MISUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE COURTS OF LONDON AND BERLIN.

At this juncture his Prussian majesty made no scruple of expressing his resentment against the court of London, which he seemed to consider as an officious cabal, that had no right to intermeddle in the affairs of Germany. His resident at London complained to the British ministry, that divers ships, sailing under the Prussian flag, had been stopped at sea, and even seized by English cruisers, and that his subjects had been ill treated and oppressed; he therefore demanded reparation in a peremptory tone; and in the meantime discontinued the payment of the Silesia loan, which he had charged himself with by an article in the treaty of Breslau. This was a sum of money amounting to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which the emperor Charles VI., father of the reigning empress, had borrowed of the subjects of Great Britain, on condition of paying an interest of six per cent., and mortgaging the silver mines of Silesia for the repayment of the principal. These devolved to the king of Prussia with this incumbrance, and he continued to pay the interest punctually till this juncture, when the payment was stopped; and he published a paper, entitled, “An Exposition of the Motives which influenced his Conduct on this occasion.” In his memorial to the ministry of Great Britain, he alleged, that eighteen Prussian ships, and thirty-three neutral vessels, in which the subjects of Prussia were concerned, had been unjustly seized by English privateers; his account of damages amounted to a very considerable sum; and he demanded, in the most dogmatic terms, that the affair should be finally discussed in the term of three months from the date of his remonstrance. The exposition and memorial were subjected to the examination of the ablest civilians in England, who refuted every article of the charge with equal precision and perspicuity. They proved, that captures by sea fell properly under the cognizance of those powers under whose jurisdiction the seizures were made; and therefore his Prussian majesty could not, consistent with the law of nations, determine these disputes in his own tribunals. They demonstrated, by undoubted evidence, the falsity of ma-ny facts alleged in the memorial, as well as the fairness of the proceedings by which some few of the Prussian vessels had been condemned; and made it appear, that no insult or injury had been offered to the subjects of Prussia. Finally, they observed, that the Silesia loan was a private transaction of such a nature, that, even if a war had happened between the emperor Charles VI. and his Britannic majesty, this must have been held sacred and inviolable; that when the empress-queen ceded Silesia to the king of Prussia, this monarch charged himself with the repayment of the loan, which, being a private debt, and transferable, was now diffused into different countries, and become the property of many others besides the subjects of Great Britain. They wound up their chain of reasoning by observing, that, according to agreement with the emperor, the whole of this loan should have been repaid in the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-five; whereas the complaints specified in the Prussian memorial were founded on facts posterior to that period. Whether his Prussian majesty was convinced by these reasons, and desisted from principle, or thought proper to give up his claim upon other political considerations; certain it is, he no longer insisted upon satisfaction, but ordered the payment of the Silesia loan to be continued without further interruption. A report, indeed, was circulated, that advantage had been taken of the demur by a certain prince, who employed his agents to buy up a great part of the loan at a considerable discount.