Gunning, who found himself most unexpectedly put upon the defensive, answered: "Resentment has not yet found its way into his majesty's councils." But Catharine repeated her wishes for a speedy and a peaceful end to the difference, citing her own example of lenity and concession as the best mode of suppressing a rebellion.

Late on the twenty-fourth the first courier of Lord Suffolk reached Moscow a few hours after Catharine's departure for some days of religious seclusion in the monastery at Voskresensk. As no time was to be lost, Gunning hastened to Panin, who received him cordially, and consented to forward to the empress in her retirement a copy of the king's letter. He next repaired to the vice-chancellor, Ostermann, who calmly explained to him the impossibility of conceding the request for troops.

The empress having, on the thirtieth, returned to Moscow, Gunning waited on Panin by appointment. The autograph letter, which he wished to deliver to her in person, said positively that she had made him an offer of troops; Panin insisted on an acknowledgment that no such offer had been made, and, after much expostulation, Gunning confessed: "It is true; in your answer to me, no explicit mention was made of troops." Panin then gave the message of the empress, that she was affected by the cordiality of the king, that in return her friendship was equally warm, but that she had much repugnance to the employment of her troops in America. "And could not his majesty," asked Panin, "make use of Hanoverians?"

Gunning, in reply, spoke at great length on the gratitude due from the empress to the British king, and desired Panin to deliver to her the autograph letter of George III.

The next morning, before Panin was up, Gunning hurried to him, and, to remove objections, offered to be content with a corps of fifteen thousand men. It was the grand duke's birthday; he repaired to court to see the empress, but she did not appear. He returned to the palace in the evening; but the empress, feigning indisposition, excused herself from seeing him.

Meantime, the proposal was debated in council; and objec tions without end rose up against the traffic in troops. Besides, a naked demand of twenty thousand men to serve in America

under British command as mercenaries, with no liberty left to herself but to fix the price of her subjects in money, and so plunge her hand as deeply as she pleased into the British exchequer, was an insult to her honor. She framed, accordingly, a sarcastic and unequivocal answer: "I am just beginning to enjoy peace, and your majesty knows that my empire has need of repose. There is an impropriety in employing so considerable a body in another hemisphere, under a power almost unknown to it, and almost removed from all correspondence with its sovereign. Moreover, I should not be able to prevent myself from reflecting on the consequences which would result for our dignity, for that of the two monarchies and the two nations, from this junction of our forces, simply to calm a rebellion which is not supported by any foreign power."

The letter of the king of England to the empress was in his own hand; her answer was purposely in that of her private secretary.

The answer was so exceptionable that the British envoy was in doubt whether it was fit to be received; but he suppressed his discontent. His king found the manner of the empress not "genteel;" for, said he, "she has not had the civility to answer me in her own hand; and has thrown out expressions that may be civil to a Russian ear, but certainly not to more civilized ones."

The conduct of this negotiation was watched by every court from Moscow to Madrid; but no foreign influence had any share in determining the empress. The decision was founded on her own judgment and that of her ministers. When a transient report prevailed, that the English request was to be granted, Vergennes wrote to the French envoy at Moscow: "I cannot reconcile Catharine's elevation of soul with the dishonorable idea of trafficking in the blood of her subjects." To the envoy Panin denied the truth of the rumor, adding: "Nor is it consistent with the dignity of England to employ foreign troops against its own subjects."

The empress continued to be profuse of courtesies to Gunning; and, when in December he took his leave, she renewed the assurances of her readiness to assist his king on all occasions, adding: "But one cannot go beyond one's means."

CHAPTER XVIII.

FINAL ANSWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMERICA.

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 1775.

THE members of parliament, as they reached London for the session, heard rumors that the empress of Russia was to spare a large detachment from her army to aid in suppressing the rebellion in America. "When the Russians arrive, will you go and see their camp?" wrote Edward Gibbon, the great historian, in October, to a friend. "The worst of it is, the Baltic will soon be frozen up, and it must be late next year before they can get to America." Couriers from Moscow dispelled this confidence.

