Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/353

 THE MISSION OF LORD JOHN KUSSELL. 321 at Berlin there were none of the ingredients chap. needed for forming a league. Concurrently with IL a professed willingness on the part of the king to concede the supremacy of Germany to Austria, the feeling against her of both the sovereign and his minister appeared to be one of bitter and deep animosity. The king wished, Lord John saw, to avoid a war with either Eussia or the Allies, and was so anxious to abstain from acts tending to commit him to the Western Powers, that, al- though resenting his exclusion from the Confer- ence, he would not purchase his readmission by engaging himself to any definite course of action. The king declared that admission to the Confer- ence was his right, and that those who had ex- cluded him would repent of it. The king said he was not the adherent but the friend of the Czar, and that ' as his friend ' he had frequently given Mm unpalatable advice. He said he be- lieved in the bottom of his heart that the Czar sincerely desired peace, and would make any sac- rifice for it compatible with the dignity of his crown. On the whole, Lord John Eussell thus wrote of the Prussian king: — 'While pursuing ' a policy to the last degree selfish, he gives him- '• self the air of an injured prince, and assumes for
 * his State a position ambiguous rather than dig-

' nified. His object evidently is to restrain Austria ' from acting on behalf of the Allies, and perhaps VOL. VIII. X
 * to induce the Western Powers to accede to such
 * terms of peace as may be compatible with the
 * interests of Eussia.' The manful Prince of