Thus instructed and accredited, Lord Malmesbury set off for Berlin by way of Holland. He found the Dutch in considerable anxiety at the state of the campaign, and ready to co-operate with England in any measure for maintaining the alliance intact. At Frankfort, the monetary market of Germany, he ascertained that the amount of treasure still left in the Prussian treasury was estimated at forty-one or forty-two millions of dollars; so that the plea of poverty advanced upon the part of the king was evidently false. Immediately on his arrival at Berlin, he obtained an interview with Frederick William; and the replies of that king to the remonstrance of the British minister are abundantly curious. He disclaimed all idea of lukewarmness or indifference to the results of the war, was loud in his profession of amity to Great Britain, but wound up with the anticipated excuse--"You will, I am sure, believe me when I tell you, _on the faith of an honest man_, (and for being one, I hope the king your master will give me credit,) I have not in my treasury enough to pay the expenses of a third campaign. Those I have incurred since my accession are not unknown to you. You also know that the late king strained the resources to their highest pitch; that I cannot raise a new tax on my subjects; that to attempt it would drive them to the worst consequences; and that the nature of the Prussian monarchy is such that it cannot bear a loan. In short, that _without my allies come to my assistance, and afford me pecuniary support_, I shall be compelled to stop short in the war.
"I have not exhausted my treasure in idle and useless expenses; it has been employed in forwarding measures which related to the general interests of Europe, as well as to the particular ones of Prussia. It cannot be those of England to see me degraded and sunk; and this certainly, _joined to my high notion of your national character_, leaves me without apprehension as to the consequences of the declaration I make, which I repeat to be the sole and real cause of my apparent backwardness in continuing the war."
It is now clear, far beyond cavil or doubt, that this sovereign's estimate of the national character of the English, was much akin to Major Dalgetty's appreciation of the Dutch--"They are the best paymasters in Europe." Dalgetty, however, had one merit which we fear that history must deny to the King of Prussia. He gave his service for his employer's money, and was scrupulously true to his articles. Frederick William, on the contrary, was bent upon receiving a subsidy, whilst, at the same time, he or his ministers were attempting to negotiate a private treaty with France. These facts come out most glaringly in the Malmesbury papers. The envoy seems to have felt all along that he was treading on the most slippery ground, that no reliance could be placed upon the faith or integrity of the court with which he now had to deal; and yet circumstances were of so pressing a nature, that he dared not, while the smallest chance of success remained, abandon the progress of the negotiation. The sentiments of the King of Prussia with regard to his nearest neighbour, may be understood from the following entry in Lord Malmesbury's diary:--"_Dec. 28, 1793._ Supper at Prince-Royal's. King told me of bad news from Wurmser's army--that he had lost two battalions and twenty-one pieces of cannon. _He seemed rather pleased with this bad news_; but admitted that it would do harm by raising the spirits of the Jacobins." In a note appended to this passage, it is added, that "this feeling of hatred towards Austria was shared by every minister at Berlin, and every officer in the Prussian army, and rendered all our efforts to combine effectually the two nations against the French unavailing."
