Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/105

Rh word, "that she looked upon him no longer as a publick minister."

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, 1711, with the utmost privacy, dispatched an Italian, one of his clerks, to Franckfort, 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 Franckfort, 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 publick 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, 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 . IV.