The Confusion

In conclusion, I say to you that if you desire to have silver minted here as part of some Adventure (whose details I do not need or wish to know); and if the Adventure enures to the advantage of the Tories (which I hope it does not; but this is none of my business); and if you have phant’sied that our Tory government has some power over the Mint, so that the Mint’s interests, and yours, are naturally aligned; then you are mistaken. For the Mint is, I am happy to report, firmly in the grip of a Whig. This need not, however, militate against your Project. For if I read correctly between the lines of your letter, all you really need is a cooperative, not to say compliant, friend in the Mint; and you may make Thomas Neale just that, by meditating upon the Character I have given him in this Missive, and devising your approach to the man accordingly.

I pray that the question you sent to Dr. Waterhouse has been addressed, to your satisfaction, by the foregoing. If I have failed to satisfy, or (may God forbid it) given offense, I beg you to write back telling me as much, so that I may bend every effort to make it good. For it is my very great honour and pleasure to be your humble and obedient servant,

RAVENSCAR

P.S. If your intention is to mint French silver into English coin to pay the French and Irish troops that have been preparing to invade England from around Cherbourg in the third week of May, then I congratulate you on your ingenuity. Delivery of the coins from Mint to Front shall pose a not inconsiderable logistical challenge, and so I make you the following offer: If Admiral Tourville’s invasion-fleet makes it across the Channel without being sunk by the Royal Navy, and if the Papist legion establishes a beachhead on English soil without being destroyed by the Army or torn to bits by an enraged Mobb of English rurals, then I shall personally carry every single one of your coins from the Tower of London to the front in my arse-hole, and Deposit them in some Place where they may be easily Picked Up.

Leibniz to Eliza 21 APRIL 1692

Eliza,

You asked-some might say, commanded-me to be on the alert for any news out of Leipzig touching on Lothar von Hacklheber in general, and Jean-Jacques-or, as they call him, Johann-in particular. This is not made any easier by the fact that Lothar knows, in a vague way, that I am linked to you. Moreover, I must confess that I am torn between a desire to give you what you have asked me for, and a reluctance to pass on information that is sure to tear open this wound that Lothar inflicted on you a year and a half ago.

So I have avoided going to Leipzig. But yesterday Leipzig came to me, here in Hanover. As you must have heard, my patrons, Ernst August and Sophie, who until recently have been titled the Duke and Duchess of Hanover, have for some time been campaigning in Vienna to have their dignity raised to that of Elector and Electress. France has been opposed to it, and held them in check by diverse political counter-maneuvers whose particulars would fill book after tedious book. To make a long story short, the war, and in particular the recent developments along the Savoy front, has put the Emperor into a state of mind where he will do anything to spite Louis XIV; accordingly, Ernst August and Sophie are, as of a couple of weeks ago, the Elector and the Electress of Hanover, an eyelash below a King and Queen as these things are measured. This has set into motion a whole train of ramifications and realignments, amp;c., amp;c., that will give the courtiers along the Leine Strasse things to natter about for years to come. Some of the ramifications are, of course, financial, and so bankers from all over the Empire have come to call on Sophie and Ernst August, to offer their felicitations and to see if they might be of service in the new Electorate. It is all about as interesting to me, as physics is to them; except that one of these visitors has been Lothar. Sophie and Ernst August invited him to dine with them at the Palace of Herrenhausen outside of Hanover. In filling out the guest list, the chamberlain added my name, which must have seemed logical, as I am a Leipziger and my family has certain ties to that of von Hacklheber. They had no way of knowing about my link to you or the awkwardness that would arise from the matter of Jean-Jacques. Indeed, Sophie is so civilized, and exerts such a civilizing influence on Ernst August, that it would never enter their minds that one of their dinner-guests could be guilty of such an atrocity as baby-snatching. So, quite innocently, they invited me and Lothar to the same dinner, and seated us across the table from each other!