All the foreign ministers protested against the wrong done to the persons of Gortz and Gyllemburg. Nothing could excuse the Dutch from breaking so sacred a law in seizing the King of Sweden’s premier, who had never done anything against them, and so violating the spirit of freedom which has attracted so many strangers and has been the cause of her greatness. The King of England acted within his rights in seizing an enemy, so that the letters found among Gyllemburg’s papers from him to Gortz were printed to justify the King’s proceedings. The King of Sweden was in Scania when the printed letters came with the news of his ministers having been seized. He only smiled and asked if his letters were printed too, and ordered the English ambassador and all his family to be seized. But he could not take the same vengeance on the Dutch, because they had no minister then at the Court of Sweden. He kept a disdainful silence towards England and Holland. The Czar’s behaviour was just the opposite: as he was not named but only hinted at by distant references in the letters of Gortz and Gyllemburg, he wrote a long letter full of congratulations to the King of England on the discovery, with assurances of his good-will. King George received his protestations with incredulity, but pretended to believe them. A plot laid by private men is at an end when once discovered, but where kings are concerned a discovery only makes it go further. The Czar came to Paris in 1717, and did not spend all his time in viewing the wonders of art and nature there: the academies, public libraries, cabinets of the antiquaries and royal palaces. He made a proposal to the Regent which, had it been accepted, would have put the finishing touch to the greatness of Russia. It was this: to himself ally with the King of Sweden, who would yield many countries to him, to take from the Danes their power in the Baltic, to weaken England by a civil war, and to attract to Russia all the trade of the North. He had thoughts, too, of setting up Stanislas against King Augustus, so that when the fire was kindled in all directions he could fan the flame or damp it as he saw fit. With these views he proposed to the King’s Regent to mediate between Sweden and Russia, and to make an offensive and defensive alliance with them and Spain. The treaty, though so natural and so useful to the nations concerned, putting into their hands the balancing of power in Europe, was yet rejected by Orleans, for he did just the opposite and made a league with the Emperor and the King of England.