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rheinsberg2020-10-31 07:36 pm
selenak) wrote in rheinsberg2020-10-31 07:36 pm
Andrew Mitchell: The Return
A write-up of "Andrew Mitchell and the Anglo-Prussian Diplomatic Relations During the Seven Years War", the republished 1972 doctoral thesis by Patrick Francis Doran. (That was the gentleman giving us the "the Prussian Lord Hervey, though without that lord's malice or style" description of Lehndorff.)
As expected by the excerpts which are online, this is informative. Most of it is about the war from a British pov and all the various twists and turns coming from the various government changes (Newcastle-Pitt-Bute) as well as the G2 to G3 change. I will say that it looks like Hervey was dead-on in just how much G2 was emotionally committed to his Elector of Hannover identity, which made him extremely uncomfortable being in a war against the Emperor, even aside from the fact he didn't trust Prussian Nephew as far as he could throw him and suspected Son of FW to have designs on Hannover. (Sadly, Doran doesn't say whether he ever got a copy of Heinrich's and AW's RPG.) When G2 was staying in Hannover in 1755, Fritz hinted he could visit, and G2 was all NO NO NO DO NOT WANT to his ministers, who had to tone it down and massage it into a diplomatic reply. Generally speaking, "British envoy in Berlin" from the later FW years onwards until Mitchell was considered a lousy job.
To illustrate just how strained Anglo-Prussian relations had been pre 1756:
At the time of Mitchell's appointment Britain had been without diplomatic representation in Berlin, apart from the short and ill-fated mission of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams in 1750-51, since Henry Legge's even shorter stay there in 1758. The recall of Jean-Henri D'Andrie, who was Prussian minister in London from 1738 to 1747, left Prussian representation there in the hands of a secretary of legation.
(mildred_of_midgard: Note: this is when the Brits suggest Peter Keith, and Fritz is all NO NO NO DO NOT WANT about the idea. :P
selenak: To fully appreciate how utterly insulting to Peter Keith (and also somewhat insulting to the Brits in terms of how serious he took relations with them until 1756) this is, get this: the Legationssekretär in GB was one Abraham Michell (yes, Michell, just to make life easier for us), whom Fritz had never met, who had, in fact, never visited Prussia in his life, and about whom it's unclear whether he even had taken the customary oath of loyalty to Prussia when becoming the previous envoy's secretary. The previous envoy had also been a Swiss (but at least one who' dbeen to Berlin and was known to people there), and Michell had joined Prussian service through this backdoor. When Podewils suggested raising him from Legationssekretär to minister, rank wise, now that he was full time envoy, Fritz said no, he'd demand a bigger salary then, and Fritz was all about saving money. And Michell - who, again, no one in Berlin knew and who never had visited any part of Prussia in his life - remained on the job.)
Hanbury Williams, who was at his post less than eight months, succeded in that short space of time in making himself persona non grata with the king and with court. (And then he went to Vienna and became the sole envoy managing to piss off both Fritz and MT in equal measure. Whereupon he was transfered to St. Petersburg where he enabled the Catherine/Poniatowiski affair and negotiated the Anglo-Russian treaty which became ready for signing just when the Diplomatic Revolution happened.)
Hanbury Williams (...) gave it as his considered opinion that "It was better to be a monkey in the island of Borneo than to be a minister at Berlin". (...) In 1747 Lord Chesterfield, speaking from his experience as secretary of state, and ith the friction between Hannover and Prussia in mind, believed that 'whoever went to Berlin must be a very unhappy man between the two courts". Sir Luke Schaub (...) took the view that a minister who was capable of holding the post of British envoy in Berlin deserved to habe statues erected to him both in the United Provinces and in Britain.
Enter our hero from Scotland. Though alas, given how Anglo-Prussian relations went downhill again from the last years of the war (and Bute ending the subsidies to Fritz) onwards, he lived to see his good work undone. In the end, he got not a statue but a bust in a now destroyed Berlin church and, Doran thinks, was an unhappy man (professionally, though Doran allows he was fine with his friends in Berlin). This being a doctoral thesis from 1971, there is not the slightest bit of speculation about Mitchell's orientation, let alone the "you shall be the tastiest dish when we have supper" quote from Algarotti's letter.
