<633> a more probable way of bringing on a negotiation, and attended with fewer inconveniences than the declaration proposed.
With respect to the second head, His Prussian Majesty says that he has already done everything possible to gain the court of Russia. He then called to mind what he had attempted last year, without success; and he has very lately sent a person to Petersbourg to make a new trial.1... But the King of Prussia does not seem to promise much from this new negotiation.
His Prussian Majesty looks on the court of Dresden as too inconsiderable to have any influence, and on the court of Vienna as too ambitious and inveterate to be treated with; especially as, on all former occasions, they have been the last to hearken to terms of peace.
When I mentioned the third article to the King of Prussia, he answered, with great frankness and in perfect good humour, that, as at this time he saw no appearence of obtaining a general pacification, he had no objection to England's attempting to make a separate peace with France, provided it could be done upon reasonable and secure terms. Those, he mentioned, were that France should accept of a perfect neutrality, evacuation and restitution of the possessions they have in Westphalia, withdraw their army from Germany and engage to give no assistance, directly or indirectly, of men or money to the Empress Queen, or any of her allies, farther than the 24 000 men or the value of them, as stipulated in the treaty of Versailles.2
As to the pecuniary succours, mentioned in the end of this article, the King of Prussia asked me whether it was meant that he should take upon himself the expense of the whole. I answered that was not expressly said. He replied he had no objection and believed that, by his economy, a considerable sum of money might be saved; that he was extremely sorry to become a burden to his allies, but would make it as light as possible; and when I insinuated that it might be proper for the information of His Majesty's ministers to make out an estimate of the sum he thought necessary for the maintenance of the German troops — including the actual subsidy —, he answered that, to do that with any exactness, the numbers of infantry and cavalry, the train of artillery, the specific agreements for the payment of the soldiers and officers, of the forage and other emoluments allowed must first be known; that he could easily give an estimate of the expenses of any number of troops upon his own establishment, but, without the information above mentioned, it was impossible even to give a tolerable guess.
In some mixed conversations I had with the King of Prussia afterwards he threw out that, by what his ministers had written him from England, he understood that the whole body of German troops in the King's army were to assist him in case a separate peace could be made
1 Vergl. Nr. 12593. 12597.
2 Vergl. S. 168.