Vergennes found it difficult to believe that the mistakes of the British ministers could be so great as they really were. He received hints of negotiations for Russian troops; yet could the king of England be willing to send foreign mercenaries to make war on his own subjects? Henry IV. of France would not have accepted the aid of foreign troops to reduce Paris; their employment by Britain would render it impossible in any event to restore affectionate relations between the parent state and the colonies. So reasoned the guiding statesman of France, but the British government, with fierce impetuosity, turned to the many princelings of Germany, who now had the British exchequer at their mercy. Loyal addresses began to come in, to the joy of Lord North; but the king saw danger to the royal authority in any appeal to popular opinion. So long as the public was under the delusion that the colonies had long premeditated independence, violent measures were acquiesced in "by a majority of individuals of all ranks and profes

sions," and no effect was produced on the funds or on com

merce.

"I am fighting the battle of the legislature," said the king as the time of meeting parliament drew near; "I therefore have a right to expect an almost unanimous support; I know the uprightness of my intentions, and am ready to stand any attack of ever so dangerous a kind." The good sense of the English people reasoned very differently, and found an organ among the ministers. The duke of Grafton by letter entreated Lord North to go great lengths to bring about a durable reconciliation, giving as his reasons that "the general inclination of men of property in England differed from the declarations of the congress in America little more than in words; that many hearty friends to government had altered their opinions by the events of the year; that their confidence in a strong party among the colonists, ready to second a regular military force, was at an end; that, if the British regular force should be doubled, the Americans, whose behavior already had far surpassed every one's expectation, could and would increase theirs accordingly; that the contest was not only hopeless, but fraught with disgrace; that the attendant expenses would lay upon the country a burden which nothing could justify but an insult from a foreign enemy; that, therefore, the colonies should be invited by their deputies to state to parliament their wishes and expectations, and a truce be proclaimed, until the issue should be known."

Of this communication Lord North took no note whatever until within six days of the opening of parliament, and then replied by enclosing a copy of the intended speech. Hastening to court, Grafton complained of the violent and impracticable schemes of the ministers, framed in a misconception of the resources of the colonies; and he added: "Deluded themselves, they are deluding your majesty." The king debated the business at large; but when he announced that a numerous body of German troops was to join the British forces, Grafton answered: "Your majesty will find too late that twice the number will only increase the disgrace, and never effect the purpose.' On the twenty-sixth of October, two days after the failure * From the papers of the duke of Grafton, communicated to me in 1847.

of the first great effort to hire Russian mercenaries became known to the government, the king met the parliament. Making no allusion to the American congress or to its petition for conciliation and peace, he charged the colonies with levying a rebellious war for the purpose of establishing an independent empire. He professed to have received the most friendly offers of foreign assistance. He recommended an increase of the navy and the army; at the same time, he proposed to send commissioners with power to grant pardons and receive the submission of the several colonies.

In the house of commons Acland, who moved the address, presented the question as between the independence of America, or her submission?" Lyttelton, a former governor of South Carolina, in seconding him, "seemed to take pleasure in informing the house that the negroes in the southern colony were numerous, and ready to imbrue their hands in the blood of their masters." The address was adopted by a vote of two hundred and seventy-eight against one hundred and ten.

On the report of the address, the debate was renewed. "If we suffer by the war," said Lord North, "the Americans will suffer much more. Yet," he added, "I wish to God, if it were possible, to put the colonies as they were in 1763.” His seeming disinclination to the measures of his own ministry drew on him a rebuke from Fox for not resigning his place. "The present war," argued Adair at length, "took its rise from the assertion of a right, at best but doubtful in itself; from whence the warmest advocates for it have long been forced to admit that this country can never derive a single shilling of advantage. The Americans say: 'Place us in the situation of the year sixty-three, and we will return to our constitutional subjection.' Take them at their word. If they should recede from their own proposals, you may then have recourse to war, with the advantage of a united instead of a divided people at home." Sir Gilbert Elliot was unwilling "to send a large armament to America without sending at the same time terms of accommodation." "I vote for the address," said Rigby, "because it sanctifies coercive measures. America must be conquered, and the present rebellion must be