In a word, the English Sovereignties and Ministries have determined that an Envoy Extraordinary (one Hotham, they think of), with the due solemnity, be sent straightway to Berlin; to treat of those interesting matters, and officially put the question there. Whom Dubourgay is instructed to announce to his Prussian Majesty, with salutation from this Court. As Dubourgay does straightway, with a great deal of pleasure. [Despatches: London, 8th February; Berlin, 2d March, 1780] How welcome to his Majesty we need not say. And indeed, after such an announcement (1st March, 1730, the day of it), they fell into cheerful dialogue; and the Brigadier had some frank conversation with his Majesty about the "Arbitration Commission" then sitting at Brunswick, and European affairs in general. Conversation which is carefully preserved for us in the Brigadier's Despatch of the morrow. It never was intrinsically of much moment; and is now fallen very obsolete, and altogether of none: but as a glance at first-hand into the dim old thoughts of Friedrich Wilhelm, the reader may take it with him:-- "The King said next, That though we made little noise, yet he knew well our design--was to kindle a fire in other parts of Lower Germany. To which I answered, That if his Majesty would give me favorable hearing, I could easily persuade him of the peaceable intentions of our Allies. 'Well,' says he, 'the Emperor will abandon the Netherlands, and who will be master of them? I see the day when you will make France so powerful, that it will be difficult to bring them to reason again.'--DUBOURGAY: 'If the Emperor abandoned the Netherlands, they would be governed by their own Magistrate, and defended by their own Militia. As to the French, we are too well persuaded of the benefit of our Allies, to--' Upon which the King of Prussia said, 'It appeared plainly we had a mind to dispose as we pleased of Kingdoms and provinces in Italy, so that probably our next thought would be to do the same in Germany.'--DUBOURGAY: 'The allotments made in favor of Don Carlos have been made with the consent of the Emperor and the whole Empire. We could not suffer a longer interruption of our commerce with Spain, for the sake of the small difference between the Treaty of Seville and the Quadruple Alliance, in regard to the Garrison,'"--to the introducing of Spanish Garrisons, at once, into Parma and Piacenza; which was the special thunder-bolt of the late Soissons Catastrophe, or Treaty of Seville.--"'Well, then,' says his Prussian Majesty, 'you must allow, then, there IS an infraction of the Quadruple Alliance, and that the Emperor will make war!' 'I hope not,' said I: 'but if so, a Ten-Years War, in conjunction with the Allies of Seville, never would be so bad as the interruption of our Commerce with Old and New Spain for one year.'