<298> left in Prussia the marshal Lehwaldt, an old and experienced officer, at the head of upwards of 30,000 men and, as mentioned before, the marshal Schwerin one of his best officers with nearly the same number of men in Silesia.
There is one danger more to which the King of Prussia finds himself exposed, and which, though foreseen, cannot be obviated, that is, if Prince Charles should march with the army he has from the Netherlands, into the dutchy of Cleves, he will make a very easy and a very safe campagne, the Prussian troops being almost all withdrawn from that neighbourhood and that country abandoned for the present.1
In conversation the King of Prussia said that he thought by next year that the court of Vienna would themselves attack Hanover, but did not say upon what he founded his opinion.
He recommended again our using every means to recover Holland,2 that it was plainly our interest to postpone commercial considérations, when our all was at stake, which it certainly was, while the union between the houses of Austria and Bourbon subsisted, that, if this union could be supposed sincère and lasting, the only question then would be who should be last undone.
Mitchell berichtet an Holdernesse, Berlin 30. August: „, …In the last audience … the King of Prussia told me that he was not only Willing to send a minister to Petersburg, if there was a proper opening on the part of the Czarina, but that he would even accept of her médiation jointly with His Majesty — in whose hands he knows his interests are safe — to make up the différences between him and the Empress-Queen. This offer, he thinks, may please the vanity of the court of Russia and will serve to strengthen he hands of the Great-Chancellor …“
Mitchell berichtet an Holdernesse, Berlin 30. August (private): „, …In my last conversation with the King of Prussia, he desired me to assure His Majesty that he would have a particular attention to the bailliages in Saxony that are mortgaged to the King, to secure them as much as possible from all the calamities of war.“
Nach den Ausfertigungen im Public Record Office zu London.
1 Vergl. S. 89. 243.
2 Vergl. S. 193.