Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century

“As far as human foresight can at this moment penetrate, the despair of an enraged individual seems a more probable means to terminate the present scene of oppression, than any more systematic combination of measures to restore the throne of Russia to its dignity and importance.”

Chapter II

The documents published in the first chapter extend from the reign of the Empress Ann to the commencement of the reign of the Emperor Paul, thus encompassing the greater part of the 18th century. At the end of that century it had become, as stated by the Rev. Mr. Pitt, the openly-professed and orthodox dogma of English diplomacy,

“that the ties which bind Great Britain to the Russian Empire are formed by nature, and inviolable.”

In perusing these documents, there is something that startles us even more than their contents — viz., their form. All these letters are “confidential,” “private,” “secret,” “most secret”; but in spite of secrecy, privacy, and confidence, the English statesmen converse among each other about Russia and he ‘ r rulers in a tone of awful reserve, abject servility, and cynical submission, which would strike us even in the public despatches of Russian statesmen. To conceal intrigues against foreign nations secrecy is recurred to by Russian diplomatists. The same method is adopted by English diplomatists freely to express their devotion to a foreign court. The secret despatches of Russian diplomatists are fumigated with some equivocal perfume. It is one part the fumée de fausseté [veil of falsehood] as the Duke of St. Simon has it, and the other part that coquet display of one’s own superiority and cunning which stamps upon the reports of the French Secret Police their indelible character. Even the master despatches of Pozzo di Borgo.^[50] are tainted with this common blot of the littérature de mauvais lieu. [gutter literature] In this point the English secret despatches prove much superior. They do not affect superiority but silliness. For instance, can there be anything more silly than Mr. Rondeau informing Horace Walpole that he has betrayed to the Russian minister the letters addressed by the Turkish Grand Vizier to the King of England, but that he had told

“at the same time those gentlemen that as there were several hard reflections on the Russian Court he should not have communicated them, if they had not been so anxious to see them,”