History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 20 [94]
men; to regard intensely the chemic affinities and natural properties, to keep his phosphorescents his nitres and charcoals well apart; to get out of these English what they were capable of giving him, namely, heavy strokes,--and never ask them for what they had not: them or the others; but treat each according to his kind. Just, candid, consummately polite: an excellent manager of men, as well as of war-movements, though Voltaire found him shockingly defective in ESPRIT. The English, I think, he generally quartered by themselves; employed them oftenest under the Hereditary Prince,--a man of swift execution and prone to strokes like themselves. "Oftenest under the Erbprinz," says Mauvillon: "till, after the Fight of Kloster Kampen, it began to be noticed that there was a change in that respect; and the mess-rooms whispered, 'By accident or not?'"-- which shall remain mysterious to me. In Battle after Battle he got the most unexceptionable sabring and charging from Lord Granby and the difficult English element; and never was the least discord heard in his Camp;--nor could even Sackville at Minden tempt him into a loud word.
But enough of English soldiering, and battling with the French. For about two months prior to this of Vellinghausen, and for more than two months after, there is going on, by special Envoys between Pitt and Choiseul, a lively Peace-Negotiation, which is of more concernment to us than any Battle. "Congress at Augsburg" split upon formalities, preliminaries, and never even tried to meet: but France and England are actually busy. Each Country has sent its Envoy: the Sieur de Bussy, a tricky gentleman, known here of old, is Choiseul's, whom Pitt is on his guard against; "Mr. Hans Stanley," a lively, clear-sighted person, of whom I could never hear elsewhere, is Pitt's at Paris: and it is in that City between Choiseul and Stanley, with Pitt warily and loftily presiding in the distance, that the main stress of the Negotiation lies. Pitt is lofty, haughty, but very fine and noble; no King or Kaiser could be more. Sincere, severe, though most soft-shining; high, earnest, steady, like the stars. Artful Choiseul, again, flashes out in a cheerily exuberant way; and Stanley's Despatches about Choiseul ("CE FOU PLEIN D'ESPRIT," as Friedrich once christens him), about Choiseul and the France then round him, and the effects of Vellinghausen in society and the like,--are the liveliest reading one almost anywhere meets with in that kind. [In THACKERAY, i. 505-579, and especially ii. 520-626, is the Stanley-and-Pitt Correspondence: Stanley went "23d May;" returned (got his passports for returning) "September 20th."] Choiseul frankly admits that he has come to the worst: ready for concessions, but the question is, What? Canada is gone, for instance; of Canada you will allow us nothing: but our poor Fisher-people, toiling in the Newfoundland waters, cannot they have a rock to dry their fish on; "Isle of Miquelon, or the like?" "Not the breadth of a blanket,"--that is Pitt's private expression, I believe; and for certain, that, in polite official language, is his inexorable determination. "You shall go home out of those Countries, Messieurs; America is to be English or YANkee, not FRANGcee: that has turned out to be the Decree of Heaven; and we will stand by that."
So that Choiseul soon satisfies himself it will be a hard bargain, this with Pitt; and turns the more assiduously to the Majesty of Spain (Baby Carlos, our old friend, who has sore grudges of his own against the English, standing grievance of Campeachy Logwood, of bitter Naples reminiscences, and enough else), turns to Baby Carlos, time after time, with his pathetic "See, your Most Catholic Majesty!" And by rapid degrees induces Most Catholic Majesty to go wholly into the adventure with Most Christian Ditto;--and to say, at length, or to let Choiseul say for him, by way of cautious first-step (15th July, a date worth remembering, if the reader please): "Might not Most Catholic Majesty be allowed perhaps to mediate a little in this Business?" "Most Catholic
But enough of English soldiering, and battling with the French. For about two months prior to this of Vellinghausen, and for more than two months after, there is going on, by special Envoys between Pitt and Choiseul, a lively Peace-Negotiation, which is of more concernment to us than any Battle. "Congress at Augsburg" split upon formalities, preliminaries, and never even tried to meet: but France and England are actually busy. Each Country has sent its Envoy: the Sieur de Bussy, a tricky gentleman, known here of old, is Choiseul's, whom Pitt is on his guard against; "Mr. Hans Stanley," a lively, clear-sighted person, of whom I could never hear elsewhere, is Pitt's at Paris: and it is in that City between Choiseul and Stanley, with Pitt warily and loftily presiding in the distance, that the main stress of the Negotiation lies. Pitt is lofty, haughty, but very fine and noble; no King or Kaiser could be more. Sincere, severe, though most soft-shining; high, earnest, steady, like the stars. Artful Choiseul, again, flashes out in a cheerily exuberant way; and Stanley's Despatches about Choiseul ("CE FOU PLEIN D'ESPRIT," as Friedrich once christens him), about Choiseul and the France then round him, and the effects of Vellinghausen in society and the like,--are the liveliest reading one almost anywhere meets with in that kind. [In THACKERAY, i. 505-579, and especially ii. 520-626, is the Stanley-and-Pitt Correspondence: Stanley went "23d May;" returned (got his passports for returning) "September 20th."] Choiseul frankly admits that he has come to the worst: ready for concessions, but the question is, What? Canada is gone, for instance; of Canada you will allow us nothing: but our poor Fisher-people, toiling in the Newfoundland waters, cannot they have a rock to dry their fish on; "Isle of Miquelon, or the like?" "Not the breadth of a blanket,"--that is Pitt's private expression, I believe; and for certain, that, in polite official language, is his inexorable determination. "You shall go home out of those Countries, Messieurs; America is to be English or YANkee, not FRANGcee: that has turned out to be the Decree of Heaven; and we will stand by that."
So that Choiseul soon satisfies himself it will be a hard bargain, this with Pitt; and turns the more assiduously to the Majesty of Spain (Baby Carlos, our old friend, who has sore grudges of his own against the English, standing grievance of Campeachy Logwood, of bitter Naples reminiscences, and enough else), turns to Baby Carlos, time after time, with his pathetic "See, your Most Catholic Majesty!" And by rapid degrees induces Most Catholic Majesty to go wholly into the adventure with Most Christian Ditto;--and to say, at length, or to let Choiseul say for him, by way of cautious first-step (15th July, a date worth remembering, if the reader please): "Might not Most Catholic Majesty be allowed perhaps to mediate a little in this Business?" "Most Catholic