There never was a moment of European history, when higher interests were suspended on the intrepidity, the firmness, and the wisdom of British council. The Spanish war, difficult, though glorious, was at all risks to be sustained; Austria had taken up arms, (in 1809,) was defeated, and was forced to make the bitter peace that follows disaster. Napoleon, at Erfurth, sat on a throne which looked over Europe, and saw none but vassals. At home, Opposition flung its old predictions of evil in the face of the minister, and incessantly charged him with their realisation. An infirm minister in England at that crisis would have humiliated her by a treaty; that treaty would have been but a truce, and that truce would have been followed by an invasion. But the Secretary never swerved, and his confidence in the courage of England was rewarded by the restoration of liberty to Europe. The fortunes of Napoleon were at length on the wane. France had been stripped of her veterans by the retreat from Moscow, and the Russian and German armies had hunted the wreck of the French across the Rhine. But, in sight of final victory, the councils of the Allies became divided, and it was of the first importance to reunite them. An interesting letter of the late Lord Harrowby, to the present Marquis of Londonderry, gives the narrative of this diplomatic mission. "I cannot recollect dates, but it was at the time when you, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Cathcart, were accredited to the three sovereigns. It was mooted in Cabinet, I think, by Lord Castlereagh, whether it would not be desirable, in order to carry the full weight of the British Government to bear upon the counsels of the assembled sovereigns, that some one person should be appointed who might speak in its name to them all. "The notion was approved of; and after the Cabinet was over, Castlereagh called me into his private room, and proposed the mission to me. I was, of course, highly flattered by such a proposal from such a person; but I had not a moment's hesitation in telling him, that I had tried my hand unsuccessfully on a somewhat similar mission to Berlin, where I had also been accredited to the two Emperors; that I had found myself quite incompetent to the task, which had half-killed me; that I thought the measure highly advisable, but that there was one person only who could execute it, and that person was himself. He started at first. How could he, as Secretary of State, undertake it? The thing was unheard of. I then told him, that it was not strictly true that it had never been done: that Lord Bolingbroke went to Paris in a diplomatic capacity when Secretary of State; and that, though in that case the precedent was not a good one, it was still a precedent, and I believed there were more. The conclusion to which this conversation led was, that 'he would talk it over with Liverpool;' and the consequence was that, the next day, or the day after, his mission was decided."