EXCELLENCY HUGH ELLIOT IS THEIR INTRODUCER.
Harris, afterwards Earl of Malmesbury, succeeded Mitchell at Berlin; "Polish troubles" (heartily indifferent to England), "Dantzig squabbles" (miraculously important there),--nothing worth the least mention now.
Excellency Harris quitted Berlin in Autumn, 1776; gave place to an Excellency Hugh Elliot (one of the Minto Elliots, Brother of the first Earl of Minto, and himself considerably noted in the world), of whom we have a few words to say.
Elliot has been here since April, 1777; stays some five years in this post;--with not much Diplomatic employment, I should think, but with a style of general bearing and social physiognomy, which, with some procedures partly incidental as well, are still remembered in Berlin.
Something of spying, too, doubtless there was; bribing of menials, opening of Letters: I believe a great deal of that went on; impossible to prevent under the carefulest of Kings.

[An ingenious young Friend of mine, connected with Legationary Business, found lately, at the Hague, a consecutive Series, complete for four or five years (I think, from 1780 onwards), of Friedrich's LETTERS to his MINISTER IN LONDON,--Copies punctually filched as they went through the Post-office there:--specimens of which I saw; and the whole of which I might have seen, had it been worth the effort necessary.

But Friedrich's London Minister, in this case, was a person of no significance or intimacy; and the King's Letters, though strangely exact, clear and even elucidative on English Court-Politics and vicissitudes, seemed to be nearly barren as to Prussian.] Hitherto, with one exception to be mentioned presently, his main business seems to have been that of introducing, on different Court-Days, a great number of Travelling English, who want to see the King, and whom the King little wants, but quietly submits to.

Incoherent Sherlock, whom we discover to have been of the number, has, in his tawdry disjointed Book, this Passage:-- "The last time of my seeing him [this Hero-King of my heart] was at Berlin [not a hint of the time when].

He came thither to receive the adieus of the Baron de Swieten, Minister from their Imperial Majesties [thank you; that means 8th October, 1777 [Rodenbeck, iii.