An Episode in Anglo-Russian Relations during the War of the Austrian Succession

Abstract

[At a meeting of the Royal Historical Society on 22 April, 1926, I gave a summary of a paper entitled “A Derelict Diplomatist in the Eighteenth Century,” in which I narrated the misadventures of a certain Friedrich Lorentz, or Frederick Laurence (as he was called in English State Papers), a born subject of the Elector of Hanover, who was employed by our Foreign Office in a rather indeterminate capacity, first at Berlin and later at Dresden. Lord Hyndford, ignorant, like so many of our diplomatists, of the German language, had employed him as a private secretary to deal with German documents. In the autumn of 1744, when Frederick II re-entered the war against Maria Theresa, Hyndford was transferred from Berlin to St. Petersburg, and was allowed by Carteret to leave the representation of Great Britain, with the necessary cyphers, in the hands of Laurence. In view of public and parliamentary opinion it was rather reckless to entrust such responsibility to a Hanoverian, and it was to disguise this that Hyndford laid stress upon the English form and sound that could be given to the name. Laurence himself was exultant at his unexpected elevation, and did his best to earn by zeal and industry the approval of his employers.