Folio 144v. To Stratford. Acknowledges letter of Sept 30 [? Sept 30/Oct 10]. Requests,...

Folio 144v. To Stratford. Acknowledges letter of Sept 30 [? Sept 30/Oct 10]. Requests, as a matter of urgency, detailed and accurate information on certain matters kept secret from Schweinfurt: '... what sprinklings you dropt of his Ma[jes]ties bounty, to whom & what methods you took to distribute, I mean under what disguise' to the 'fair one' [i.e. the elector's mistress, countess Rochlitz] who, he finds, received in Colt's time 10,000 crowns, of which 6,000 came from England and 4,000 from the States. Asks whether this was an uprating of the £2,000 originally allowed, caused by a new difference in the exchange. If so, he will press the secretary of state to 'add the overplus, since we cannot give less than we began with'. Regarding the elector's three chief ministers, Gersdorff, Knoch and Bose, besides the chamberlain [Augustus Ferdinand] Pflug, he inquires if they have, in fact, been 'greased' or only promised presents upon the successful conclusion of the treaty he is to negotiate. Requests further exact particulars of the actual method of paying subsidy to the elector previously agreed upon, of which he finds no mention in Blathwayt's instructions or Stratford's letters concerning the payment of the still outstanding 50,000 rixdollars payable 'this faire'. Writes at length about his own circumstances and his future when the present business is finished, concluding that what matters is the 'salary rather than the title' under which he acts. - Fears that Blathwayt 'is not in the humour he ought to be' and apprehends his resentment at not having been made secretary of state '(as he expected and ought to have been)' may lead him to resign his other employment or at least no more follow the King to Flanders.

Date and Place: 1693 Oct 4 [? Oct 4/14] Leipzig