This unfortunate partition of Poland, is costing me ten years of my life. It will make plain the whole unhappy history of that affair. How many times have I refused to agree to it! But disaster after disaster heaped upon us by the Turks; misery, famine, and pestilence at home; no hope of assistance either from France or England, and the prospect of being left isolated and threatened with a war both with Russia and Prussia,---it was all these considerations that finally forced me to accede to that unhappy proposal, which will remain a blot on my whole reign.