History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 15 by Thomas Carlyle

A "Correspondence" of a certain Excellency Villiers, English Minister at Dresden, -- Sir Thomas Villiers, Grandfather of the present Earl of Clarendon, -- was very famous in those weeks; and is still worth mention, as a trait of Friedrich's procedure in this crisis. Friedrich, not intoxicated with his swift triumph over Prince Karl, but calculating the perils and the chances still ahead, -- miserably off for money too, -- admits to himself that not revenge or triumph, that Peace is the one thing needful to him. November 29th, Old Leopold is entering Saxony; and in the same hours, Podewils at Berlin, by order of Friedrich, writes to Villiers who is in Dresden, about Peace, about mediating for Peace: "My King ready and desirous, now as at all times, for Peace; the terms of it known; terms not altered, not alterable, no bargaining or higgling needed or allowable. CONVENTION OF HANOVER, let his Polish Majesty accede honestly to that, and all these miseries are ended. " ["CORRESPONDANCE DU ROI AVEC SIR THOMAS VILLIERS; " commences, on Podewils's part, 28th November; on Friedrich's, 4th December; ends, on Villier's, 18th December; fourteen Pieces in all, four of them Friedrich's: Given in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 183-216 (see IB, 158), and in many other Books.]

Villiers starts instantly on this beneficent business; "goes to Court, on it, that very night; " Villiers shows himself really diligent, reasonable, loyal; doing his very best now and afterwards; but has no success at all. Polish Majesty is obstinate, -- I always think, in the way sheep are, when they feel themselves too much put upon; -- and is deaf to everybody but Bruhl. Bruhl answers: "Let his Prussian Majesty retire from our Territory; -- what is he doing in the Lausitz just now! Retire from our Territory; THEN we will treat! " Bruhl still refuses to be desperate of his bad game; -- at any rate, Bruhl's rage is yellower than ever. That, very evening, while talking to Villiers, he has had preparations going on; -- and next morning takes his Master, Polish Majesty August III., with some comfortable minimum of apparatus (cigar-boxes not forgotten), off to Prag, where they can be out of danger till the thing decide itself. Villiers follows to Prag; desists not from his eloquent Letters, and earnest persuasions at Prag; but begins to perceive that the means of persuading Bruhl will be a much heavier kind of artillery.