that, some years later, England could not find on the whole Continent a single ally to stand by her, in her extreme need against the House of Bourbon.To that policy it was owing that Frederic, alienated from England, was compelled to connect himself closely, during his later years, with Russia, and was induced to assist in that great crime, the fruitful parent of other great crimes, the first partition of Poland.
Scarcely had the retreat of Mr.Pitt deprived Prussia of her only friend, when the death of Elizabeth produced an entire revolution in the politics of the North.The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who now ascended the Russian throne, was not merely free from the prejudices which his aunt had entertained against Frederic, but was a worshipper, a servile imitator of the great King.The days of the new Czar's government were few and evil, but sufficient to produce a change in the whole state of Christendom.He set the Prussian prisoners at liberty, fitted them out decently, and sent them back to their master; he withdrew his troops from the provinces which Elizabeth had decided on incorporating with her dominions; and he absolved all those Prussian subjects, who had been compelled to swear fealty to Russia, from their engagements.
Not content with concluding peace on terms favourable to Prussia, he solicited rank in the Prussian service, dressed himself in a Prussian uniform, wore the Black Eagle of Prussia on his breast, made preparations for visiting Prussia, in order to have an interview with the object of his idolatry, and actually sent fifteen thousand excellent troops to reinforce the shattered army of Frederic.Thus strengthened, the King speedily repaired the losses of the preceding year, reconquered Silesia, defeated Daun at Buckersdorf, invested and retook Schweidnitz, and, at the close of the year, presented to the forces of Maria Theresa a front as formidable as before the great reverses of 1759.Before the end of the campaign, his friend, the Emperor Peter, having, by a series of absurd insults to the institutions, manners, and feelings of his people, united them in hostility to his person and government, was deposed and murdered.The Empress, who, under the title of Catherine the Second, now assumed the supreme power, was, at the commencement of her administration, by no means partial to Frederic, and refused to permit her troops to remain under his command.But she observed the peace made by her husband; and Prussia was no longer threatened by danger from the East.
England and France at the same time paired off together.They concluded a treaty, by which they bound themselves to observe neutrality with respect to the German war.Thus the coalitions on both sides were dissolved; and the original enemies, Austria and Prussia, remained alone confronting each other.