CHAPTER XIV .-- BATTLE OF KESSELSDORF.
A "Correspondence" of a certain Excellency Villiers, English Minister at Dresden,--Sir Thomas Villiers, Grandfather of the present Earl of Clarendon,--was very famous in those weeks; and is still worth mention, as a trait of Friedrich's procedure in this crisis.

Friedrich, not intoxicated with his swift triumph over Prince Karl, but calculating the perils and the chances still ahead,--miserably off for money too,--admits to himself that not revenge or triumph, that Peace is the one thing needful to him.

November 29th, Old Leopold is entering Saxony; and in the same hours, Podewils at Berlin, by order of Friedrich, writes to Villiers who is in Dresden, about Peace, about mediating for Peace: "My King ready and desirous, now as at all times, for Peace; the terms of it known; terms not altered, not alterable, no bargaining or higgling needed or allowable.

CONVENTION OF HANOVER, let his Polish Majesty accede honestly to that, and all these miseries are ended." ["CORRESPONDANCE DU ROI AVEC SIR THOMAS VILLIERS;" commences, on Podewils's part, 28th November; on Friedrich's, 4th December; ends, on Villier's, 18th December; fourteen Pieces in all, four of them Friedrich's: Given in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii.

183-216 (see IB, 158), and in many other Books.] Villiers starts instantly on this beneficent business; "goes to Court, on it, that very night;" Villiers shows himself really diligent, reasonable, loyal; doing his very best now and afterwards; but has no success at all.