(Said quote shows up in Robert Halsband's biography of Lord Hervey, where I had learned to my surprise that when both Lady Mary and Lord Hervey were busy flinging themselves at Algarotti during his time in England, Algarotti was also having a fling with Andrew Mitchell. Says the biography:
It was not long, then , before (Algarotti) reached London — in March 1739.
At first he visited Andrew Mitchell, a young man who had left Scotland to make his fortune in England , a member of the Royal Society , who had recently been called to the Bar. Algarotti stayed only a short time with him in his chambers in the Middle Temple, then moved to Hervey's apartment in St. James's Palace
And then, later, when he's contemplating a third English sojourn:
From Hamburg he also advised Andrew Mitchell of his expected return to England . Instead of trying to relate every thing he has heard and seen on his recent travels, he prefers to wait until they can sup together in London, he writes, 'where you will certainly be the tastiest dish for me (le meilleur plat pour moi] ... If the wind continues as it is, I hope to embrace you in 4 or 5 days. Farewell, my dear friend ; love me and believe until
death , F.A.' )
Our dissertation writer, it seems, is above such tabloid material. Before I proceed to the potentially useful for fanfic Mitchell life dates this book gives us, some more details I hadn't gotten from the Bisset-edited Mitchell papers:
- Mitchell, due to being on the front lines with Fritz, was one of the few who got to know Eichel and get alone with him well - until later 1758, which was when Mitchell went from distrusting Heinrich to hanging out with Heinrich more and more, and Eichel (who apparantly was the "loyal only to the monarch and no one else" type - when FW ruled, this was FW, when Fritz ruled, it was Fritz) became distrustful of Mitchell and considered him contaminated by Heinrich's Fritz-critical opinions
(Here are the two Heinrich passages:
Previously Mitchell had been wary of Henry because of his pro-French sympathies but during the months when he accompanied him on campaign he came to see a different side to the King's brother. In Henry Mitchell found the ideal military commander, one who struck a proper balance between valour and humanitas. He praised the 'goodness' with which the prince treated prisoners, his care for the common soldier and his consideration for his officers, and he admired his 'coolness and presence of mind under fire'. Henry, in fact, had all of Frederick's qualities as a commander except his daring, and conspiciously lacked his impatience, his urge to settle everything in one great battle and his unconcern for his men. during this campaign Mitchell alid the basis of that friendship with Henry which lasted for the rest of his life.
Suspicious Eichel, a year later, when Mitchell instead of staying at headquarters with Fritz goes with Heinrich to Glogau in November 1760:
As worrying as Mitchell's absence from headquarters was his growing intimacy with Henry. Eichel, for one, was particularly unhappy about this. Since the end of August, when Frederick had amalgamated Henry's army with his own force, the prince had been sulking. Returning to Breslau, 'se sentant incommodi d'un accès de fievre', as Eichel wrote carefully to Finckenstein, he brooded over the loss of his command. The subsequent estrangement between the two brothers was a further source of that discontent and flagging morale which both Eichel and Mitchell noted among the army command. Many of the general officers shared Henry's view that the concentration of all the troops into one army seriously reduced the capability of the state to defend itself, whereas Frederick was prepared to accept this risk for the possibility of inflicting a massive defeat on one of his enemies should such an opportunity arise. First at Breslau, then ata Glogau, Mitchell was very much thrown into the company of Henry and in the eyes of Eichel, and perhaps Frederick himself, risked being contaminated by the dissatisfaction with the handling of the war which Henry's circle professed. AS so much depended on Britain retaining belief in Frederick's ability to survive, Eichel's concern was understandable. Mitchell was, in fact, trying to persuade Henry to return to headquarters and heal the breach with the King. But he failed in this attempt 'to heal, to soften and to apologize for the King of Prussia's conduct towards him'.
(This would be when Mitchell wrote he was trying to persuade Prussian ministers to help him reconciling the brothers, but that they chickened out. Maybe he meant Eichel?)
