Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century

3. Impartial Reflections by way of essay on the Foregoing Instrument.^[60]

“If we would take a true survey of men, and lay them open in a proper light to the eye of our intellects, we must first consider their natures and then their ends; and by this method of examination, though their conduct is, seemingly, full of intricate mazes and perplexities, and winding round with infinite meanders of state-craft, we shall be able to dive into the deepest recesses, make our way through the most puzzling labyrinths, and at length come to the most abstruse means of bringing about the master-secrets of their minds, and to unriddle their utmost mysteries...

“The Czar ... is, by nature, of a great and enterprising spirit, and of a genius thoroughly politic; and as for his ends, the manner of his own Government, where he sways arbitrary lord over the estates and honours of his people, must make him, if all the policies in the world could by far-distant aims promise him accession and accumulation of empire and wealth, be everlastingly laying schemes for the achieving of both with the extremest cupidity and ambition. Whatever ends an insatiate desire of opulency, and a boundless thirst for dominion, can ever put him upon, to satisfy their craving and voracious appetites, those must, most undoubtedly, be his.

“The next questions we ate to put to ourselves are these three:

“1. By what means can he gain these ends?

“2. How far from him, and in what place, (:an these ends he best obtained?

“3. And by what time, using all proper methods, and succeeding in them, may he obtain these ends?