MY LORD, ADDISON TO THE EARL OF STAIR, Whitehall, July 17th, 1717. Your Excellency's letters of the 4th, 5th, 7th, 10th, and 14th instant, N. S., have been laid before his Majesty, who entirely approves of your conduct in the several steps that have been taken in relation to the strengthening the good intelligence between his Majesty and the Czar, to whom his Majesty has despatched Sir John Norris as his Envoy Plenipotentiary, in pursuance of what was promised by your Excellency to Prince Kurakin. The instances used by your Excellency for sending out of the French dominions the late Duke of Ormond, and the Earl of Marr, are very agreeable to his Majesty, as are likewise the applications you have made for hastening the demolition of Mardyke, for the release of the English sailors condemned to the galleys, and the seizing of Bowdridge, the receiver of the land-tax. I need not repeat to your Excellency the sense his Majesty has of the Regent's ready compliance with any demands of the like nature, for which your Excellency will continue to make suitable compliments in his Majesty's name. Upon what your Excellency has transmitted hither in relation to the island of Martinico, his Majesty would not lose the first opportunity of testifying the great regard his Majesty bears to what the Regent has communicated to you upon that head; and that nothing may be omitted, on his Majesty's part, that may contribute towards the quiet and security of that part of the French dominions, I have, therefore, signified his Majesty's commands to the respective governors, not only of the islands in the neighbourhood of Martinico, but likewise of all his Majesty's provinces in America, that they should not give the least protection or encouragement to any of the rebels; but that, on the contrary, they should take all proper measures for discountenancing and suppressing them; which you will please to acquaint the Regent with; and I herewith transmit to your Excellency duplicates of the letters I have writ upon this occasion, which are to be delivered to the French ministers, that they may take such opportunities as they shall find proper for transmitting them to his Majesty's governors, in case any of those sent from hence should miscarry, or not arrive time enough. I am commanded to transmit likewise to your Excellency the enclosed paper with relation to the King of Prussia, which you will please to look upon as a part of what has been formerly communicated to you upon that subject. Since I received from your Excellency the copy of the Regent's declaration with regard to Gortz and Gyllenborg, you will find the affair of Gortz has taken another turn, which has occasioned some little alterations; and therefore I enclose to your Excellency a copy of it, as it was settled yesterday with Monsieur d'Iberville. MY LORD, I am, with great respect, &c., J. ADDISON. ADDISON TO VISCOUNT STANHOPE. Whitehall, July 18th, 1717. Having at last got over that troublesome affair of MANNI, the Venetian, I take leave to enclose to your Lordship an account of the expense thereof, amounting to one hundred and sixty-five pounds, eighteen shillings, and threepence. I declined giving your Lordship any trouble before about the money deposited for this purpose; but now that the whole is settled, and Manni is not likely to give the government any further trouble, I must beg you will please to order the payment of the above sum to Mr. Thomas Bambridge, who has been very instrumental in bringing this matter to a conclusion; for which reason I have taken the liberty to add an article of ten pounds as a gratification of his trouble. I am, my Lord, your Lordship's ADDISON TO THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY. MY LORDS, Whitehall, July 22nd, 1717. Lieutenant John Cossley having been sent express hither from the island of Minorca, with letters relating to his Majesty's service, and having given me the enclosed account of the charge he was at in performing that journey, amounting to the sum of forty-seven pounds and one shilling; it is his Majesty's pleasure, that your Lordships should give the necessary orders for paying to the said Lieutenant Cossley the said sum of forty-seven pounds and one shilling. on account of the said journey. I am, my Lords, your Lordships' most J. ADDISON. TO THE HONOURABLE JOSEPH ADDISON, ESQUIRE, PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE TO HIS MAJESTY. Lieutenant John Cossley, having been sent express by my Lord Forbess, Commander-in-Chief in the island of Minorca, with letters to your Honour, upon the motion of the Spanish men-of-war from Cadiz into the Mediterranean, and having also brought a letter to his Majesty from the Bey of Tripoli, was at the expense of fortyseven pounds one shilling, the particulars of which are mentioned in the annexed bill, in performing