- someone in Vienna had a sharp sense of humor: while G2 was busy lamenting he'd been forced in an alliance against the Emperor, he got a letter reminding him that as Elector of Hannover, he was obliged to send troops to the war effort now that Fritz was officially under Reichsbann; G2's immediate reaction is not on record
- when G3 (born in Britain, no interest in Hannover) came to the throne, both Brits and Prussians first were very relieved and thought this meant Hannover stopped being of much, or any importance, but then the second Miracle happened, Lord Bute thought it was a great time to save money and cut the subsidies, and Fritz then wrote a letter to cousin G3 which G3 called the most impertinent and insulting letter he ever read, felt personally enraged and from this point onwards loathed Fritz as well. (G3, you have the American rebels still ahead of you, calm down.)
- Doran points out Fritz lucked out that his much cherished scheme to get the Turks into an alliance so they'd attack either the Russians or Austrians or preferably both came to nothing, because if Russia had been in a war with Turkey when Peter III. came to the throne, even (P)RussianPete surely could not have switched allegiances
- Fritz never bothered to tell the English about his intermittent use of Wilhelmine, Voltaire, Heinrich to sound out the French for a separate peace; meanwhile, the Brits didn't tell him about their intermittent attempt to get MT into an anti-Bourbon team up by offering her Naples (which they didn't have, and which, reminder, was ruled by an offspring of the Spanish Bourbons who in turn were a branch of the French Bourbons) (Mt: No thanks; I'm going to marry my daughter to the King of Naples instead)
- during the campaign free winter months at Dresden, Leipzig and Magdeburg, Mitchell busied himself learning German and befriended both Gottsched (remember him?) and Gellert (whom he persuaded Fritz to give an audience and a pension to); that he, a foreigner, showed more interest in the German language and literature than Fritz was not lost on either Gottsched or Gellert.
And now for the Curriculum Vitae.
Mitchell dates:
Born in Edingburgh 15 April 1708, one of three children of the Rev. William Mitchell, who was VERY interested in money and was by the time he died in 1727 not just one of the most influential leaders of the Scottish church but also one of its wealthiest divines.
1722: Arranging for his fourteen years old son to marry his ten years old cousin Barbara Mitchell and marrying her mother one year later was all about Barbara being the heiress of the Aberdeenshire estate of Thainston. In short, Mitchell Snr. was like the villain of a Robert Louis Stevenson tale.
1723: Andrew enters Edinburgh University, where David Hume is one of his classmates; also Boswell's dad Alexander Boswell, future Lord Auchinleck
1725: Andrew articled to an advocate
1726: poor Barbara the 14 years old dies of the birth of a daughter; the daughter dies while still an infant, when exactly, we don't know, but before Andrew leaves Scotland.
1727: Mitchell Snr. dies. Andrew inherits all, which means he's a well-off man for his remaining life.
1729: Andrew leaves Scotland, first for a few months of London, then on his Grand Tour, which will take years (btw, this is the same year Hervey returns from his second European Tour and becomes Vice Chamberlain); for the remainder of the year, he travels through the Netherlands and Germany
1730: Andrew resumes his studies, enrolls at the law faculty in Leyden where he spends two semesters (this means he's in the Netherlands when Peter Keith hightails it out of Prussia); (studying in the Netherlands for two terms was also what Boswell did pre-Grand Tour; for young Scots, it was considered a good option if you wanted to avoid England - the Netherlands were solidly Protestant, but not Anglican)
(mildred_of_midgard: Meant to point out that Katte studied law in the Netherlands (Utrecht), though apparently he's not in their matriculation records (shades of Peter Keith at Trinity), and I can't tell exactly how long, but if it was in 1722 and 1722-1723 is also the time of his Grand Tour, then apparently not for long, maybe only one semester.)
July 1731: Andrew goes from the Netherlands to Paris where he remains until the beginning of 1732, at which point he sets out on a leisurely tour through France and Italy (where he meets Algarotti)
September 1734: Andrew back in Paris, where he stays for the remaining year and most of 1735
End of 1735: Andrew Mitchell returns to Britain.
(This meant he really had spend considerable time abroad, and was "proficient" in French and Italian.)
