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[268] who had passed through the love of the empress
Chap. XII.} 1779.
to a position of undefined and almost unlimited influence with the army, the Greek church, and the nobility. Possessing uncommon talents and address, he would, with a better education, have held a high position in any country. By descent and character, he was the truest representative of Russian nationality. Leaving the two chief maritime powers of western Europe, both of whom wished to preserve the Ottoman empire in its integrity, to wear out each other, Potemkin, who was no dreamer, used the moment of the American war to annex the Crimea.

Harris professed to believe that for eighty thousand pounds he could purchase the influence of this extraordinary man. But Potemkin could not be reached. He almost never appeared at court or in company. It was his habit to lie in bed till near noon, and on his rising his anterooms were thronged with clients of all sorts. No foreign minister could see him except by asking specially for an interview; no one of them was ever admitted to his domestic society or his confidence. Those who knew him best agree that he was too proud to take money from a foreign power, and he never deviated from his Russian policy; so that the enormous bribes which were designed to gain him were squandered on his chief mistress and his intimates. At the same time he was aware how much he would gain by lulling the British government into acquiescence in his oriental schemes of aggrandizement.

Without loss of time Harris proposed to Potemkin that the empress should make a strong declaration at Versailles and Madrid, and second it by arming all

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