the said journey, which he did in nine days from Marseilles to London; he humbly prays your Honour will be pleased to order him to be re-imbursed, and such further consideration for his trouble, care, and diligence, as his Majesty shall think reasonable. JOHN COSSLEY. THE ACCOUNT OF MY EXPENSES FROM MINORCA TO LONDON. The Packet from Mahon to Marseilles Travelling and expenses from Dover to London John Cossley. £47 1 0 MY LORD, ADDISON TO THE EARL OF STAIR. Whitehall, July 25th, 1717. I have laid before his Majesty your Excellency's letter relating to the admission of the king of Prussia into the Triple Alliance, and the mediation of the French king in the peace of the North. As to the first, his Majesty is very well pleased with the reasons you have alleged against it in your conversation with the Abbé du Bois, which your Excellency will be able to enforce upon the perusal of the minutes, which I lately transmitted to you by his Majesty's order. To which I must further add, that, by advices received from Vienna, his Majesty is informed that the emperor has declared he will not come into Alliance, in case the king of Prussia be admitted. As for the second point-that of the French king's mediation in the peace of the North-his Majesty is no less pleased with the answer which your Excellency has made to that overture. However, as the king is ready to comply with everything that may be reasonably expected of him by the Regent, his Majesty, having already admitted him as mediator in the affair of Count Gyllenborg and Baron Gortz, is willing this mediation should extend to all other matters in dispute between the crowns of Great Britain and Sweden, which his Majesty thinks may be a means of preparing the way to his mediation in the peace of the North. Nevertheless, since his Majesty cannot act in this particular, but in concert with the rest of the Allies of the empire, he is of opinion, that the only method which the Court of France can make use of, in order to carry this point, will be to induce his Swedish Majesty to make it his request, that the king of France should be joined with the emperor in the nediation. Mons. d'Iberville has spoken to the king's ministers on is point; and, in case it can be brought to bear, has menoned something of a place to be appointed by the Regent for treating the peace of the North; which would doubtless raise a new difficulty, since it is certain the emperor would not depart from the nomination he has already made as to that particular. But it is thought this difficulty might likewise be got over by the Regent's naming Brunswick as his own choice, without any regard to its being already named by the emperor as the place of treaty. I should not have troubled your Excellency upon this second mediation, which properly relates to the king's affairs in Germany, might not the prospect of it dispose the Regent to be more active and favourable in carrying on his mediation between the crowns of Great Britain and Sweden, to the satisfaction of his Majesty and the advantage of these his kingdoms. As for the other letters I have received from your Excellency, since this which I now answer, they have been laid before the king, and are under the most serious consideration; so that I hope, in a very little time, to signify to you his Majesty's commands on the several particulars contained in them. I am directed to enclose to your Excellency an extract of a private letter from Mr. Whitworth to my Lord Sunderland, together with the extract of a letter to the said Mr. Whitworth. His Majesty, having sent some commands to Sir Robert Sutton, which ought to be transmitted to him with all possible despatch, and the last advices giving an account that he is landed at Toulon, and therefore may probably pass through Paris, in his way to England, I am commanded to enclose a letter for him to your Excellency, that it may be conveyed to him by the very first opportunity. I am, &c., J. ADDISON. Extract of Mr. Whitworth's' private letter to the Earl of Sunderland, dated at the Hague [16] July 27, 1717. I here enclose an extract in relation to the Czar and the king of Prussia's designs in France, because it comes from a very good hand, and that I find by one from my Lord Stair, of the 23rd in 1 Charles Lord Whitworth was the political élève of George Stepney, and attended that statesman through several courts of Germany. At the date of the present letter he was envoy extraordinary to the Hague. In 1704 he was envoy to the Court of St. Petersburgh, and in 1710 went thither again as ambassador extraordinary, to pacify the Czar, who was curious at the arrest of his minister in London, by some tradesmen to whom he was indebted. See p. 371. Mr. Whitworth wrote his "Account of Russia in 1710," during this trip, and it was afterwards printed at Strawberry Hill by Horace Walpole. |