Being merely a
copy from my travelling notes, they are undigested and imperfect, but
may still, perhaps, give hints capable of improvement in your mind.
The affairs of Europe are in such a state still, that it is impossible
to say what form they will take ultimately. France and Prussia, viewing
the Emperor as their most dangerous and common enemy, had heretofore
seen their common safety as depending on a strict connection with
one another. This had naturally inclined the Emperor to the scale
of England, and the Empress also, as having views in common with the
Emperor, against the Turks. But these two powers would, at any time,
have gladly quitted England, to coalesce with France, as being the power
which they met every where, opposed as a barrier to all their schemes
of aggrandizement. When, therefore, the present King of Prussia took
the eccentric measure of bidding defiance to France, by placing his
brother-in-law on the throne of Holland, the two empires immediately
seized the occasion of soliciting an alliance with France. The motives
for this appeared so plausible, that it was believed the latter would
have entered into this alliance, and that thus the whole political
system of Europe would have taken a new form.
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