Note 1417 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

‘A Londres, à Stockholm, à Paris, à Vienne et à Venise, le souverain est réprésenté par des étrangers. Le prince de Masserano, Italien, ambassadeur en Angleterre; le comte de Lacy Irlandais, ministre à Stockholm; le marquis de Grimaldi, ambassadeur en France, avant de parvenir au ministère; le comte de Mahoni, Irlandais, ambassadeur à Vienne; le marquis de Squilaci, ambassadeur à Venise, après sa retraite du ministère.’ Bourgoing, Tableau de l'Espagne, vol. ii. pp. 142, 143. To this, I may add that, in the reign of Philip V., an Italian, the Marquis de Beretti Landi, was the representative of Spain in Switzerland, and afterwards at the Hague (Ripperda's Memoirs, 1740, pp. 37, 38); and that in, or just before, 1779, Lacy filled the same post at St. Petersburg. Malmesbury's Diaries and Correspondence, 1844, vol. i. p. 261. So, too, M. Rio (Historia de Carlos III., vol. i. pp. 288, 289) says of the important negotiations which took place in 1761, between Spain, England, and France, ‘Y así de las negociaciones en que Luis XV. trataba de enredar á Carlos III. quedaron absolutamente excluidos los españoles, como que por una parte las iban á seguir el duque de Choiseul y el marques de Ossun, franceses, y por otra el irlandés D. Ricardo Wall, y el genovés marques de Grimaldi.’ About the same time, Clarke writes (in his Letters concerning the Spanish Nation, London, 1763, 4to. p. 331), ‘Spain has, for many years past, been under the direction of foreign ministers. Whether this hath been owing to want of capacity in the natives, or disinclination in the sovereign, I will not take upon me to say; such as it is, the native nobility lament it as a great calamity.’