9228. UNTERREDUNG DES KÖNIGS MIT DEM GROSSBRITANNISCHEN GESANDTEN MITCHELL.
Mitchell berichtet an Holdemesse, Pirna 28. Juli (secret) er habe am 24. den Erlass des Grafen Holdernesse vom 5. Juli empfangen. „On the march next morning266-2 from Nollendorf, I took an opportunity to acquaint His Prussian Majesty with the contents of it, but I have not the satisfaction to assure Your Lordship that I had the happiness to convince him.266-3 The notions he had framed of the superiority and<267> strength of the English navy, were not to be shaken. He therefore imputed to commercial and political views the negative that had been given to his request; but he observed that this negative should have been given sooner, to which, as I could not ans wer, I endeavoured to turn the conversation.
In the situation of mind in which His Prussian Majesty now is, and with the load of business and bad news, that would sink any other man, I thought it not expedient to insist too much upon some of the points Your Lordship suggested, nor even to make use of that freedom of conversation with which he sometimes indulges me, and by being moderate in the defence of a negative, which at least admits of some doubts. I was glad to find that he bore the disappointment with more temper and calmness than I expected.“
Nach der Ausfertigung im Public Record Office zu London.
266-2 Vergl. auch Mitchells Tagebücher in den oben S. 192. Ann. 1 citirten Werke I, 362.
266-3 In dem Erlass vom 5. Juli war auf das Schreiben des Königs an Mitchell vom 11. Juni (Nr. 9087) die Antwort ertheilt worden, die englische Marine, welche gegen Frankreich in Amerika und in Indien, im Mittelmeer und im Kanal Front machen müsse, sei nicht so stark, um auch in der Ostsee thatkräftig auftreten zu können, zumal da Schweden und Dänemark im vergangenen Jahre durch eine maritime Union sich vereinigt hatten. Vergl. Bd. XII, 502.