1736 - Mitchell resumes his law studies; he's admitted as a meber of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland; he's also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
1738 - Mitchell called to the English Bar; Algarotti stays at his house in Pall Mall during his first trip to England
1740 - Mitchell gains a seat at the council of the Royal Society
1741 - Mitchell becomes private secretary to the fourth Marquess of Tweeddale (again, what a name!) and is made undersecretary for Scotland when Tweeddale is appointed Secretary of State for Scotland in 1742
January 1746 - Tweeddale is forced into resigning, which means Mitchell also loses his job; he considers running in the general election in the next year as MP
April 1747: the MP for Aberdeenshire, Sir Arthur Forbes of Craigievar offers to stand down in Mitchell's favor so he can run for his seat; Mitchell accepts gratefully but pisses off the Duke of Argyll who runs a candidate against him, though said candidate stands down a week before the election; Mitchell wins the seat
1752: Mitchell at his first diplomatic post, as one of the two commissaries appointed to negotiate in Brussels the dispute over the Treaty of Barrier (which was from 1715 (it was about maritime trading privileges, inevitably)
1754: due to government changes, Mitchell does not seek reelection for Aberdeenshire, but he does run and gets elected for the Elgin burghs, and will hold that seat for the rest of his life
March 174: Robert, Earl of Holdernesse and pal of Mitchell's, gets transfered from the southern depatment of the Secretaryship of State to the Northern department
Summer of 1755: Holdernesse tries unsuccessfully to get Mitchell appointed as envoy to Vienna
end of January 1756: Mitchell appointed by Newcastle at the suggestion of Holderness as envoy to Berlin.
As expected by the excerpts which are online, this is informative. Most of it is about the war from a British pov and all the various twists and turns coming from the various government changes (Newcastle-Pitt-Bute) as well as the G2 to G3 change. I will say that it looks like Hervey was dead-on in just how much G2 was emotionally committed to his Elector of Hannover identity, which made him extremely uncomfortable being in a war against the Emperor, even aside from the fact he didn't trust Prussian Nephew as far as he could throw him and suspected Son of FW to have designs on Hannover. (Sadly, Doran doesn't say whether he ever got a copy of Heinrich's and AW's RPG.) When G2 was staying in Hannover in 1755, Fritz hinted he could visit, and G2 was all NO NO NO DO NOT WANT to his ministers, who had to tone it down and massage it into a diplomatic reply. Generally speaking, "British envoy in Berlin" from the later FW years onwards until Mitchell was considered a lousy job.
To illustrate just how strained Anglo-Prussian relations had been pre 1756:
At the time of Mitchell's appointment Britain had been without diplomatic representation in Berlin, apart from the short and ill-fated mission of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams in 1750-51, since Henry Legge's even shorter stay there in 1758. The recall of Jean-Henri D'Andrie, who was Prussian minister in London from 1738 to 1747, left Prussian representation there in the hands of a secretary of legation.
(
mildred_of_midgard: Note: this is when the Brits suggest Peter Keith, and Fritz is all NO NO NO DO NOT WANT about the idea. :Pselenak: To fully appreciate how utterly insulting to Peter Keith (and also somewhat insulting to the Brits in terms of how serious he took relations with them until 1756) this is, get this: the Legationssekretär in GB was one Abraham Michell (yes, Michell, just to make life easier for us), whom Fritz had never met, who had, in fact, never visited Prussia in his life, and about whom it's unclear whether he even had taken the customary oath of loyalty to Prussia when becoming the previous envoy's secretary. The previous envoy had also been a Swiss (but at least one who' dbeen to Berlin and was known to people there), and Michell had joined Prussian service through this backdoor. When Podewils suggested raising him from Legationssekretär to minister, rank wise, now that he was full time envoy, Fritz said no, he'd demand a bigger salary then, and Fritz was all about saving money. And Michell - who, again, no one in Berlin knew and who never had visited any part of Prussia in his life - remained on the job.) Hanbury Williams, who was at his post less than eight months, succeded in that short space of time in making himself persona non grata with the king and with court. (And then he went to Vienna and became the sole envoy managing to piss off both Fritz and MT in equal measure. Whereupon he was transfered to St. Petersburg where he enabled the Catherine/Poniatowiski affair and negotiated the Anglo-Russian treaty which became ready for signing just when the Diplomatic Revolution happened.)
