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The man chosen to replace William Finch at Stockholm was a trusted henchman of Lord Townshend, Stephen Poyntz, of whom there is due notice in the Dictionary of National Biography. He reached his post in October 1724. During the first year his task was to re-establish British as against Russian influence in Sweden and to deal with the new situation created by the death of Peter the Great in February 1725. Afterwards his efforts concentrated on obtaining the accession of Sweden—the first, with that of Holland, sought—to the treaty of Hanover, concluded between Great Britain France and Prussia on 23 August/3 September 1725. For eighteen months he and his young French colleague, the count de Brancas-Céreste, strove with the partisans of Russia and Hoi-stein, obliged to humour the tendernesses of the constitutionalists, hampered instead of helped by their Prussian coadjutors, and unable to bring Count Horn to declare himself until in the end the riksdag of 1726 made him the master and the longer purse prevailed. The accession was signed at last on 14/25 March 1726/7. In reward for his success Poyntz was promoted ambassador and named to represent Great Britain at the congress proposed for assembly at Aix-la-Chapelle.
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- British Diplomatic Instructions, Sweden, 1689–1727
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- Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1922
References
page 171 note 1 Major-General Ernst Hartman Diemar. His fidelity to the king had brought about his expulsion from Sweden before Poyntz came there, but that his debts incurred on Frederick's account detained him. Poyntz found him the money to get away, and he rendered good service to George I at Cassel and in London. It was evidence supplied by him, at the instigation of the British government, that brought Poyntz his first clear success, the arrest and impeachment of his chief adversary, old Count Vellingk, in November 1726.
page 182 note 1 The Mikhail Bestuzher noticed previously.
page 185 note 1 Envoy extraordinary at Berlin.
page 190 note 1 Horatio Walpole, ambassador at Paris.
page 190 note 2 Count Josias Cederhielm, about to go as ambassador to Russia. Poyntz was completely deceived in his expectations from him; on his return he helped to lead the opposition and in 1727 shared the fate of the irreconcileable Count Vellingk.
page 192 note 1 The emperor's accession to the Russo-Swedish treaty of February 1724.
page 194 note 1 Count Henning Friedrioh Bassewitz, first minister to the duke of Holstein-Gottorp
page 195 note 1 The treaty of Hanover.
page 195 note 2 Bouphile-Hyacynte-Toussaint cle Brancas, Comte de Céreste (in the dispatches usually “Count Brancas”), now on his way to Sweden as envoy from Louis XV. Having made his acquaintance at Hanover Townshend (in another dispatch) extolled his fitness and desired Poyntz to cultivate most friendly relations with him. He was a nephew of Marshal Villars.
page 197 note 1 George Tilson, under-secretary of state.
page 199 note 1 General Count Amadeus von Rabutin, a distinguished soldier, son of one yet more distinguished. He was at Berlin as envoy from the emperor from April to October 1725, and went to Petersburg in April 1726.
page 199 note 2 The reference is to intercepted letters from Jacobites at Petersburg to merchants or bankers at Paris Bordeaux and Madrid which, taken in con junction with a voyage of three Russian ships to Spain, which were believed to have landed arms on their way in Scotland and Ireland, had lately raised the most profound alarm. Poyntz, and Cyril Wich at Hamburg also, had orders to investigate Swedish complicity in the supposed plot, but neither could find proof of any. Of. on the subject the letters printed by Coxe, Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, II. 480. f.Google Scholar
page 214 note 1 Noted in margin as of 1 March.
page 223 note 1 The marquis de Fénelon, French ambassador at the Hague.
page 223 note 1 The Prussian envoy there.
page 223 note 3 Private Secretary to Frederick I of Sweden.
page 224 note 1 See on this subject pp. xxxvi, 230–1.
page 225 note 1 French ambassador in London, otherwise Broglio.
page 231 note 1 This article, of which Townshend boasted (elsewhere) that it meant nothing, was inserted in the Danish convention on the insistence of France, but in the end expunged.
page 232 note 1 Imperial envoy to Denmark and Sweden.
page 232 note 2 Imperial minister in London.
page 232 note 3 Imperial ambassador to Spain.
page 233 note 1 Spanish ambassador in England.
page 233 note 2 Lieut.-General Louis-François de Pesme do Saint-Saphorin, a Swiss, British minister at Vienna.
page 239 note 1 Court-chancellor Baron Joakim von Düben, reckoned by Poyntz “a very modest sensible person,” neutral and generally liked, whose sister was in the queen's especial confidence and whose office came “the nearest to that of Attorney General in England and gives him a share in the transaction of several weighty affairs.”
page 240 note 1 Poyntz's secretary.