Frederick's first policy was one of selfish abstention, and from 1793 until 1796, when he concluded a definite treaty of neutrality with France, he limited his contribution to the war to the bare contingent due from him as a prince of the Empire.
It awakened fresh possibilities - successful combination against a common foe, the sinking of petty rivalries, the chance of gaining favour by a neutrality which was scarcely benevolent.
Save for the benevolent neutrality of Prussia, therefore, which enabled her to obtain supplies from the north, Russia was pitted singlehanded against a coalition of Turkey, Great Britain and France, to which Sardinia was added later.
Polk to the presidency, instead of Martin Van Buren, Wright and the state organization took an attitude of armed neutrality towards the new administration.
Carthage, after a long period of abstention from intervention in Sicilian affairs, and the observance of a wise neutrality during the war between Athens and Syracuse, stepped in as the ally of Segesta, the enemy of her old ally Selinus.
In this body he served in 1789-1796, supported Hamilton's financial measures, Washington's neutrality proclamation and the Jay Treaty, and became one of the recognized leaders of the Federalist party.
Thus he opposed the French alliance which de la Gardie carried through in 1672, and consistently advocated economy in domestic and neutrality in foreign affairs.
At the same time the great powers guaranteed the neutrality of the grand-duchy, and although a member of the German Zollverein, Luxemburg now forms a sovereign and independent state.
The difficulties of coaling and the obligations of neutrality hampered these commerce-destroyers as much as the Federal vessels that were chasing them, but, in spite of drawbacks, the guerre de course was the most successful warlike operation undertaken by the Confederacy.
From 1793 the Hanoverian troops fought for the Allies against France, until the treaty of Basel between France and Prussia in 1795 imposed a forced neutrality upon Hanover.