<634> with France; to which I answered that I had not the least knowledge of the intention of the King my master upon that head. To this His Prussian Majesty replied: « It belongs to the King to determine what succours he will give, which I hope will be considerable enough to prove a real assistance, and such as may make an impression upon the courts of Russia and Vienna, so far as to lead them to think of peace. » He then hinted that an army of 40000 men, under the command of Prince Ferdinand, could make head against the army of the Empire, joined by the 24 000 french auxiliaries ...“

Nach der Ausfertigung im Public Record Office zu London.


13189. UNTERREDUNG DES KÖNIGS MIT DEM GROSSBRITANNISCHEN GESANDTEN MITCHELL.

[Leipzig, 28. Januar 1761.]

Mitchell berichtet an Holdernesse, Leipzig 31. Januar (secret): „. . . I took the earliest opportunity to be admitted into the King of Prussia's closet — as he is still indisposed and does not stir out of his chamber — and, in as decent and respectfull terms as I could contrive, I acquainted His Prussian Majesty that I had orders from the King my master to put him in mind that every pacific overture whatsoever, during the course of the present war, had arisen from the King of Prussia himself and had been listened to on the part of England, on account of the difficulties the King of Prussia had to struggle with and the necessity he had represented himself to be under of endeavour to dissolve by negotiation a league which it was hardly possible for him, King of Prussia, to resist. That the imminent danger to which the King of Prussia was exposed had first induced the late King, and since His present Majesty, to give ear at all to the notion of a separate peace as a means of extricating the King of Prussia from difficulties otherwise insuperable. All this His Prussian Majesty owned to be true and agreeable to what he himself had written into England in the end of the year 1759.

I took the liberty to observe that, as the facts above mentioned were the foundation upon which negociations had been begun, I hoped they would be remembered and considered as the basis to all future transactions towards a peace, but that a paper, entitled Extrait d'une dépêche du roi de Prusse à ses ministres à Londres, datée de Leipzig le 28 de décembre 1760, servant de réponse au précis du 12 du même mois,1 lately given in by his ministers at London, seemed not to agree with the facts above established. He desired me to be plain and speak out what I meant; I then pulled out that paper and read to him at the


1 Vergl. Nr. 13188.