Monsieur de Torcy, is the best witness we can produce of the sense
in which the general preliminary engagements are entered into;
besides which, as he is the best versed in matters of trade of all
your Majesty's servants who have been trusted in this secret, if you
shall think fit to employ him in the future treaty of commerce, it
will be of consequence that he has been a party concerned in
concluding that convention, which must be the rule of this treaty."

The assembly of this important night was in some degree clandestine,
the design of treaty not being yet openly declared and when the
Whigs returned to power was aggravated to a charge of high treason;
though, as Prior remarks in his imperfect answer to the Report of
the Committee of Secrecy, no treaty ever was made without private
interviews and preliminary discussions.

My business is not the history of the peace, but the life of Prior.
The conferences began at Utrecht on the 1st of January (1711-12),
and the English plenipotentiaries arrived on the 15th. The
ministers of the different potentates conferred and conferred; but
the peace advanced so slowly that speedier methods were found
necessary, and Bolingbroke was sent to Paris to adjust differences
with less formality. Prior either accompanied him or followed him,
and after his departure had the appointments and authority of an
ambassador, though no public character. By some mistake of the
queen's orders the court of France had been disgusted, and
Bolingbroke says in his letter, "Dear Mat,--Hide the nakedness of
thy country, and give the best turn thy fertile brain will furnish
thee with to the blunders of thy countrymen, who are not much better
politicians than the French are poets."