In his last Will, Peter the Great said that Russia must endeavour to increase her influence in Germany “by means of marriages, dowries, and annuities;” and that the value of the advice has been properly appreciated by his successors, the Morgen Post, in 1863, thus shows:—
“Prussia was bound to Russia by means of the marriage of Nicholas I. with Alexandra, the daughter of Frederic William III., and it may with truth be said that for a quarter of a century the King of Prussia obeyed the behests of his imperious son-in-law. Würtemberg is bound to Russia by three ties. The first wife of William I. was Catherine of Russia; the Crown Princess of Würtemberg is Olga Nicolajevna; and one of the King’s nieces is the Grand Duchess Helen, widow of the Grand Duke Michael. The Grand Duke of Oldenburg is a member of the Russian dynasty. The Grand Duchess Helen Paulovna (one of the sisters of the Emperor Nicholas) was married to the hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Prince George of Mecklenburg-Strelitz married the Grand Duchess Catherine Michaelovna in 1851. The mother of the present Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar was Maria Paulovna, another sister of the Emperor Nicholas. The Grand Duke Constantine, at present Stattholder in Poland, is married to a Princess of the House of Saxe-Altenburg. The late Grand Duke Constantine, the uncle of the last-mentioned Prince, was married to Anna Theodorovna, a Princess of Saxe-Coburg. The wife of the Emperor Alexander II. is a scion of the Grand Ducal House of Hesse-Darmstadt. Prince Frederick, the heir-presumptive to the throne of Hesse-Cassel, was married to Alexandra, the daughter of the late Emperor Nicholas. The wife of the Grand Duke Michael, who is now Stattholder in the Caucasus, is Olga Theodorovna of Baden-Baden. The first wife of Duke Adolphus of Nassau was the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Michaelovna. The Dowager-Queen of the Netherlands, the mother of King William III., is a Princess of the House of Russia. The Russian dynasty is connected with Bavaria by means of the Leuchtenbergs, and with Hanover by means of Queen Maria Alexandrine, who is the sister of the above-mentioned Grand Duchess Constantine.”
Count Cavour’s Estimate of Napoleon III.
Of the character and policy of Louis Napoleon, Cavour was accustomed to speak with much freedom. No one had better opportunities than Cavour of sounding their depths. He was the only living man who had ventured to grapple with him face to face, and who had used him for his purpose. The estimate he had formed of his capacity was not a high one; but he fully admitted his fertility of resource, his physical and moral courage, and his knowledge of the people he governs. “He has no definite policy,” he remarked to an English friend. “He has a number of political ideas floating in his mind, none of them matured. They would seem to be convictions founded upon instinct. He will not steadily pursue any single idea if a serious object presents itself, but will give way and take up another. This is the mot d’énigme to his policy. It is by steadily keeping this in view that I have succeeded in thwarting his designs, or in inducing him to adopt a measure. The only principle—if principle it can be called—which connects together these various ideas is the establishment of his dynasty, and the conviction that the best way to secure it is by feeding the national vanity of the French people. He found France, after the fall of the Orleanist and Republican Governments, holding but a second place among the great Powers; he has raised her to the very first. Look at his wars, look at his foreign policy; he has never gone one step beyond what was absolutely necessary to obtain this one object. The principle ostentatiously put forward in the first instance has been forgotten or discarded as soon as his immediate end has been accomplished. It was so in the war with Russia; it has been so in the war with Austria. In the Crimea he was satisfied with the success of his army in the capture of Sebastopol, which took from the English troops the glory they had earned by their devotion and courage, and to which they would have added had the war continued. In the struggle with Austria, he was astounded by the greatness of the victories of Magenta and Solferino. The military glory of France had been satiated, and he thought no more of the liberty of Italy, of that free and united nation which he was to have called into existence from the Alps to the Adriatic.
“It is this uncertain policy guided by dynastic and selfish considerations, which makes him so dangerous to you, and which renders it necessary that you should ever be on your guard. Not that he is hostile to England, or that he has any definite design against her. On the contrary, he has much affection for your country. He is a man of generous impulses, and has strong feelings of gratitude towards those who have served and befriended him. At the bottom of his heart he is greatly attached to Italy. His earliest recollections are bound up with her. He is to this day a carbonaro in his desire for Italian freedom and hatred of Austria. He has not forgotten the kindness and hospitality shown to him when an exile in England. He admires your institutions and the character of the English people. But all this is as nothing when compared with the maintenance of his dynasty, the establishment of which he looks upon almost in the light of a religious obligation. If the moment came when he thought a sacrifice necessary to sustain it, however great that sacrifice might be, however painful or repugnant to his feelings, he would make it. No one has had better opportunities of knowing him than I have. He has talked to me with the greatest openness of his future plans. But he has invariably assured me at the same time that his first object was to maintain peace and good understanding with England. I believe,” he solemnly added, “that, from policy, as well as from affection, such are his views; and that only in a moment of the utmost emergency, when he was convinced that his influence in France depended upon it, would he depart from them. But that moment may come, and you would be madmen if you were not prepared for it.”—Quarterly Review, No. 222.
The Mutiny at the Nore.
In 1797, when Capt. William Linder had the Thetis, and was returning to England, having on board the “Prussian subsidy,” amounting to nearly half a million sterling, he was taken prisoner by the mutineer William Parker, and detained, with his vessel and valuable cargo, for a week at the Nore. The rebel, little suspecting the prize he had within his grasp, credited the assertion of Capt. Linder that the aid would shortly arrive, and that he was to be the medium of its transmission to this country. By this ruse, and a promise of assistance by which Parker decided that he would take the grand fleet into Brest, he obtained a pass (it is believed the only one given) from William Parker, and arrived safely with his immense treasure at the Tower, where he immediately landed his golden cargo, and forthwith proceeded to the Admiralty,—also giving information to the minister, Mr. Pitt, of his fortunate escape, which, had it been otherwise, would certainly have turned the tide of success of Old England at that time. Mr. Pitt generously offered him a commission; but Capt. Linder having a fine vessel of his own, and a noble and independent spirit, which he retained to the last, respectfully declined; nor could he be induced in after years to solicit for any recompense or popularity. He died in 1862, May 21, at the age of eighty-seven.—Athenæum.
Catholic Emancipation and Sir Robert Peel.
It having been stated, in a leading article of a journal, April 14, 1862, that the Liberal party forced upon the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel that concession to the cause of Catholic emancipation “which Sir Robert Peel declares he entirely disapproved to the latest day of his life,” drew from the present Sir Robert Peel the following corrective reply: