Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/237

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mlnifler at Vienna, that lie had a f-ropofa! to make to him which he did not expeft ; that the emprefs queen had ordered him to give him a memorial (which the count a: the fame time prefented) and that (he defired that his court would return an snfwer to it as foon as poflible. This memorial remarks, that, in offering that neutrality, all the fecurities and juft and reafonable indulgencies and conditions were required for the emprefs and her allies, which ought to follow from fuch an engagement. Nothing could be more natural than for the king to defire an explanation of thofe equivocal terms, which were fufcepiible of any meaning that might be put upon them. He did fo, in an anfwer, conformable to the fame language which he had always ufed in quality of eleftor, and repeated, with that freedom and uprightnefs from which he never departed, his refolution to Hop the French troops, and to take no other fhare in the war. Thefe a/I'urances would have been fuffici- ent, if there had really been no de- fign to injure the king's dominions, and thofe of his allies, as long as, in quality of elcftor, he remained neuter.

The court of Vienna had pre- vioufly anfvvered, that it would treat with France concerning that affair ; but it at the fume time figned a convention with the Count d'Etrees, by virtue of which the French army was to pafi the Wefer the loth of July. This circumftance, after the teftimony which M. d'Etrees himfeif has given of it, cannot be called in queiUon.

Inliead of the explanr.tion that Was expeded, the Count de Coi-

PAPERS.

223

loredo fent to London In the month of April to Baron de Munchaul'en his Britannic majelly's electoral minifter, the fcheme of a treaty of neutrality ; wherein not only a pailage for the combined army was demanded, but it was alfo faid, that the king had delivered up his ftrong places to foreign troops ; that he fhould not aug- ment nor aflemble his own ; but fhculd difperfe them in fuch a manner as Ihould be agreed on. The king by fubmitting to thefe terms, was no longer mailer of his own country, nor of his owa troops, and voluntarily difarmed. himfeif. The French miniftry, however, have not fcrupled to an- nex to their Parallel the piece which contains fuch Hrange pro- poiitions. The confequences were fuch as the court of Vienna might naturally expeft, and which, after figning the convention with the Count d' Etrees, it might de- fire. The king broke off a nego- tiation which or.Iy fhewed the ar- rogance of the courts which had begun it.

The reader is now able to judge of that part of the memorial of the court of France that regards this article. It firft endeavours to render the king fufpeded by his allie?, when it fays, ' That he had given


 * infinuations for the neutrality of

' afterwards he had propofed ic> ' admit of it, provided that the
 * his German dominion?, and that


 * Frencli troops, iriHead of paiTing


 * through his dominions were


 * made to pafs through the coun-

' tha, and Weimar.'
 * tries of CaiTel, Brunfwick, Go-

Certainly the author of the

French memorial, when he wrote

this, forgot that the king's anfwer,

anocxed