becomes as great as ever.'[1] Two months before these words were written, Harris had described the French as indefatigable in their efforts to get round the Empress: their agents were many at Petersburg, and they spared no expense and no pains to overset everything that he undertook.[2] In this very month–May 1780–the British representative had his character drawn not unfairly in an instruction, signed by Louis XVI and by Vergennes, to one regarding whom Catherine had given the assurance that he would be very well received at her Court as Minister Plenipotentiary from France: 'Il paroît que le ministre anglais à Pétersbourg est l'homme le plus capable de mettre à profit ce que la ruse et les petits moyens peuvent faire pour suppléer aux avantages qu'il sent bien avoir perdus.'[3]
Monarchy rests, in principle, on unity, and it emphasizes the need for stability in the conduct of affairs of State. Effective monarchy affords, during its continuance, a better guarantee for persistence in policy and consistency in action than a democracy or a parliamentary government, based on diversities, on discussion, on considerable publicity, and on provisions duly made within the constitution for changes in policy in response to changes in opinion. But facts and conditions relative to each constitution—the extent, for example, to which monarchy can proceed without carrying the nation with it—are the determining forces. They overrule forms, and mould the instruments of rule. A monarchy may pursue methods that are essentially democratic—methods that not only have the
- ↑ Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, first Earl of Malmesbury, i, (2nd ed.), 281–2. The dispatch, July 21/August 1, 1780, dealt with conversations with Potemkin during a visit of five days to his country house in Finland. Of Potemkin Harris wrote: 'His way of life is as singular as his character; his hours for eating.and sleeping are uncertain, and we were frequently airing in the rain in an open carriage at midnight.'
- ↑ Ibid. 266, May 15/26, 1780.
- ↑ Instructions …: Russie, ii. 367, May 6, 1780.
