The new envoy arrived at Celle in July, 1689. He was received by the Duke and Duchess “with all y^e respect and ceremony imaginable,” but his first impressions of Celle were indifferent. “The town,” he writes, “is very poor, and all y^e country round nothing but a deep sand and wood of small fyr trees, full of all sorts of wild beasts, which with the Duke’s passion for hunting makes him reside constantly here and at some little houses he has in y^e neighbourhood. I fear to pass a very miserable winter here, in extreme cold and very ill houses.”[35] But Hanover cheered his spirits. “This place,” he writes, “has much more the appearance of a court, and the town much larger and finer, people laying out their money in building and furnishing their houses, besides abundance of strangers resorting constantly hither.”[36] And again: “Nothing can be happier than we are here, all the court and the ministers showing us all imaginable kindness”.[37] His secretary, De la Roque, was even more enthusiastic. “Yesterday,” he writes, “Sir William Colt had an audience with the Duke and Duchess and Princess of Hanover [Sophie Dorothea], who received him with every mark of respect due to him as His Majesty’s envoy. This court is as splendid as any in Germany; genius and civility reign here. The Duchess Sophia is _une personne incomparable d’un esprit, d’une bonté, et d’une civilité à charmer_. She speaks all living languages as well as her own. Her beautiful daughter [in law], the Princess, is both accomplished and agreeable.”[38] ----- Footnote 35: Colt’s _Despatch_, Celle, July 19, 1689. Footnote 36: Colt’s _Despatch_, Hanover, July 26, 1689. Footnote 37: _Ibid._, Hanover, July 30, 1689. Footnote 38: _Letter of De la Roque_, July 26, 1689. -----