small Party, had summons from
Soubise's vanguard (October 24th): Keith answered, He would burn the
suburbs;--upon which, said vanguard, hearing of Friedrich's advent
withal, took itself rapidly away. And Soubise and it would fain have
recrossed Saale, I have understood, had not Versailles been peremptory.

In a word, Friedrioh arrived at Leipzig October 26th; Ferdinand, Moritz
and all the others coming or already come: and there is something great
just at hand. Friedrich's stay in Leipzig was only four days. Cheering
prospect of work now ahead here;--add to this, assurance from Preussen
that Apraxin is fairly going home, and Lehwald coming to look after
the Swedes. Were it not that there is bad news from Silesia, things
generally are beginning to look up. Of the hour spent on Gottsched,
in these four days, we expressly take no notice farther; but there was
another visit much less conspicuous, and infinitely more important: that
of a certain Hanoverian Graf von Schulenburg, not in red or with plumes,
like a Major-General as he was, but "in the black suit of a Country
Parson,"--coming, in that unnoticeable guise, to inform Friedrich
officially, "That the Hanoverians and Majesty of England have resolved
to renounce the Convention of Kloster-Zeven; to bring their poor Stade
Army into the field again; and do now request him, King Friedrich,
to grant them Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick to be General of the same."
[Mauvillon, i. 256; Westphalen, i. 315: indistinct both, and with slight
variations. Mitchell Papers (in British Museum), likewise indistinct:
Additional MSS. 6815, pp. 96 and 108 ("Lord Holderness to Mitchell,"
doubtless on Pitt's instigation, "10th October, 1757," is the beginning
of it,--two days before Royal Highness got home from Stade); see ib.
6806, pp. 241-252.]

Here is an unnoticeable message, of very high moment indeed. To which
Friedrich, already prepared, gives his cheerful consent; nominations and
practicalities to follow, the instant these present hurries are over.
Who it was that had prepared all this, whose suggestion it first was,
Friedrich's, Mitchell's, George's, Pitt's, I do not know,--I cannot
help suspecting Pitt; Pitt and Friedrich together. And certainly of all
living men, Ferdinand--related to the English and Prussian royalties,
a soldier of approved excellence, and likewise a noble-minded,
prudent, patient and invincibly valiant and steadfast man--was, beyond
comparison, the fittest for this