George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[242] of Prussia.¹ But from Petersburg Harris wrote:

Chap. XI.} 1778.

‘They never will be brought to subscribe to any stipulations in favor of our contest with the colonies.’ ‘Our influence, never very high, has quite vanished.’² Frederic relented so far as to allow a few recruits for the English army to pass through his dominions; and as a German prince he let it be known that he would save Hanover from French aggression; but proposals for closer relations with England were inflexibly declined. ‘He is hostile,’ wrote Suffolk,³ ‘to that kingdom to whose liberal support in the last war he owes his present existence amongst the powers of Europe;’ and the British ministry of that day looked upon the aid which he had received in the time of the elder Pitt as a very grave mistake.⁴ Prussia should have been left to perish.

Through his minister in France, Frederic sent word to Maurepas and Vergennes: ‘All the pains which the king of England may take to make an alliance with me will be entirely thrown away. The interests of the state and my own views turn in another direction.’⁵ ‘Peace is as dear and precious to me as to the ministry of Versailles; but as nothing less is at stake than the liberty and constitutions of all the Germanic body, I, one of their principal bulwarks, should fail in duty as an elector if I were willing to acquiesce in the despotism of Austria. Rather than be guilty of such weakness, I should ’