The King then said he was well informed that a convention was framing between the courts of Vienna and France, but the court of Vienna were greatly embarrassed in what manner to answer the instances which Mr. Keith had lately been directed to make,1 that their intention was to shift giving any answer tili the convention was actually signed, and so to justify this conduct by the manner in which our court had conducted itself in the negociation of the late treaty with Prussia; that there were three articles in this convention,2 the last of which was to be kept secret:
1° the court of France to agrée to a neutrality of the Netherlands;
2° the court of Vienna to promise a neutrality with regard to the présent disputes between Great Britain and France, and to take no part whatever in them;
3° that the Archduke should be chosen king of the Romans; — which he said must be the case sooner or later, as there was no one eise upon whom the choice could fall.
He asked me whether we were absolutely sure of the Russians? I told him I believed we were, and that the Russian ambassador at the court of Vienna had made the strongest and most friendly representations to the Emperor and Empress upon the subject of the late treaty between His Majesty and the King of Great Britain. The King of Prussia observed that these representations might have been made by the order of Chancellor Bestushew, who, he knew, was our friend.
He told me the news from Minorca3 were that the French had actually landed, that, if they succeeded in their attempt upon that island, it might probably render the means of accommodation more difficult, that, no doubt, I had heard the French proposed to give that island to the Spaniards, and the Empress-Queen to exchange the dutchy of Luxemburgh and part (I think he said) of the Netherlands with Don Philip for his possessions of Parma, Placencia and Guastalla, and that the French gave out that this scheme was approved of by the court of Spain …
The King concluded this conversation by asking me whether I did not think that, when the affair of Minorca was Over, it would be a proper time to renew the offers of mediation? I answered that His Majesty was more able to judge what was fit, than I to advise …“
Mitchell berichtet an Holdernesse, Berlin 14. Mai, (secret): „I shall now take the liberty to acquaint your Lordship with some particulars that passed in the two audiences I had of His Prussian Majesty, which I have not mentioned in my other letters to your Lordship of this date.
In reasoning upon the event of the Landgrave of Hesse's death, and that a war was to begin in Germany, the King said he knew that the Empress-Queen could bring 100,000 men into the field, that France
1 Vergl. S. 197.
2 Vergl. S. 322.
3 Vergl. S. 320.