European diplomacy at any moment of any year reminds you, if you inspect it closely, of a game of jackstraws.

Every sort and shape of intrigue is in the general heap and tangle, and the jealous nations sit round, each trying to lift out its own jackstraw.

Luckily for us, we have not often been involved in these games of jackstraw hitherto; unluckily for us, we must be henceforth involved.

If we kept out, our luck would be still worse.
Immediately after our Revolution, there was one of these heaps of intrigue, in which we were concerned.

This was at the time of the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Paris, to which I made reference at the close of the last section.