ht, was extremely uneasy at this negotiation,
which he soon discovered by secret information, as well as the
undisguised reluctance of the German powers to furnish the contingents
for which they were bound for the ensuing campaign. Indeed, it could
hardly be expected that the Northern powers in Germany should send their
chief disposable forces to swell Marlborough's army beyond the Rhine,
when so warlike a monarch, at the head of fifty thousand men, was in the
centre of the empire, with his intentions as yet undeclared, and exposed
to the influence of every imaginable seduction. He dispatched,
accordingly, General Grumbkow, an adroit and intelligent diplomatist,
who had been sent by the King of Prussia on a mission to the Allied
headquarters, to Dresden, to endeavour to ascertain the real intentions
of the Swedish monarch. He was not long of discovering that Charles had
assumed an angry tone towards the confederates, only in order to extract
favourable terms of accommodation from them, and that Muscovy was the
real object on which his heart was set. His despatches convey a curious
and highly interesting picture of Charles and the Swedish court and army
at this important juncture.[11] The negotiation went on for some time
with varying success; but at length matters were brought to a crisis, by
the King of Sweden declaring that he would treat with none but
Marlborough in person.

This immediately led to the English general repairing to the court of
Charles XII. at Dresden. He left the Hague on the 20th April
accordingly; and after visiting Hanover on the way, where, as usual,
there were some jealousies to appease, arrived at the Swedish camp of
Alt-Ranstadt on the 28th. The Duke drove immediately to the headquarters
of Count Piper, from whom he received the most flattering assurance of
the gratification which the Swedish monarch had felt at his arrival. He
was shortly after introduced to the monarch, to whom he delivered a
letter from the Queen of England, and at the same time addressed him in
the following flattering terms:--"I present to your Majesty a letter,
not from the chancery, but from the heart of the Queen, my mistress, and
written with her own hand. Had not her sex prevented it, she would have
crossed the sea, to see a prince admired by the whole universe. I am in
this particular more happy than the Queen, and I wish I could serve some
campaigns under so great a general as your Majesty, that I might learn
what