Friedrich has none of these compunctious visitings; but his account too, when he does happen to speak on the subject, is worth hearing, and credible every word. Writing to Voltaire, a good while after (POTSDAM, 9th OCTOBER, 1773)) this, in the swift-flowing, miscellaneous Letter, is one passage:... "To return to your King of Poland. I am aware that Europe pretty generally believes the late Partition made (QU'ON A FAIT) of Poland to be a result of the Political trickeries (MANIGANCES) which are attributed to me; nevertheless, nothing is more untrue. After in vain proposing different arrangements and expedients, there was no alternative left but either that same Partition, or else Europe kindled into a general War. Appearances are deceitful; and the Public judges only by these. What I tell you is as true as the Forty-seventh of Euclid." [_OEuvres de Frederic_, xxiii. 257.]
WHAT FRIEDRICH DID WITH HIS NEW ACQUISITION.
Considerable obloquy still rests on Friedrich, in many liberal circles, for the Partition of Poland. Two things, however, seem by this time tolerably clear, though not yet known in liberal circles: first, that the Partition of Poland was an event inevitable in Polish History; an operation of Almighty Providence and of the Eternal Laws of Nature, as well as of the poor earthly Sovereigns concerned there; and secondly, that Friedrich had nothing special to do with it, and, in the way of originating or causing it, nothing whatever.
It is certain the demands of Eternal Justice must be fulfilled: in earthly instruments, concerned with fulfilling them, there may be all degrees of demerit and also of merit,--from that of a world-ruffian Attila the Scourge of God, conscious of his own ferocities and cupidities alone, to that of a heroic Cromwell, sacredly aware that he is, at his soul's peril, doing God's Judgments on the enemies of God, in Tredah and other severe scenes. If the Laws and Judgments are verily those of God, there can be no clearer merit than that of pushing them forward, regardless of the barkings of Gazetteers and wayside dogs, and getting them, at the earliest term possible, made valid among recalcitrant mortals! Friedrich, in regard to Poland, I cannot find to have had anything considerable either of merit or of demerit, in the moral point of view; but simply to have accepted, and put in his pocket without criticism, what Providence sent. He himself evidently views it in that light; and is at no pains to conceal his great sense of the value of West-Preussen to him. We praised his Narrative as eminently true, and the only one completely intelligible in every point: in his Preface to it, written some years later, he is still more candid. Speaking there in the first person, this once and never before or after,--he says:--