The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 10: Historical WritingsSwift, Jonathan
History
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 10: Historical Writings
Swift, Jonathan
Anne, Queen of Great Britain, 1665-1714; Great Britain -- History -- Anne, 1702-1714; Spanish Succession, War of, 1701-1714
This gentleman thought fit to act a very dishonourable part here in
England, altogether inconsistent with the character he bore of envoy
from the late and present emperors, two princes under the strictest ties
of gratitude to the Queen, especially the latter, who had then the title
of King of Spain. Count Gallas, about the end of August, one thousand
seven hundred and eleven, with the utmost privacy, dispatched an
Italian, one of his clerks, to Frankfort, where the Earl of Peterborough
was then expected. This man was instructed to pass for a Spaniard, and
insinuate himself into the Earl's service, which he accordingly did, and
gave constant information to the last emperor's secretary at Frankfort
of all he could gather up in his lordship's family, as well as copies of
several letters he had transcribed. It was likewise discovered that
Gallas had, in his dispatches to the present emperor, then in Spain,
represented the Queen and her ministers as not to be confided in, that
when Her Majesty had dismissed the Earl of Sunderland, she promised to
proceed no farther in the change of her servants, yet soon after turned
them all out, and thereby ruined the public credit, as well as abandoned
Spain, that the present ministers wanted the abilities and good
dispositions of the former, were persons of ill designs, and enemies to
the common cause, and he (Gallas) could not trust them. In his letters
to Count Zinzendorf[8] he said, "That Mr. Secretary St John complained
of the house of Austria's backwardness, only to make the King of Spain
odious to England, and the people here desirous of a peace, although it
were ever so bad one," to prevent which, Count Gallas drew up a memorial
which he intended to give the Queen, and transmitted a draught of it to
Zinzendorf for his advice and approbation. This memorial, among other
great promises to encourage the continuance of the war, proposed the
detaching a good body of troops from Hungary to serve in Italy or Spain,
as the Queen should think fit.
[Footnote 8: The Austrian envoy at The Hague, characterized by Mr Walter
Sichel as "a martyr to etiquette, and devoured by zeal for the Holy
Roman Empire" ("Bolingbroke and his Times," p 392) [T.S.]]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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