The envoy, in his subsequent letters, collects intelligence from all quarters, and sends it in fragments. "We have yet no _relation_ of the _victory of victories_, but there are letters from the King of Prussia which say that he expected soon to be master of Breslau, and of the garrison and wounded in that town, amounting to ten thousand men. He computes the loss of the Austrians at thirty thousand.... What I write is almost incredible; but two miracles, in the space of one month, two victories gained by the same handful of men--for the Prussian army, in the first action of the 5th of November, did not exceed eighteen thousand, and in the last might be from thirty to thirty-five thousand--have, I hope, restored affairs to a situation I never expected to see them in." The merit of this diligence may be estimated from the difficulty of correspondence in those days of convulsion. In his first despatch on this subject, so important to the English cabinet, he says,-- "In case this letter should be stopped, I have prevailed with a Jew to write to his correspondent at the Hague a letter in _Hebrew_, which contains further particulars, &c., which he is directed forthwith to communicate to Colonel Yorke, (the British Resident with the States of Holland.)" We then have a curious specimen of the spirit of diplomacy. "TO THE EARL OF HOLDERNESSE. "_December 1757._ "My Lord,--I have had some suspicion that Prince Henry is paving the way to a negotiation with France, without the knowledge of the king his brother. "The prince is very vain, and hates his brother, of whose greatness he is jealous; at the same time, he has talents, but more cunning than real parts, and is French to the bone. "I live well with him, but have carefully watched him. He owned to me the other day that he had taken upon himself to release Monsieur Martinfort, _commissaire des vivres_ to Soubise's army, taken at the battle of the 5th of November. The pretence for releasing him is, that Martinfort has no rank in the army, and therefore cannot be exchanged; and that he will prevail on the Prince of Soubise to release, in his room, a Prussian counsellor, who was carried off as a hostage by the French. "I know the prince's way of thinking--ambition is his only principle. He imagined--looking on the state of the King of Prussia's affairs as desperate--that he should have the glory of making peace. For this purpose, he first began to show an enormous partiality to the French officers, and to hold frequent and long conferences with Martinfort, who is a shrewd, sensible man; and I am convinced that the prince flatters himself that he shall bring about something by his means.... I judge it necessary to give your lordship these hints, that Martinfort may be _properly watched_ in Paris."