e to this day. Tread lightly, touching only the chief summits. The
Haggle stretches through five years, 1748-1753,--and then at last ceases
HAGGLING:--

"JANUARY 8th, 1748 [War still on foot, but near ending], Michel applies
about injuries, about various troubles and unjust seizures of ships;
Secretary Chesterfield answers, 'We have an Admiralty Court; beyond
question, right shall be done.' 'Would it were soon, then!' hints
Michel. Chesterfield, who is otherwise politeness itself, confidently
hopes so; but cannot push Judicial people.

"FEBRUARY, 1748. Admiralty being still silent, Michel applies by
Memorial, in a specific case: 'Two Stettin Ships, laden with wine from
Bordeaux, and a third vessel,' of some other Prussian port, laden with
corn; taken in Ramsgate Roads, whither they had been driven by storm:
'Give me these Ships back!' Memorial to his Grace of Newcastle, this.
Upon which the Admiralty sits; with deliberation, decides (June, 1748),
'Yes!' And 'there is hope that a Treaty of Commerce will follow;'
[--Gentleman's Magazine,--xviii. (for 1748), pp. 64, 141.] which was far
from being the issue just yet!

"On the contrary, his Prussian Majesty's Merchants, perhaps encouraged
by this piece of British justice, came forward with more and ever more
complaints and instances. To winnow the strictly true out of which,
from the half-true or not provable, his Prussian Majesty has appointed
a 'Commission,'" fit people, and under strict charges, I can believe,
"Commission takes (to Friedrich's own knowledge) a great deal of
pains;--and it does not want for clean corn, after all its winnowing.
Plenty of facts, which can be insisted on as indisputable. 'Such and
such Merchant Ships [Schedules of them given in, with every particular,
time, name, cargo, value] have been laid hold of on the Ocean Highway,
and carried into English Ports;--OUT of which his Prussian Majesty has,
in all Friendliness, to beg that they be now re-delivered, and justice
done.' 'Contraband of War,' answer the English; 'sorry to have given
your Majesty the least uneasiness; but they were carrying'--'No, pardon
me; nothing contraband discoverable in them;' and hands in his verified
Schedules, with perfectly polite, but more and more serious request,
That the said ships be restored, and damages accounted for. 'Our Prize
Courts have sat on every ship of them,' eagerly shrieks Newcastle all
along: 'what can we do!' 'Nay a Special Commission shall now [175