THE KING TO THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

St. James's, m. past eleven, p.m. [December 2, 1766.]

LORD CHATHAM,

On my return from the ball-room, I found your letter containing the Duke of Bedford's extravagant proposal. Indeed I expected, from his choosing to deliver his answer in person, that he meant to attempt obtaining an office or two in addition to those offered; but could not imagine that even the rapaciousness of his friends could presume to think of more than that.

I know the uprightness of my cause, and that my principal ministers mean nothing but to aid in making my people happy; therefore I cannot exceed the bounds you acquainted Lord Gower were the utmost that would be granted. This hour demands a due firmness; 't is that has already dismayed all the hopes of those just retired, and will, I am confident, show the Bedfords of what little consequence they also are. A contrary conduct would at once overturn the very end proposed at the formation of the present administration; for to rout out the present method of parties banding together, can only be obtained by a withstanding their unjust demands, as well as the engaging able men, be their private connections where they will. I shall be ready to receive you to-morrow at two o'clock at the Queen's house.

GEORGE R.

THE KING TO THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

[December 3, 1766.]

LORD CHATHAM, THOUGH the Duke of Bedford has declined, on not obtaining farther concessions than those proposed through the channel of Lord Gower, I am glad his behaviour was proper; as it gives me the strongest reason to judge, that the difficulties he has made have not originated in his mind, but are owing to others. You will therefore proceed in the other arrangements.

GEORGE R. (')

(1) Some further light is thrown upon this negotiation in the following letter from Lord Barrington to Sir Andrew Mitchell, of the 14th of December:-"I thought of writing you an immediate account of the late very factious and ill-judged resignations; but on farther consideration I deferred it till the alterations consequent thereupon should be made. I once conceived that the Duke of Bedford would have come into employment. His Grace and Lord Chatham had two conferences, and, as it is said, parted civilly, but they could not agree upon terms. Public measures were not, I believe, what the negotiation split upon. The vacant offices have since been given in the manner which the public newspapers have told you, except Lord Despenser's appointment to the post office. Most of those who have been driven out of the King's service by different administrations are now restored to it; and I think it more for the honour and dignity of government first to do acts of justice, than to begin by gaining enemies. Lord Chatham declares to all the world, that his great point is to destroy faction; and he told the House of Lords the other day, 'that he could look the proudest connection in the face.' You must have observed, that Lord Bute's friends have not been forgotten; and I believe his Lordship is much better inclined to the present administration than he has been to any since his own. Indeed

SIR ANDREW MITCHELL TO THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

(Private.)

MY LORD,

Berlin, December 6, 1766.

As in my letters to Mr. Secretary Conway by this messenger I have given an ample account of what passed in the audience I had of the King of Prussia at Potsdam, on the 1st instant ('), I am

this is the only one which has treated him with decency. My conclusion from the whole is, that the present state of things is likely to continue, or rather to improve; for when ambitious or avaricious men find that there is a strength sufficient to carry on measures without them, they are more likely to accede on reasonable terms. Our friend Lord Hillsborough has left an office which he did not like. It had the appearance and confinement of business without the reality or usefulness of it. He is laid up in lavender at the post office till he shall be wanted' elsewhere. I was destined for the admiralty, if Sir Edward Hawke had not accepted."- Mitchell MSS.

(1) The following is Sir Andrew's account of what passed at this audience:-"I have the satisfaction to acquaint you that I was received by his Prussian Majesty with great marks of condescension; that he heard me with attention, and answered with much temper and calmness. After some obliging inquiries concerning the state of my health, he asked me what my business was to-day. I told him that I had transmitted to my court a fair account of what had passed in the audience I had of him on the 13th of September last, and that by the answer to that despatch his Majesty had expressed his surprise that he, King of Prussia, should have received with so much coldness and indifference a proposition calculated for preserving the peace of Europe, and so peculiarly advantageous to his Prussian Majesty; that the King from predilection had made that opening to him, before any steps had been taken for the same purpose at the court of Russia; and his Majesty had expected, that the King of Prussia, sensible of this distinguished mark of his friendship and

now to give your Lordship, in confidence, a relation of a conversation I then had with that

attention, would have been more explicit in the answer he gave to a proposal of so great importance; that perhaps this might have been owing to my having failed in explaining to him the nature, the end, and intention of the alliance proposed, which I took occasion to say was entirely defensive, adopted to preserve the public tranquillity, and to counterbalance the pernicious effects the family compact might have upon the other powers in Europe; and that the King, my master, had therefore commanded me to ask this audience of his Prussian Majesty, in order to obtain an explicit answer from him with regard to the alliance proposed; that if he approved of it, his Majesty was willing to go hand in hand, and to concert with him every step that was to be taken to bring this great scheme to perfection; that as this alliance was intended for the common security and advantage of all the contracting parties, it was proposed to be established upon an equal, fair, and honourable footing, and that particular articles of the treaty would be more fully explained to him by Mr. Stanley, whose journey to Russia had been postponed till the King should be informed with more precision of the King of Prussia's real sentiments with regard to that measure. I therefore concluded with begging his Prussian Majesty to be as open and free with me upon this subject as he had been upon many other important occasions.

"The King of Prussia answered, with a smile, 'You did not use to be so slow of apprehension. I really believed you had understood my meaning in the last audience, and I can now only repeat what I then said; for I still continue in the same opinion, that the alliance proposed, so far from contributing to preserve the public tranquillity, may be the means of interrupting it, and that suddenly, as it cannot fail to excite jealousy in the other powers of Europe, and perhaps to unite them more strictly together than they are at present. Things are now quiet: I wish they may long continue so. Associations of different powers upon a general plan are rarely of long duration, and seldom produce any good effect. Circumstances vary so fast, that there is hardly any possibility of making a provision, in a general treaty, for events that may happen. When the storm seems to be rising, and clouds begin to appear, then, and

monarch as a private man, and not in the character of a minister.

After the audience was ended, I took the liberty of observing to the King of Prussia, that I remarked with regret, in the course of the conversation, that he had not spoken to me with the same freedom and openness he was wont to do on former occasions, and that I suspected he had only given the specious, not the real reasons, for his disinclination to the treaty proposed. He answered, with good humour, that my conjecture was not absolutely without some foundation, and that he would own to me, as a private man, that it was not easy for him to forget the ill usage and injustice he had met with from our nation, at the time of

not till then, is the time of uniting together, and of concerting measures to ward off the impending danger. I am therefore unwilling to enter into schemes that may occasion new wars, and these are in general my reasons against the expediency of such a treaty at this juncture, which I desire you will lay fairly before the King your master, assuring him, at the same time, of the high sense I have of the repeated marks of his Majesty's friendship and confidence.'

"To this I replied, I should punctually obey his orders; but I took leave to observe, that it would be matter of wonder in England, that his Prussian Majesty should decline entering into a defensive alliance, proposed for the preservation of the present general tranquillity, especially of the peace of Germany, and which, in stead of exposing him, the King of Prussia, to danger, was so manifestly calculated for his particular advantage and security. Finding, after all I had said, that he still declined entering into his Majesty's views, I thought it unnecessary to press him any farther. I therefore took leave, by assuring him, that I should not fail to make a faithful report to my court of what had passed."-Mitchell MSS.