Page:Karl Marx - Secret Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century (1899).djvu/14

 10 bear his grand scheme of uniting the Powers of the North. Nothing, then, will be wanted to render it entirely perfect but the conclusion of a treaty alliance with Great Britain. I am persuaded this Court desires it most ardently. The Empress has expressed herself more than once, in terms that marked it strongly. Her ambition is to form, by such an union, a certain counterpoise to the family compact, and to disappoint, as much as possible, all the views of the Courts o Vienna and Versailles, against which she is irritated with uncommon resentment. I am not, however to conceal from your lordship that we can have no hope of any such alliance, unless we agree, by some secret article to pay a subsidy in case of a Turkish war, for no money will be desired from us, except upon an emergency of that nature. I flatter myself I have persuaded this Court of the unreasonableness of expecting any subsidy in time of peace, and that an alliance upon an equal footing will be more sate and more honourable for both nations. I can assure your lordship that a Turkish war's being a casus fœderis inserted either in the body of the treaty or in a secret article, will be a sine quâ non in every negotiation we may have to open with this Court. The obstinacy of M. Panin upon that point is owing to the accident I am going to mention When the treaty between the Emperor and the King of Prussia was in agitation, the Count Bestoucheff, who is a mortal enemy to the latter, proposed the Turkish clause, persuaded that the King of Prussia would never submit to it, and flattering himself with the hopes of blowing up that negotiation by his refusal. But this old politician, it seemed, was mistaken in his conjecture for his Majesty immediately consented to the proposal on condition that Russia should make no alliance with any other Power but on the same terms. This is the real fact, and to con-