The Treaty of Tilsit, to which, as the document itself bore testimony, the King of Prussia was admitted as a party solely by reason of Napoleon's "esteem for the Emperor of Russia," was ratified on the 7th July. Napoleon restored, by this act, to Frederick William, Ancient Prussia, and the French conquests in Upper Saxony--the King agreeing to adopt "the continental system," in other words, to be henceforth the vassal of the conqueror. The Polish provinces of Prussia were erected into a separate principality, styled "the Grand Duchy of Warsaw," and bestowed on the Elector of Saxony; with the exception, however, of some territories assigned to Russia, and of Dantzick, which was declared a free city, to be garrisoned by French troops until the ratification of a maritime peace. The Prussian dominions in Lower Saxony and on the Rhine, with Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and various other small states, formed a new kingdom of Westphalia, of which Jerome Buonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother, was recognised as King; Jerome having at length made his peace with his brother by repudiating his wife, an American lady of the name of Patterson, and consenting to a new alliance, more consonant with the views of the Emperor, with a daughter of the King of Wirtemberg. The Elector of Saxony was recognised as another _King_ of Napoleon's creation; Joseph Buonaparte as King of Naples; and Louis, of Holland. Finally, Russia accepted the mediation of France for a peace with Turkey, and France that of Russia for a peace with England. Such were the public articles of the peace of Tilsit; but it contained secret articles besides; and of these the English government were, ere long, fortunate enough to ascertain the import. The British cabinet had undergone a complete change in March, 1807--the management of affairs passing from the friends and heirs of Mr. Fox into the hands of Mr. Perceval and other statesmen of the school of Pitt. The unhappy conduct of the war had rendered the preceding government eminently unpopular; and the measures of the new one assumed from the beginning a character of greater energy. But the orders which had been given must be fulfilled; and the councils of 1806 bequeathed a fatal legacy in the disastrous expeditions of 1807. Lord Granville Leveson Gower[57] (the minister at St. Petersburg) was ere this time prepared to offer to the Czar such subsidies as he had in vain expected when preparing for the campaign of Poland; but it was too late to retrieve the error of the preceding cabinet; and the English ambassador, being unable to break off the negotiations at Tilsit, was compelled to bestow all his efforts on penetrating the secrets of the compact wherein they ended.