or France any harm. It was not with that view that I endeavoured to promote its influence here, but because I found that of Prussia in constant opposition to me; and because I thought that if I could by any means smite this, I should get rid of my greatest obstacle. I was mistaken, and, by a singular fatality, the Courts of Vienna and Berlin seem never to have agreed in anything but in the disposition to prejudice us here by turns. [How much was England not prejudiced by the Courts of Vienna and Paris, thwarting the plan of the British Cabinet of ceding Minorca to Russia and by Frederick of Prussia’s resistance against the great Chatham’s scheme of a Northern Alliance under Muscovite auspices.] The proposal relative to Minorca was the last attempt I made to induce the Empress to stand forth. I had exhausted my strength and resources; the freedom with which I had spoken in my last interview with her, though respectful, had displeased; and from this period to the removal of the late Administration [44] I have been reduced to act on