The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters to His Son, 1756-1758
by The Earl of Chesterfield

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Title: Letters to His Son, 1756-1758

Author: The Earl of Chesterfield

Release Date: December 1, 2004 [EBook #3358]\
[Last updated on February 14, 2007]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1756-1758 ***

Produced by David Widger

LETTERS TO HIS SON
1756-58

By the EARL OF CHESTERFIELD

on the Fine Art of becoming a

MAN OF THE WORLD

and a

GENTLEMAN

LETTER CCIII

BATH, November 15, 1756

MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yours yesterday morning together with the
Prussian, papers, which I have read with great attention. If courts could
blush, those of Vienna and Dresden ought, to have their falsehoods so
publicly, and so undeniably exposed. The former will, I presume, next
year, employ an hundred thousand men, to answer the accusation; and if
the Empress of the two Russias is pleased to argue in the same cogent
manner, their logic will be too strong for all the King of Prussia's
rhetoric. I well remember the treaty so often referred to in those
pieces, between the two Empresses, in 1746. The King was strongly pressed
by the Empress Queen to accede to it. Wassenaer communicated it to me for
that purpose. I asked him if there were no secret articles; suspecting
that there were some, because the ostensible treaty was a mere harmless,
defensive one. He assured me that there were none. Upon which I told him,
that as the King had already defensive alliances with those two
Empresses, I did not see of what use his accession to this treaty, if
merely a defensive one, could be, either to himself or the other
contracting parties; but that, however, if it was only desired as an
indication of the King's good will, I would give him an act by which his
Majesty should accede to that treaty, as far, but no further, as at
present he stood engaged to the respective Empresses by the defensive
alliances subsisting with each. This offer by no means satisfied him;
which was a plain proof of th