8967. UNTERREDUNG DES KÖNIGS MIT DEM GROSSBRITANNISCHEN MINISTER MITCHELL.
[Lager vor Prag, 20. Mai 1757.]61-3
Mitchell beantwortet, Lager von Weleslawin vor Prag 24. Mai (most secret), einen Erlass des Grafen Holdernesse vom 6. Mai. Durch diesen Erlass war Mitchell angewiesen, von dem Könige von Preussen eine Erklärung einzufordern über das Gerücht, dass Hellen der Prinzessin-Regentin ein Packet zur Beförderung nach Paris übergeben habe. „Your Lordship's secret letter of the 6th fills me with real concern. I am at a loss how to execute the Kings commands without hurting His Majesty's interest, these repeated marks of diffidence will at last, I fear, occasion disgust and may bring about what they are meant to prevent; to be still more plain, I think, after the declaration the King of Prussia has made,61-4 there can be no ground of suspicious from a packet conveyed thro' Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange, to be disposed of by the Dutch ambassador61-5 at Paris; the very manner<62> of conveyance destroys all suspicion62-1 . . . Explanations are indeed the foundation of real friendship, but suspicion and perpetual diffidence are the bane of all amity and confidence.
I have within this week had no less than two explanations with His Prussian Majesty, the first relating to count Wackerbarth's supposititious proposals, to which I think a satisfactory answer was given in my letter to Your Lordship of the 18th by Lambe.62-2
The other was occasioned by what M. de Münchhausen was pleased to write to Count Podewils viz. that it was reported that Count Kaunitz had set out from Vienna in order to treat with the King of Prussia; now it unluckily happens that by the date of Münchhausen's letter this advice from Vienna must have been several days before the battle, when there was not the least appearance that the court of Vienna wanted to treat with the King of Prussia. I soon perceived that His Prussian Majesty was not the dupe of M. de Münchhausen's finesse, but I made the best apology I could from M. Münchhausen's zeal for his master's service, and the King of Prussia was pleased of himself to give me the strongest assurances of his resolution to fulfill every engagement he had with His Majesty, and he frankly said he wanted to do all the harm he possibly could to his present enemy as soon as possible, in order to be at liberty to act elsewhere, and that he wished above all things, if Prague was taken, that the Empress-Queen could be brought to dissolve her alliance with France, and even to assist with her troops against the French (which however he hardly expected), that in that case he would march directly against the French, and I am persuaded he most sincerely wishes to give them such a blow as he has given to Austria.
After such declaration and so fresh a date, I submit to your Lordship whether it be expedient to demand immediately a farther explanation ...“
Nach der Ausfertigung im Public Record Office zu London.
61-3 Die Unterredung über Münchhausen's Schreiben hat nach den Tagebüchern Mitchell's Freitag den 20. Mai stattgefunden. Memoirs and papers of Sir Andrew Mitchell; by Bisset. London 1850. Bd. I, 333. 334.
61-4 Vergl. S. 35. Anm. 6.
61-5 Berkenrode.
62-1 Die Prinzessin von Oranien war die Tochter König Georg's II. Ueber die Vermittelung des Verkehrs nach Paris vergl. Bd. XIV, 323. 388.
62-2 Vergl. S. 35 Anm. 6.