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

[450] and his paper was pronounced by Marie Antoinette to

Chap. XXI.} 1781.

be a masterpiece of political wisdom. But all was in vain. England would still have no negotiation with France for peace till that power should give up its connection with insurgent America; John Adams was ready to go to Vienna, but only on condition of being received by the mediating powers as the plenipotentiary of an independent state; Spain shunned all mediation, knowing that no mediator would award to her Gibraltar.

Mortified at his ill success, Kaunitz threw the blame of it upon the unreasonable pretensions of the British ministry; and Austria joined herself to the powers which held that the British government owed concessions to America. Meantime he consoled his emperor for the failure of the mediation by saying: ‘As to us, there is more to gain than to lose by the continuation of the war, which becomes useful to us by the mutual exhaustion of those who carry it on and by the commercial advantages which accrue to us so long as it lasts.’¹ The British ministry was willing to buy the alliance of Catharine by the cession of Minorca, and to propitiate Joseph by opening the Scheldt; but the desires of both were mainly directed to the east and south. Catharine could not conceive why Europe should be unwilling to see Christianity rise again into life and power on the Bosphorus. ‘We will guarantee to you,’ said Potemkin to Joseph, ‘all the conquests that you may make, except in Germany or in Poland.’ ‘Rome,’ wrote the