n at Cairo, but of this I am certain,
that were Knobelsdorff to survive Napoleon the First, none of His
Imperial Majesty's own dutiful subjects would mourn him more sincerely
than this subject of the King of Prussia. He is said to possess a great
share of the confidence of his King, who has already employed him in
several diplomatic missions. The principal and most requisite qualities
in a negotiator are political information, inviolable fidelity,
penetrating but unbiased judgment, a dignified firmness, and
condescending manners. I have not been often enough in the society of
General Knobelsdorff to assert whether nature and education have destined
him to illumine or to cloud the Prussian monarchy.

I have already mentioned in a former letter that it was Count von
Haugwitz who, in 1792, as Prussian Ambassador at Vienna, arranged the
treaty which then united the Austrian and Prussian Eagles against the
Jacobin Cap of Liberty. It is now said in our diplomatic circle that his
second mission to the same capital has for an object the renewal of these
ties, which the Treaty of Basle dissolved; and that our Government, to
impede his success, or to occasion his recall, before he could have time
to conclude, had proposed to Prussia an annual subsidy of thirty millions
of liveres--which it intended to exact from Portugal for its neutrality.
The present respectable appearance of Prussia, shows, however, that
whether the mission of Haugwitz had the desired issue or not, His
Prussian Majesty confides in his army in preference to our parchments.

Some of our politicians pretend that the present Minister of the foreign
department in Prussia, Baron von Hardenberg, is not such a friend of the
system of neutrality as his predecessor. All the transactions of his
administration seem, nevertheless, to proclaim that, if he wished his
country to take an active part in the present conflict, it would not have
been against France, had she not begun the attack with the invasion of
Anspach and Bayreuth. Let it be recollected that, since his Ministry,
Prussia has acknowledged Bonaparte an Emperor of the French, has
exchanged orders with him, and has sent an extraordinary Ambassador to be
present at his coronation,--not common compliments, even between Princes
connected by the nearest ties of friendship and consanguinity. Under his
administration, the Rhine has been passed to seize the Duc d'Enghien, and
the Elbe to capture Sir George Rumbold