13189. UNTERREDUNG DES KÖNIGS MIT DEM GROSSBRITANNISCHEN GESANDTEN MITCHELL.
[Leipzig, 28. Januar 1761.]
Mitchell berichtet an Holdernesse, Leipzig 31. Januar (secret): „. . . I took the earliest opportunity to be admitted into the King of Prussia's closet — as he is still indisposed and does not stir out of his chamber — and, in as decent and respectfull terms as I could contrive, I acquainted His Prussian Majesty that I had orders from the King my master to put him in mind that every pacific overture whatsoever, during the course of the present war, had arisen from the King of Prussia himself and had been listened to on the part of England, on account of the difficulties the King of Prussia had to struggle with and the necessity he had represented himself to be under of endeavour to dissolve by negotiation a league which it was hardly possible for him, King of Prussia, to resist. That the imminent danger to which the King of Prussia was exposed had first induced the late King, and since His present Majesty, to give ear at all to the notion of a separate peace as a means of extricating the King of Prussia from difficulties otherwise insuperable. All this His Prussian Majesty owned to be true and agreeable to what he himself had written into England in the end of the year 1759.
I took the liberty to observe that, as the facts above mentioned were the foundation upon which negociations had been begun, I hoped they would be remembered and considered as the basis to all future transactions towards a peace, but that a paper, entitled Extrait d'une dépêche du roi de Prusse à ses ministres à Londres, datée de Leipzig le 28 de décembre 1760, servant de réponse au précis du 12 du même mois,634-1 lately given in by his ministers at London, seemed not to agree with the facts above established. He desired me to be plain and speak out what I meant; I then pulled out that paper and read to him at the<635> close of the first paragraph these words:635-1L'on ne saurait douter de son635-2 inclination de se prêter aux vues de l' Angleterre, and I observed that the natural sense of these words seemed to bear that England had first thought of peace, and that, His Prussian Majesty had only yielded or acceded to their views. The King of Prussia answered that, when he wrote the letter of the 28th of December 1760, he had not reflected so far back, and that, having about that time received letters from his ministers in England in which they expressed in very strong terms that the English ministers were become extremely desirous of peace, he had, in his answer, made use of the phrase se prêter aux vues de l'Angleterre as proper to express his agreeing with them in opinion, without however imagining that it could have been misunderstood.
To this I made no reply, but proceeded to point out to him another phrase in the same paper, thought to be exceptionable, where the succour the King may be induced to give His Prussian Majesty is called a compensation d'un traité séparé entre la Grande-Bretagne et la France, and I took notice that the word compensation was certainly improper, as the first and every step towards peace had been taken at his request and for his advantage. The King of Prussia replied that, perhaps, another word might have been more proper, that it was a dispute about words, and said laughing to me: « You are now becoming a great critic. » I answered that I still thought the remark well founded.
I then pointed out to His Prussian Majesty another passage in the same paper, viz. que le Roi voulait s' engager à fournir toutes les troupes allemandes qui se trouvaient à l'armée alliée, which, I said, did not agrée with the précis of the 12th of December 1760, where the words are pour vous aider à entretenir les troupes allemandes qui pourront passer à votre solde. His Prussian Majesty answered that the word toutes had been inserted in that paper because his ministers in England had, again and again, assured him that it was the King's intention he should have the whole German troops. To this I replied that I was now authorized to say that it never was His Majesty's intention that all or any of the foreign troops which compose the King's army in Germany should remain, after a peace with France, in the pay of England and act as an army of Great Britain; nor was it in the power of England to determine that the troops belonging to other Princes should enter directly into the service of the King of Prussia, nor had His Majesty any right to convey them over into the service of another Prince; that the true intent of the précis is absolutely confined to a secours<636> pécuniaire, y compris le subside actuel, the extent of which secours pécuniaire is not to be measured by the number of troops the King of Prussia may be able to obtain, but that the number of troops must be determined by His Prussian Majesty's own faculties added to the secours His Majesty may be induced to give, and I begged him to recollect that the words in the précis were pour vous aider à entretenir les troupes etc. The King of Prussia replied there was weight in several things I had said, and I proceeded to acquaint him that such were the gracious intentions of the King my master that, if His Prussian Majesty would make a demand which the King should find just and reasonable to ask of his subjects, His Majesty will comply with it, that, whenever the point of the subsidy is settled with England, the King, as a farther proof of his friendship, will, as Elector, consent that a number of his Electoral troops, proportioned to the sum granted by England, shall enter into the service and pay of the King of Prussia, and the King will likewise use his utmost endeavours to induce the Landgrave of Hesse and the Duke of Brunswick to consent that their troops may enter into His Prussian Majesty's service and pay. The King of Prussia observed that it was difficult for him to make a demand of a certain sum, as he did not know what specific agreements had been made with those Princes for their troops. I answered that I wished, however, this was done without loss of time, as I knew it was His Majesty's intention to take no step towards a negotiation for peace, until the succour to be given to the King of Prussia, in case of a separate peace with France, be assertained and determined ....
As I have been every day since at his levée, I expected to have been able to send Your Lordship a satisfactory answer to the question: « What pecuniary succour, comprehending the actual subsidy already granted, His Prussian Majesty should think proper to demand of the King? » Hitherto the King of Prussia has not explained himself to me, and, if I may venture to conjecture at the cause of this silence, I believe it owing to a notion that his ministers have adopted that the dispatch sent by the Prussian courrier of the 3d instant636-1 will sufficiently explain and remove all difficulties ...
Notwithstanding all I have said, I have not been able to convince the Prussian ministers that their dispatch of the 3d cannot be satisfactory, and I think they have made an impression upon the King their master, for this day I had an opportunity of seeing him again, upon pretence of communicating to him the contents of Mr. Keith's dispatch of the 15th from Petersbourg, when I took occasion to put him in mind of what had passed in my audience of last wednesday, but the King of Prussia artfully turned the discourse and shifted giving me an answer; I therefore conclude that his ministers here have persuaded him to give<637> no answer to that question, till he shall have received letters from his ministers in England in answer to the dispatch of the 3d instant . . .“
Nach der Ausfertigung im Public Record Office zu London.
634-1 Vergl. Nr. 13188.
635-1 Diese und die übrigen von Mitchell herausgehobenen Stellen finden sich nur in dem von Knyphausen und Michell aufgesetzten und dem englischen Ministerium übergebenen „Extrait“ , nicht in dem Schreiben des Königs vom 28. December selbst (Nr. 12608). — Vergl. dazu Nr. 12651.
635-2 D. h. des Königs von Preussen.
636-1 Nr. 12619.