Bute's idea of a foreign policy was to reverse the policy of Pitt. He abandoned Frederick of Prussia to his enemies by cutting off the subsidy which Pitt had paid him, on the ground that the time agreed on for the subsidy was up, and that as England only granted it for her own purposes, and not to benefit Frederick, she was justified in discontinuing it whenever it suited her. Only a chance saved the Great Frederick from what seemed like inevitable ruin. The Czarina, Elizabeth of Russia, died, and was succeeded by Peter the Third. With the change of sovereign came a change in the purposes of Russia. The Russian army, which had fought with Austria against Frederick, now received orders to fight with Frederick against Austria. The war with Spain that Pitt had predicted Bute was obliged to wage. The conduct of Spain made it impossible for him not to declare war, and, aided by Pitt's preparations, he was able to carry on the war with considerable success. But the credit for such success was generally given to Pitt, and when Bute made peace with Spain and France it was generally felt that the terms were not such as Pitt would have exacted after so long and splendid a succession of victories. There was, indeed, a good deal to be said for the peace, but at the time those who tried to say it did not get a very patient hearing. It was well that the long Continental war was ended. Few of those engaged in it had gained much by it. Prussia, indeed, though it left her wellnigh bankrupt and almost ruined by the enormous burdens she had sustained, was better in position. She came out of the struggle without the loss of a single acre of territory, and with what Frederick especially coveted, the rank of a first-rate Power in Europe. If Prussia, which had been so long England's ally, had gained, England had not lost. Undoubtedly Pitt's war was popular; no less undoubtedly Bute's peace was unpopular, and the unpopularity of the policy intensified the unpopularity of the minister. In the eyes of the bulk of the English people Lord Bute, as a Scotchman, was {30} a foreigner, as much a foreigner as if he hailed from France or the Low Countries. Lord Chesterfield was finely disdainful of the popular opposition to Bute on account of his nationality. "If the vulgar are ever right," he said, "they are right for the wrong reason. What they selected to attack in Lord Bute was his being a Scotchman, which was precisely what he could not help." But it was not Bute's nationality, so much as his flagrant partiality to his fellow-countrymen, that made him unpopular. His affection for his own countrymen, however admirable and even touching in itself, was resented fiercely by the English people, who found themselves threatened by a new invasion of the Picts and Scots. Across the Border came a steady stream of Bute's henchmen, men with names that seemed outlandish and even savage to the Londoner, and every Scotchman found,