TWO:There was a bright I. D. blanket spread on the ground a little way back from the fire, and she threw herself down upon it. All that was picturesque in his memories of history flashed back to Cairness, as he took his place beside Landor on the log and looked at her. Boadicea might have sat so in the depths of the Icenean forests, in the light of the torches of the Druids. So the Babylonian queen might have rested in the midst of her victorious armies, or she of Palmyra, after the lion hunt in the deserts of Syria. Her eyes, red lighted beneath the shadowing lashes, met his. Then she glanced away into the blackness of the pine forest, and calling her dog to lie down beside her, stroked its silky red head.But though we punished the Dutch for their French predilections, the tide of French success was rolling on in various quarters, and presenting a prospect of a single-handed conflict with France. The powers on whose behalf we had armed were fast, one after another, making terms with the Republicans. Holland was in their hands, and the King of Prussia, on the 5th of April, concluded a peace with them at Basle, in which he agreed to surrender to France all his possessions on the left bank of the Rhine, on condition of retaining those on the right. There was a mutual exchange of prisoners, including the troops of such other German States as had served with Prussia. Spain hastened to follow the example of Prussia. A peace was concluded at the same placeBasleon the 22nd of July, by which she gave up all the Spanish part of San Domingo. To purchase the French evacuation, the Ministers of Spain itself recognised the Batavian Republicwhich was become, in reality, a province of Franceand promised to intercede with Portugal, Naples, Parma, and Sardinia. The Grand Duke of Tuscany followed with a proclamation of a treaty of neutrality with France, on the 1st of March. Sweden and the Protestant Cantons recognised the French Republic and the Batavian one, its ally; and the Duke of Hesse-Cassel, and even George III., as Elector of Hanover, were compelled to an agreement to furnish no more troops to the Emperor of Germany. Whilst the Allies were thus falling away in rapid succession before the forces of[444] Republican France, Britain, instead of taking warning, and resolving to mind only her own business, went madly into fresh treaties with Continental Powers. Russia and Austria were received into fresh treaties of mutual defence. Russia we were to assist with ships, and Austria with twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse, or to pay each month ten thousand florins for every thousand infantry, and thirty thousand florins for every thousand of cavalry. To complete the circle of treaties, Sir Gilbert Elliot, British Governor of Corsica, entered into a treaty with the Dey of Algiers, by which, on payment of a hundred and seventy-nine thousand piastres, he was to restore all the Corsicans captured and enslaved by him, and was to enjoy the strange privilege of carrying all his piratical prizes into the ports of Corsica, and to sell them therewhich was, in fact, licensing this chief of sea-robbers to plunder all the other Italian States.
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