Briefwisseling en aantekeningen. Deel 1

XXIII.
Willem Bentinck aan de gravin van Portland.

[B.M., Eg. 1712]

Sorgvliet, 7 Sept. 1741.

......Br. Charles came back last week in very ill

[p. 31]

humour for having been call'd home in this agreable season¹⁾. But the order being general he could not expect an exception for him. Some people have been struck with a panick terror in Overyssel, and have pack'd up and retired to the towns. Those that are better inform'd are less fearful. T'is certain that we are in a very critical situation; but not in a desperate one. And I have reason to think the French fear us, at least as much as we fear them. We may suffer from the first shock if they begin. But it is impossible for them to carry on what seems to be their plan, if it be opposed from this side; which it certainly will. You must not believe all the stuff your newspapers are fill'd with, tho sometimes there are very true accounts from hence ... Mr. Robinson's²⁾ second journey to the Prussian Army, will, I hope, be of better success than the first. I have no notion how all those German Princes can be so blind as not to see they are to be the tools to ruin one another, and that the luckyest are to be kept for the last, and I cannot forbear hoping they will be set right before it is too late.......

1) Een Fransch leger onder generaal Maillebois was Westfalen binnengetrokken. Vgl. P. Geyl, a.w., blz. 75, 82.

2) Thomas Robinson (1695-1770) was van 1730-'48 Engelsch gezant te Weenen; hij moest nu trachten om de vrede tusschen Oostenrijk en Pruisen te herstellen.