<577> Majesty's views in that country, but he wonders why, in this critical situation, big with danger to all Europe and in its conséquences ruinous to England, we should by our writings irritate a sordid people, who see not farther than the present moment, and who, allured by the hopes of immediate gain, are capable of taking a desperate resolution, which may be fatal to the common cause.1 He thinks the Dutch have the words of the treaty for them and says it is our interest in the présent circumstance to yield.
When the King of Prussia first received the news of the rupture with France,2 he appeared a good deal animated and said I shall know for the future who are my friends; if you do what is right, I will have no farther connexions with them, I wish not to be à charge à mes alliés, but I hope and expect that the King will take the most vigorous resolutions and that the whole force of England by sea and by land will be exerted on this most important and perilous occasion. He then asked me whether, if His Royal Highness the Duke was to take the command of the army for the defence of Germany, I did not think that a body of English troops might be sent thither. I answered that I had some doubts with regard to that …
I took the liberty to insinuate to the King of Prussia that, provided things went well in Russia and that that power could either be detached from the court of Vienna or rendered inactive, that in either of these cases he might spare a part of the army he has in Prussia, for the defence of Germany.3 To this he seemed to agree, but said he must first be well assured of Russia, before he could withdraw a man from that army …
I find His Prussian Majesty much provoked against the court of Vienna on account of scurrilous writings dispersed by them through Germany against him, but he says he wishes first to beat their troops and then he will answer their libels.“
Mitchell berichtet4 an Holdernesse, Sedlitz 4. November (private), er habe dem Könige von Preussen die zwischen der englischen Regierung und dem holländischen Gesandten Hop gewechselten Correspondenzen5 bezüglich der Beobachtung des Vertrages vom 1./10. December 16746 vorgelegt. „, …[The King] thinks we are in the wrong, and it was not in my power to convince him. He says what we call a capital point in naval Stores, is no point at all, compared with the importance of throwing Holland into the arms of France; and, besides that, the treaties are clear in that point …“
Nach den Ausfertigungen im Public Record Office zu London.
1 Vergl. S. 566.
2 Vergl. Nr. 8265.
3 Vergl. S. 241. 243.
4 Der Bericht ist eigenhändig.
5 Von Holdernesse, Whitehall 12. October, an Mitchell übersandt.
6 Schifffahrtsvertrag zwischen England und Holland, London 1./10. December 1674 (vergl. S. 131). Vergl. Martens, Guide diplomatique (Berlin-Paris 1801), tom. I, 541.