Berlin, Feb. 28th, 1799.
MY DEAREST BROTHER,
The journal which Mr. Fisher has shown to me, and which he proposes
to send to you by this messenger, will give you a much more
accurate account of our voyage than I could pretend to do if I had
time to undertake it; but that is unfortunately so far from being
the case, that I can with difficulty catch a short time by this
opportunity to write even a few words to you.
We arrived here on the 17th, and I have scarcely yet got through
the endless presentations and the weary first suppers of the
Princes, which engross the whole evening from six in the evening
till one in the morning. I have seen the King hitherto very little,
but I am going to dine with him to-day; he is thought to be
well-disposed in his general intentions, perfectly aware of all he
has to fear from the great nation whom he detests and abhors; but
having no original opinions of his own, nor habits of forming his
own judgment, he falls unfortunately too much into the hands of the
military officers, particularly the aides-de-camp with whom he
lives, and their influence is, in consequence, powerful enough to
weigh sometimes against the opinions of the Ministers whom he
employs.
The general idea here is, that the person who has most weight with
him is an aide-de-camp named Kochentz, of whose honesty there is no
suspicion, but whose talents and capacity are of a very inferior
description, and who is therefore open to the artifices of bad and
designing men, who work powerfully through him upon the King.
Haugwiz is believed to be sincere in his apprehensions of the
general danger of French republicanism, and is considered as
struggling against the more immediate followers of the King, who
surround him daily, and haunt him with the dreadful consequences of
war to Prussia, and the old jealousies and distrusts of Austria.
If the Court of Vienna should at last act, as I am almost disposed
to think they will rather than send back the Russian troops at the
requisition of France, the beginning of hostilities from that Court
cannot fail of producing a good effect here; the great danger is,
that while each is waiting for the other to begin, the time for
useful and effective exertion will pass by.
I have seen Sieyes at Court with his scarf and cockade. What
Lavater would say of his features I know not, but I have seldom
seen a countenance of so bad impression. His manners, conduct and
appearance here have produced nothing but disgust in all that are
not of the lower ranks of life, but it is to those that his mission
is considered as being chiefly addressed, and he is said to have
both means and agents enough to work through upon the lower classes
of men here.
I have heard nothing from England or Ireland since I left Yarmouth,
nothing of Union, and nothing of you; but how can I till the
summer, if the last ten days of soft weather will not unlock the
inhospitable ice of the Elbe at Cuxhaven? We are all well. God send
that you and yours are so. Love to Lord B. and George and Mary. The
Major is, I trust, soon expecting you in England.
God bless you, dearest brother. You will be glad to hear great part
of my baggage is saved.
The negotiations which the French had been carrying on at Rastadt
relative to the German boundaries, were broken off in consequence of the
Emperor having permitted the Russian troops to enter his dominions; and
on the 1st of March, the Directory having declared war against him,
Jourdan, at the head of forty thousand men, crossed the Rhine at Kehl
and Basle. Austria was now fairly committed to the war, and,
strengthened by the Russians, who entered into it with enthusiasm,
achieved a succession of important movements. On the 5th of March, the
Arch-Duke Charles crossed the Leck; and on the 25th, defeated Jourdan at
the battle of Stockach, and, leaving ten thousand men dead or expiring
on the field, compelled the French to retire towards the Rhine. This
triumph was followed up vigorously by the battle of Magnan, on the 5th
of April, in which the Austrians, under Kray, joined by the vanguard of
the Russians, effected so signal a victory, that Scherer, beaten for the
third time in the course of the campaign, fled in precipitation across
the Nincio. The effect of these encouraging successes was utterly lost
on the Court of Prussia, where the policy, or no-policy, of doing
nothing still prevailed over the counsels of friends, and the menaces of
enemies. The picture Mr. Grenville gives of the weakness and incapacity
of the Government suggests the only intelligible explanation of the
conduct they pursued at this juncture.