Of the proffers of mediation in which first Spain and then Russia and the German Emperor were to take so important a part, as they bore no fruit, it is sufficient to observe, in passing, how little European statesmen understood the business in which they were so ready to intermeddle, and what a curious spectacle Catharine and Kaunitz present, seeking to usher into the congress of kings the first true representative of that great principle of popular sovereignty which was to make all their thrones totter and tremble under them. It may be added, that they furnished that self-dependence of John Adams which too often degenerated into arrogance an occasion to manifest itself in a nobler light; for he refused to take part in the discussions in any other character than as the representative of an independent power. Meanwhile events were hastening the inevitable termination. In Europe, England stood alone, without either open or secret sympathy. In June, 1779, a war with Spain had followed the French war of 1778. In July, 1780, the "armed neutrality" had defined the position of the Northern powers adversely to her maritime pretensions. War was declared with Holland in December of the same year. In America, the campaign of 1781 had stripped her of her Southern conquests, and effaced the impression of her early victories. At home her people were daily growing more and more restless under the pressure of taxation; and even the country gentlemen, who had stood by the Ministry so long in the hope of transferring their own burden to the shoulders of their American brethren, began to give evident tokens of discontent. It was clear that England must consent to peace. And yet she still stood bravely up, presenting a bold front to each new enemy: a grand spectacle in one light, for there is always something grand in indomitable courage; but a sad one in the true light, and one from which a hundred years hence the philosophic historian will turn with a shudder, when, summing up all these events, and asking what all this blood was shed for, he shows that the only principle at stake on her part was that pernicious claim to control the industry of the world, which, had she succeeded, would have dried up the sources of prosperity in America, as it is fast drying them up in Ireland and in India.[E]