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

‘ [278] to admit the great advantage England would derive

Chap. XII.} 1780.

from the step,’ rejoined: ‘I am just come from the empress; it is her particular order that I tell it to you. She commanded me to lose no time in finding you out. She said she knew it would give you pleasure; and, besides myself, you are at this moment the only person acquainted with her design.’ He ended by expressing his impatience that the event should be known, and urging Harris to despatch his messenger immediately with the news. So Harris was made the instrument of communicating to his own government what the other powers received directly from Russia; and the measure, so opposite to the policy of England, was reported to that power by its own envoy as a friendly act performed at its own request.

But before the despatches of Harris were on the road, the conduct of the affair was intrusted to Panin, who, although suffering from the physical and moral depression consequent on the disease which was slowly but surely bringing him to the grave,¹ took the subject in hand. The last deed of the dying statesman was his best. Cast down as he was by illness, before the end of February he thus unbosomed himself to the Prussian minister: ‘In truth the envoy of England has found means for a

Feb.

miserable trifle to excite my sovereign to a step of éclat, yet always combined with the principle of neutrality. The court of Spain will probably yield to just representations; the measure which he has occasioned will turn against himself, and he will have himself to reproach for everything that he shall have ’