For certain, the King is making all preparation, as if victory might still crown him: though of practical hope he, doubtless often enough, has little or none. England seems about deserting him; a most sad and unexpected change has befallen there: great Pitt thrown out; perverse small Butes come in, whose notions and procedures differ far from Pitt's! At home here, the Russians are in Pommern and the Neumark; Austrians have Saxony, all but a poor strip beyond the Mulda; Silesia, all but a fraction on the Oder: Friedrich has with himself 30,000; with Prince Henri, 25,000; under Eugen of Wurtemberg, against the Swedes, 5,000; in all his Dominions, 60,000 fighting men. To make head against so many enemies, he calculates that 60,000 more must be raised this Winter. And where are these to come from; England and its help having also fallen into such dubiety? Next Year, it is calculated by everybody, Friedrich himself hardly excepted (in bad moments), must be the finis of this long agonistic tragedy. On the other hand, Austria herself is in sore difficulties as to cash; discharges 20,000 men,--trusting she may have enough besides to finish Friedrich. France is bankrupt, starving, passionate for Peace; English Bute nothing like so ill to treat with as Pitt: to Austria no more subsidies from France. The War is waxing feeble, not on Friedrich's side only, like a flame short of fuel. This Year it must go out; Austria will have to kill Friedrich this Year, if at all. Whether Austria's and the world's prophecy would have been fulfilled? Nobody can say what miraculous sudden shifts, and outbursts of fiery enterprise, may still lie in this man. Friedrich is difficult to kill, grows terribly elastic when you compress him into a corner. Or Destiny, perhaps, may have tried him sufficiently; and be satisfied? Destiny does send him a wonderful star-of-day, bursting out on the sudden, as will be seen!--Meanwhile here is the English calamity; worse than any Schweidnitz, Colberg or other that has befallen in this blackest, of the night. THE PITT CATASTROPHE: HOW THE PEACE-NEGOTIATION WENT OFF BY EXPLOSION; HOW PITT WITHDREW (3d October, 1761), AND THERE CAME A SPANISH WAR NEVERTHELESS. In St. James's Street, "in the Duke of Cumberland's late lodgings," on the 2d of October, 1761, there was held one of the most remarkable Cabinet-Councils known in English History: it is the last of Pitt's Cabinet-Councils for a long time,--might as well have been his last of all;--and is of the highest importance to Friedrich through Pitt. We spoke of the Choiseul Peace-Negotiation; of an offer indirectly from King Carlos, "Could not I mediate a little?"--offer which exploded said Negotiation, and produced the Bourbon Family Compact and an additional War instead. Let us now look, slightly for a few moments, into that matter and its sequences.