sserint_, and that their salaries should be
established; but now we find a sum of money granted for the augmentation
of their salaries, and the crown vested with a discretionary power
to proportion and apply this augmentation; a stretch of complaisance,
which, how safe soever it may appear during the reign of a prince famed
for integrity and moderation, will perhaps one day be considered as a
very dangerous accession to the prerogative.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

SECOND TREATY WITH PRUSSIA.

So fully persuaded were the ministry that the commons would cheerfully
enable them to pay what subsidies they might promise to their German
allies, that on the eleventh of April they concluded a new treaty of
convention with his Prussian majesty, which, that it might have the
firmer consistence and the greater authority, was, on the part of Great
Britain, transacted and signed by almost all the privy-counsellors who
had any share in the administration.*

* These were, sir Robert Henly, lord keeper of the great
seal; John, earl of Granville, president of the council;
Thomas Holies, duke of Newcastle, first commissioner of the
treasury; Kohert, earl of Holdernesse, one of the principal
secretaries of state; Philip, earl of Hardwicke; and William
Pitt, esq., another of the principal secretaries of state.
In the name and on the part of his Prussian majesty, the
Sieurs Dado Henry, baron of Knyphausen, his privy-counsellor
of embassy, and minister-plenipotentiary at the court of
London; and Louis Michel, his resident and charge
d'affaires.

This treaty, which was signed at Westminster, imported, "That the
contracting powers having mutually resolved to continue their efforts
for their reciprocal defence and security, for the recovery of their
possessions, the protection of their allies, and the support of the
liberties of the Germanic body, his Britannic majesty had, from these
considerations, determined to grant to his Prussian majesty an immediate
succour in money, as being the most ready and the most efficacious;
and their majesties having judged it proper that thereupon a convention
should be made, for declaring and fixing their intentions upon this
head, they had nominated and authorized their respective ministers, who,
after having communicated their full powers to one another, agreed to
the following stipulations:--The king of Great Britain engaged to pay in
the city