“at the same time those gentlemen that as there were several hard reflections on the Russian Court he should not have communicated them, if they had not been so anxious to see them,”
and then told their excellencies not to tell the Porte that they had seen them (those letters)! At first view the infamy of the act is drowned in the silliness of the man. Or, take
Sir George Macartney. Can there be anything more silly than his happiness that Russia seemed “reasonable” enough not to expect that England “should pay the whole expenses” for Russia’s “choosing to take the lead at Stockholm;” or his “flattering himself” that lie had “persuaded the Russian Court” not to be so “unreasonable” as to ask from England, in a time of peace, subsidies for a time of war against Turkey (then the ally of England); or his warning the Earl of Sandwich “not to mention” to the Russian Ambassador e at London the secrets mentioned to himself by the Russian Chancellor at St. Petersburg? Or can there be anything more silly than Sir James Harris confidentially whispering into the ear of Lord Grantham that Catherine II was devoid of “judgment, precision of idea, reflection, and l'esprit de combinaison"?