Sir Charles Hanbury Williams was appointed envoy to Dresden in 1747, was commissioned in July, 1749, along with Mr. Anstis, Garter at Arms, to carry the Blue Riband to the Margrave of Anspach; and on Mr. Fox waving, at the request of the King, his pretensions to the Treasurership of the Navy, was, with a view of gratifying that gentleman, who was his intimate friend, named Envoy Extraordinary at Berlin. He set out for that Court in May, 1750, and passed through Hanover when the King was there. From thence he was sent to the King of Poland, who was holding the Diet at Warsaw, to engage his vote for the Archduke Joseph to be King of the Romans. On this progress he wrote a celebrated letter to the Duke of Newcastle at Hanover, which was sent over to England and much admired, as his ministerial letters generally were. About this time he met the Ministers of the two Empresses of Germany and Russia; reconciled these two Princesses, and set out for Berlin, where he was very coldly received, and soon grew so offensive to the King, that he was, as he had predicted, recalled at his request, and sent back to Dresden in February, 1751. Sir Charles had detected the Saxon Minister at Berlin, in betraying his master’s and Russia’s secrets to the Court of Prussia; and had also exposed an artifice of the King of Prussia in making a Tartar, sent to release a countryman who had enlisted in the Prussian Army, pass for a Deputy or Minister for the disaffected in Russian Tartary. These circumstances, and his satirical tongue, and yet more[91] satirical pen, combined to exasperate the King of Prussia. It was, he said in his private letters, “in vain to contend with so mighty a Prince, and he became the sacrifice.” However, in 1753, he was sent to Vienna to demand the assistance of that Court in case Prussia should proceed to extremities after stopping the Silesian loan; and in his triple capacity of Minister, Courtier, and Poet, he composed the following distich on the Empress-Queen: “Oh Regina orbis prima et pulcherrima! ridens Es Venus, incedens Juno, Minerva loquens.” The general style of his poetry was far from being so complimentary; and that of his prose, though not so well known, and often too licentious for publication, was to the full as easy, lively, and humorous as his verse. After returning to England he was again appointed to Dresden, and attended the King of Poland to Warsaw, in 1754, where, upon espousing very warmly the interests of the Poniatowskys in an affair called the disposition of the Ostrog, he came to an open rupture with Count Bruhl. He shortly afterwards concluded a subsidiary treaty with Russia, and was named Ambassador to Petersburg in 1755. He returned to England in 1758, and died in 1759.