Briefwisseling en aantekeningen. Deel 1

XXI.
Willem Bentinck aan de gravin van Portland.

[B.M., Eg. 1712]

Sorgvliet, 25 July '41.

......as to Publick affairs, things go worse and worse every day. France takes off the mask²⁾. The 15 of Aug. N.S. is the day fixt for the 1st Column of their Troops to pass the Rhine, and the 21st for the second.

Maréchal de Belile is to go with 30/m men to join the Elector of Bavaria, and carry him into Bohemia. The King of Prussia hearkens in appearance to proposals of accommodation, but in effect lyes by, and will begin again to act when the French have join'd the Bavarians. The Elector of Cologne is forming a camp upon the Frontiers of Groningen, we shall see in a few weeks where the Bomb will burst; and if it is to be so, t'is better sooner than later.

2) Het had tot omstreeks deze tijd geduurd vóór men zekerheid kreeg, of Frankrijk in weerwil van zijn bekrachtiging van de Pragmatieke Sanctie gebruik zou willen maken van Oostenrijks verlegenheid en Beieren steunen. Maarschalk Belle-Isle was de leider van de oorlogspartij.

[p. 30]

We are putting ourselves here tout doucement in a better state; and People a fortnight or three weeks ago talked quite otherwise than they begin to do now. I see so clear into things here, that I really dare not write at all about em, for fear of saying too much and entering into Personal details which are not fit for the Post. ...... Brigadier Wassenaer¹⁾ and I are very well together, since we are out of one another's way; and I keep well with him, because union is very necessary in our body, to keep up some little order and decency; which might be of greater weight, if our head had a head. ......

1) C.L. van Wassenaer van Doeveren. Vgl. noot 5, blz. 3.