sitting of the Ministry of State, and also that no one who succeeds me as Minister President can assume responsibility for his office if he lacks the authority vested in him by the Order of 1852. This necessity will be felt even more strongly by any succeeding Minister than by me, as he will not be immediately sustained by that authority which I have hitherto enjoyed, owing to my long tenure of the Presidency and to the confidence reposed in me by the two late Emperors. Up to the present it has never been necessary for me, in dealing with my colleagues, to expressly appeal to the Order of 1852. Its existence and the certainty that I possessed the confidence of the two late Emperors, William and Frederick, was sufficient to secure my authority in the Cabinet. To-day, however, this certainty exists neither for my colleagues nor myself. I have therefore been obliged to fall back upon that Order for the purpose of securing the necessary unity in your Majesty’s service. For the reasons stated above, I am not in a position to carry out your Majesty’s command in accordance with which I should myself introduce and countersign the revocation of the Order of 1852 (to which I myself recently called attention), and nevertheless continue to hold the Presidency of the Ministry of State. “According to the communications made to me yesterday by Lieutenant-General Hahnke and _Geheimer Kabinetsrath_ von Lucanus, I can entertain no doubt that your Majesty knows and believes that it is not possible for me to revoke the Order and yet remain Minister President. Notwithstanding that fact your Majesty has maintained the command given on the 15th instant and indicated that my resignation, which is thereby rendered necessary, would be accepted. From previous conferences which I had with your Majesty on the question whether your Majesty desired my continuance in office, I gathered that it would be agreeable to your Majesty that I should resign my position in the service of Prussia, but continue in that of the Empire. After considering this matter more closely I took the liberty to call attention to some critical consequences of such a division of my offices, particularly so far as the future action of the Chancellor in the Imperial Diet is concerned, and therefore refrain from repeating here all the consequences which would attend such a divorce between Prussia and the Imperial Chancellor. Thereupon your Majesty deigned to agree that for the present everything should remain as it was. “As I have had the honour to explain, however, it is not possible for me to retain the post of Minister President after your Majesty has repeatedly ordered it to be subjected to the _capitis diminutio_ involved in the revocation of the fundamental Order of 1852.