Hanbury Williams (...) gave it as his considered opinion that "It was better to be a monkey in the island of Borneo than to be a minister at Berlin". (...) In 1747 Lord Chesterfield, speaking from his experience as secretary of state, and ith the friction between Hannover and Prussia in mind, believed that 'whoever went to Berlin must be a very unhappy man between the two courts". Sir Luke Schaub (...) took the view that a minister who was capable of holding the post of British envoy in Berlin deserved to habe statues erected to him both in the United Provinces and in Britain.
Enter our hero from Scotland. Though alas, given how Anglo-Prussian relations went downhill again from the last years of the war (and Bute ending the subsidies to Fritz) onwards, he lived to see his good work undone. In the end, he got not a statue but a bust in a now destroyed Berlin church and, Doran thinks, was an unhappy man (professionally, though Doran allows he was fine with his friends in Berlin). This being a doctoral thesis from 1971, there is not the slightest bit of speculation about Mitchell's orientation, let alone the "you shall be the tastiest dish when we have supper" quote from Algarotti's letter.
(Said quote shows up in Robert Halsband's biography of Lord Hervey, where I had learned to my surprise that when both Lady Mary and Lord Hervey were busy flinging themselves at Algarotti during his time in England, Algarotti was also having a fling with Andrew Mitchell. Says the biography:
It was not long, then , before (Algarotti) reached London — in March 1739.
At first he visited Andrew Mitchell, a young man who had left Scotland to make his fortune in England , a member of the Royal Society , who had recently been called to the Bar. Algarotti stayed only a short time with him in his chambers in the Middle Temple, then moved to Hervey's apartment in St. James's Palace
And then, later, when he's contemplating a third English sojourn:
From Hamburg he also advised Andrew Mitchell of his expected return to England . Instead of trying to relate every thing he has heard and seen on his recent travels, he prefers to wait until they can sup together in London, he writes, 'where you will certainly be the tastiest dish for me (le meilleur plat pour moi] ... If the wind continues as it is, I hope to embrace you in 4 or 5 days. Farewell, my dear friend ; love me and believe until
death , F.A.' )
Our dissertation writer, it seems, is above such tabloid material. Before I proceed to the potentially useful for fanfic Mitchell life dates this book gives us, some more details I hadn't gotten from the Bisset-edited Mitchell papers:
- Mitchell, due to being on the front lines with Fritz, was one of the few who got to know Eichel and get alone with him well - until later 1758, which was when Mitchell went from distrusting Heinrich to hanging out with Heinrich more and more, and Eichel (who apparantly was the "loyal only to the monarch and no one else" type - when FW ruled, this was FW, when Fritz ruled, it was Fritz) became distrustful of Mitchell and considered him contaminated by Heinrich's Fritz-critical opinions
(Here are the two Heinrich passages:
Previously Mitchell had been wary of Henry because of his pro-French sympathies but during the months when he accompanied him on campaign he came to see a different side to the King's brother. In Henry Mitchell found the ideal military commander, one who struck a proper balance between valour and humanitas. He praised the 'goodness' with which the prince treated prisoners, his care for the common soldier and his consideration for his officers, and he admired his 'coolness and presence of mind under fire'. Henry, in fact, had all of Frederick's qualities as a commander except his daring, and conspiciously lacked his impatience, his urge to settle everything in one great battle and his unconcern for his men. during this campaign Mitchell alid the basis of that friendship with Henry which lasted for the rest of his life.
Suspicious Eichel, a year later, when Mitchell instead of staying at headquarters with Fritz goes with Heinrich to Glogau in November 1760:
As worrying as Mitchell's absence from headquarters was his growing intimacy with Henry. Eichel, for one, was particularly unhappy about this. Since the end of August, when Frederick had amalgamated Henry's army with his own force, the prince had been sulking. Returning to Breslau, 'se sentant incommodi d'un accès de fievre', as Eichel wrote carefully to Finckenstein, he brooded over the loss of his command. The subsequent estrangement between the two brothers was a further source of that discontent and flagging morale which both Eichel and Mitchell noted among the army command. Many of the general officers shared Henry's view that the concentration of all the troops into one army seriously reduced the capability of the state to defend itself, whereas Frederick was prepared to accept this risk for the possibility of inflicting a massive defeat on one of his enemies should such an opportunity arise. First at Breslau, then ata Glogau, Mitchell was very much thrown into the company of Henry and in the eyes of Eichel, and perhaps Frederick himself, risked being contaminated by the dissatisfaction with the handling of the war which Henry's circle professed. AS so much depended on Britain retaining belief in Frederick's ability to survive, Eichel's concern was understandable. Mitchell was, in fact, trying to persuade Henry to return to headquarters and heal the breach with the King. But he failed in this attempt 'to heal, to soften and to apologize for the King of Prussia's conduct towards him'.
