4153. JOSEPH II., Unprincipled.—
The
Emperor has a head too combustible to be quiet.
He is an eccentric character, all enterprise,
without calculation, without principle, without
feelings. Ambitious in the extreme but too unsteady
to surmount difficulties. He had in view
at one time to open the Scheldt, to get Maestricht
from the Dutch, to take a large district
from the Turks, to exchange some of his Austrian
dominions for Bavaria, to create a ninth
electorate, to make his nephew King of the
Romans, and to change totally the constitution
of Hungary. Any one of these was as much
as a wise prince would have undertaken at
any one time.
To James Monroe.
Ford ed., iv, 44.
(P.
1785)
