Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348. Various
his salary, and said that he could keep neither an equipage nor a table; the king’s remark to him was—“You are a prodigal; you ought to know that it is more healthy to go on foot than it is to go in a carriage; and that, so far as eating is concerned, another man’s table is always the best.”
At this period Poland was in a state of great confusion. The Empress of Russia had marched an army into it for the purpose, as she declared, of allowing the popular representatives to act freely, while the king regarded himself as little better than her prisoner. Repnin, the Russian ambassador, actually commanded every thing; and the principal nobility of Poland were compelled to be his agents. Of course, this state of things never could have occurred in any country where the tone of manners was high; and Poland, though the people were brave, and the nobility in general patriotic, unquestionably fell by its own vices. The portrait drawn of Prince Radzivil is the reverse of flattering, but it is characteristic:—
“Prince Radzivil, the marshal of the confederation, was one of the most powerful princes of Poland. His revenues were nearly equal to half a million sterling a-year, though they were at this period much diminished by Russian ravages. He had at one time an army of eight thousand man, with which he opposed the Imperial progress. He afterwards became the tool of the Russian policy, and was rewarded with the first palatinate of the kingdom. He gave a masquerade on the empress’s birthday to near three thousand masks; and it was calculated that, besides the other wines, they drank a thousand bottles of champagne.” The prodigality of a Polish feast exceeds all comprehension. This prince kept open house on such a scale, that his five-and-twenty cooks were scarcely able to supply his table. The great article of luxury in Poland was Hungary wine, which they had in great perfection, but which was very costly. Champagne was drunk as cider. The multitude of servants in a Polish establishment must have been ruinous. Prince Czartoriski’s personal attendants and servants amounted to three hundred and seventy-five. Those in his country-house were still more numerous. His troops amounted to four thousand men. Prince Repnin, though of the Greek church, which abounds in forms and ceremonies, and in fasts exceeds all others, had so little regard for the forms of his religion, that he ordered a play to be acted on Ash Wednesday at Warsaw. Towards Christmas 1767, Lord Malmesbury, then Mr Harris, was at the house of a Polish nobleman in the hunting season. He observed to the king that he had never seen him in better spirits. “Ah!” was the royal answer, “it is very pleasant to delude one’s self sometimes.”
In 1768 Mr Harris began his diplomatic life as secretary of legation under Sir James Gray, then British minister at the court of Madrid.
He set out from Paris on the last day of the year, and after six-and-twenty days’ journey, in which he loitered but two days on the road, accomplished the eleven hundred miles without accident.
Though accustomed to Popish countries, the Spanish ceremonials of the Holy Week seem to have surprised him. In the streets was kept a second carnival, with a peculiar costume. The court and the higher orders wore black velvet, with flame-coloured waistcoats and sleeves trimmed with gold; the citizens left their shops, and spent the day in the streets. The king on Holy Thursday visited seven churches, washed the feet of twelve paupers, and afterwards served them at dinner. From Friday till Saturday all was silence, and no coaches were permitted in the streets. On Saturday at noon the bells rang, the people shouted, the coaches moved again, and all was clamour. From a personal knowledge of the people, Mr Harris pronounced that their defects arose from their religion and from their priests; both of which, by keeping the lower orders in a state of mendicity and the higher in a state of ignorance, prevent the progress of the nation. Even at this period, their dislike of the French was contemptuous and strongly marked.
The life of a diplomatic man is not unlike the life of a naval officer. He has frequent opportunities of signalizing himself in a small way. The cabinet is the admiral, commanding a large force, and acting on a large scale. The diplomatist is the captain of the frigate, thrown out at a distance to make his observations, and enabled to exhibit his intrepidity and talent, through, from the smallness of his means, the results may be equally small. In 1769, Sir James Gray returning to England, left Mr Harris behind him as chargé d’affaires. In the next year Spain, always jealous of any foreign approach to her South American possessions, fitted out a fleet for the purpose of expelling the British colony from the Falkland Isles. Harris acted spiritedly on this occasion. He instantly made so strong a representation to the Spanish minister, the Marquis Grimaldi, that he threw him into evident alarm. The letter to the British ministry which Harris wrote on the subject, satisfied them of the advantage of making a vigorous remonstrance. The result to the country was, that the colony, which had been seized, was restored, and that the officer who seized it was disgraced by the Spanish government. To Harris the whole transaction was regarded as honourable, and entitling him to the favour of his government. The result was, his being appointed, in 1771, as minister at the court of the most subtle and busy monarch of Europe, Frederick the Second.
We now come to the partition of Poland, the most momentous transaction of modern times; excepting the French Revolution, if even that revolution was not its consequence. Mr Harris makes his first communication on this important subject in March 1772. If we read his whole letter, the brevity of his announcement is a model even to diplomacy. He thus states the event to Lord Suffolk, then secretary of state.
“Just as I am going to make up my packet, I am informed that a treaty of partition, disposing of several parts of Poland, was signed at Petersburg on the 15th of last month, and that as soon as the certificates can be exchanged between the courts of Vienna, Berlin, and Russia, a congress will be held at Warsaw.” A few statements respecting the Prussian officers dispatched to the Polish frontier are given; and this seems to be the whole announcement of one of the most atrocious acts of perfidy and blood in the memory of Europe.
The French Revolution was begun on grounds independent of foreign disturbances. But no man can read the annals of the French war, without a conviction, that one of its providential purposes was the punishment of the three monarchies which had perpetrated this atrocity. Within a brief period from the first ruin of Polish independence, the French armies began those sweeping conquests which were destined especially to ravage Prussia, Austria, and Russia. The punishment seemed even to bear something like a proportion to the degree of guilt in each of the parties. The original proposer of the partition was Frederick, the strenuous participator was Catharine, and the unwilling, though consenting accomplice, was Joseph. Before that war was over, Napoleon reduced Prussia to the lowest condition of a conquered country, plundered her of millions of gold, held her fortresses by his garrisons, and treated her like a province. His invasion of Russia was next in havoc: the ravage of the country, the repulse and slaughter of her brave and patriotic armies, and the destruction of her ancient capital, were her share of the punishment. Austria suffered, but her suffering was of a lighter order—defeat in the field, havoc of the people, and the double capture of her capital; yet those wounds were rapidly healed, and the close of the war saw Austria taking a higher rank in Europe. Those struggles and sufferings extended over nearly a quarter of a century of unexampled bloodshed. It is remarkable that a project so fully entitled to excite the vigilance of all courts, seems to have been almost wholly overlooked by the English ministry; Lord Suffolk, in his confidential answer to the ambassador, simply styling it a curious transaction; and even in the more advanced stage of the affair, when the attention of the cabinet was called to it by the memorials of the Polish king and people, all that could be obtained was a verbal answer, evidently declining any interference on the subject, and contenting itself with the avoidance of approbation. The result of this singular negligence distinctly points out the course which should be taken by England in her continental policy. Her natural office is that of mediator and protector. Entertaining no views of conquest for herself, it is her duty to repress them in all others. If, in 1772, she had instantly issued a strong remonstrance to the three governments, it would have acted as an appeal to the reason of Europe. A fleet sent to the Baltic in support of that remonstrance would have acted upon the fears of the aggressors, and Poland would have been saved. The blood of the thousands shed in the war of independence would have been spared—the great crime of the century would have been partially avoided—and its punishment, in the shape of the revolutionary war, might never have been inflicted. The diplomatic and formal portion of this fatal event was thus announced by the ambassador to the British cabinet:—“Berlin, 19th September 1772.—I received