Hardly, argued the King, for even England had at last become ashamed of the cause she had taken up--that of the Turk, and her endeavour now was to persuade herself and the world that it was for another cause--the equilibrium of Europe, menaced by the preponderance of Russia--that she was about to draw the sword. “The preponderance of Russia,” he writes in this letter, “is to be broken down! Well! I, her neighbour, have never felt this preponderance, and have never yielded to it.” It was war for an idea, and, adds the King with intense earnestness, “Suffer me to ask, ‘Does God’s law justify war for an idea?’” He implores the Queen to reconsider the Russian proposals in a friendly spirit, sifting what is really objectionable from them, and pledges himself that if a golden bridge is built to save the Czar’s honour, the Czar will cross it. But one word the King craves leave to speak plainly to the Queen: “For Prussia and myself,” he writes, “_I am resolved to maintain a position of complete neutrality_; and to this I add, with proud elation, _my people_ and myself are of one mind. They _require_ absolute neutrality from me. They say (and I say), ‘What have we to do with the Turk?’ Whether he stand or fall in no way concerns the industrious Rhinelanders and the husbandmen of the Riesengeberg and Bernstein.” Russia, he admits, might have perhaps pressed hard on the Turk. However, “it was the Turk, not we, who suffered, and the Turk has plenty of good friends, but the Emperor is a noble gentleman, and has done us no harm. Your Majesty will allow that this North German sound practical sense is difficult to gainsay.” Yet it was with such a letter in their possession that the Government led the country to believe, first, that Austria, who could not possibly move without Prussia, would join us in the war; and, second, that Prussia would also draw her sword for a cause which she declared we ourselves were even then ashamed of!