fellow-worker, the elder Pitt, called him.[1] He had, moreover, lived through the years of Prussia's humiliation and agony under the iron heel of Napoleon, and had witnessed her political recovery and her national triumph. He was a student of Frederick's historical writings,[2] and from laudation of his achievements and success he went back, and was almost forced, to approval of his means—to an apologia of his political morality. The same thinker declared that history would never forget the almost incredible exertions made by Britain in the final struggle against Napoleon for the liberation of Europe. In appraising her achievement he thought not only of the advantages conferred upon her by her insular position, but also of the fertilizing effects of her constitutional system in propagating on the Continent those political opinions which inspired the last fight against the despot and called for sustenance and constant encouragement if they were to prevail. He was no advocate for imposing her constitutional system as a general model, and yet he was so gravely impressed with the results of its working and with the force of its example, and so favourably disposed to the mediating function which Britain exercised among Continental Powers, as to express, not less for her than for his own country, the wish Esto Perpetua.[3] The recording of such judgements has at least the value that we may guard
- ↑ '… the heroic constancy of spirit and unexampled activity of mind of that truly great King.'—Pitt to Andrew Mitchell, September 9, 1760, Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1838), ii. 58. Cf. his letter to Mitchell, March 31, 1757: 'The most grateful sentiments of veneration and zeal for a Prince, who stands the unshaken bulwark of Europe, against the most powerful and malignant confederacy that ever yet has threatened the independence of mankind.'—Ellis, Original Letters, 2nd series, iv. 404.
- ↑ Contained in Œuvres posthumes de Frédéric II, Roi de Prusse, 12 tomes, Berlin (1788), published when Heeren was twenty-eight years of age.
- ↑ Historical Treatises, 420–2.
