Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums · 1900-01-01 · Heft 5 · p. Seite 278

278 Die englische Intervention/. Gunsten cL böhmischen Juden i. J. 1744, rececling in any manner from whatever has been once resolved. And in this the Queen does not follow exactly tlie example of her uncle the emperor Joseph to whose temper in most other respects her’s seems to have a great resemblance. That prince was no less easy in revoking upon consideration hastj steps, than in running into one without reflection. He was the first who sold an Austrian regiment. Prince Eugene convinced him of the ill consequence of it in such a manner, that whatever instances His Highness could make, that for that time, the thing might pass, since the Emperor had giren his word, yet his imperial Majesty would never allow the officer, who tho’ otherwise a man of merit, had surprised him, to have the Regiment. The reason of my troubling your Lordship with this particularity is first, to give a transitory sketch of this princess’ Charakter, so conformable to what I may formerly have had the honour to say of it to your Lordship, & secondly to remark that it was good old Count Staremberg himself, who, upon this very occasion, related to me this circumstance, in speaking with rapture of that great Emperor’s Charakter, who, he said, could so magnanimously break his own promise, when convinced that it was a wrong one. I heartily wish, My Lord, there had been no occasion for entering into these reflections, however naturally tliey may account for my having less success formerly in several great affairs of otlier natures; but I foresaw such difficulties very early, ’& pointed them out from the very first beginning of this new Government. Before I had received your Lordship’s second instructions of the 22d past Mth I had in conformity to a letter from the Earl of Chesterfield joined with Mn Burmania in representing to the ministers the ill effects these hard proceedings had produced in the minds of all sorts of men, particularly in England & Holland. Bad arguments & despairing gestures were all we had in return. It was late on the 21t inst, that I received those repeated instructions. I translated your Lordship’s letter myself having copied that translation with my own hand, carried it sealed up the next day to Count Ulfeld, when I told him that the Orders I had were of so delicate nature, that I would not trust even to my secretary the knowledge of such an indelible stain as the Queen would fix upon her Government, if she persisted in her severe and merciless resolution