Note 516 — Chapter VI

Bacon, i. 663; Journals, p. 341. Carte says, on the authority of the French ambassador's despatches, that the ministry secretly put forward this petition of the Commons in order to frighten the Spanish court into making compensation to the merchants, wherein they succeeded. iii. 766. This is rendered very improbable by Salisbury's behaviour. It was Carte's mistake to rely too much on the despatches he was permitted to read in the Dépôt des Affaires Etrangères; as if an ambassador were not liable to be deceived by rumours in a country of which he has in general too little knowledge to correct them.