(This would be when Mitchell wrote he was trying to persuade Prussian ministers to help him reconciling the brothers, but that they chickened out. Maybe he meant Eichel?)
- someone in Vienna had a sharp sense of humor: while G2 was busy lamenting he'd been forced in an alliance against the Emperor, he got a letter reminding him that as Elector of Hannover, he was obliged to send troops to the war effort now that Fritz was officially under Reichsbann; G2's immediate reaction is not on record
- when G3 (born in Britain, no interest in Hannover) came to the throne, both Brits and Prussians first were very relieved and thought this meant Hannover stopped being of much, or any importance, but then the second Miracle happened, Lord Bute thought it was a great time to save money and cut the subsidies, and Fritz then wrote a letter to cousin G3 which G3 called the most impertinent and insulting letter he ever read, felt personally enraged and from this point onwards loathed Fritz as well. (G3, you have the American rebels still ahead of you, calm down.)
- Doran points out Fritz lucked out that his much cherished scheme to get the Turks into an alliance so they'd attack either the Russians or Austrians or preferably both came to nothing, because if Russia had been in a war with Turkey when Peter III. came to the throne, even (P)RussianPete surely could not have switched allegiances
- Fritz never bothered to tell the English about his intermittent use of Wilhelmine, Voltaire, Heinrich to sound out the French for a separate peace; meanwhile, the Brits didn't tell him about their intermittent attempt to get MT into an anti-Bourbon team up by offering her Naples (which they didn't have, and which, reminder, was ruled by an offspring of the Spanish Bourbons who in turn were a branch of the French Bourbons) (Mt: No thanks; I'm going to marry my daughter to the King of Naples instead)
- during the campaign free winter months at Dresden, Leipzig and Magdeburg, Mitchell busied himself learning German and befriended both Gottsched (remember him?) and Gellert (whom he persuaded Fritz to give an audience and a pension to); that he, a foreigner, showed more interest in the German language and literature than Fritz was not lost on either Gottsched or Gellert.
And now for the Curriculum Vitae.
Mitchell dates:
Born in Edingburgh 15 April 1708, one of three children of the Rev. William Mitchell, who was VERY interested in money and was by the time he died in 1727 not just one of the most influential leaders of the Scottish church but also one of its wealthiest divines.
1722: Arranging for his fourteen years old son to marry his ten years old cousin Barbara Mitchell and marrying her mother one year later was all about Barbara being the heiress of the Aberdeenshire estate of Thainston. In short, Mitchell Snr. was like the villain of a Robert Louis Stevenson tale.
1723: Andrew enters Edinburgh University, where David Hume is one of his classmates; also Boswell's dad Alexander Boswell, future Lord Auchinleck
1725: Andrew articled to an advocate
1726: poor Barbara the 14 years old dies of the birth of a daughter; the daughter dies while still an infant, when exactly, we don't know, but before Andrew leaves Scotland.
1727: Mitchell Snr. dies. Andrew inherits all, which means he's a well-off man for his remaining life.
1729: Andrew leaves Scotland, first for a few months of London, then on his Grand Tour, which will take years (btw, this is the same year Hervey returns from his second European Tour and becomes Vice Chamberlain); for the remainder of the year, he travels through the Netherlands and Germany
1730: Andrew resumes his studies, enrolls at the law faculty in Leyden where he spends two semesters (this means he's in the Netherlands when Peter Keith hightails it out of Prussia); (studying in the Netherlands for two terms was also what Boswell did pre-Grand Tour; for young Scots, it was considered a good option if you wanted to avoid England - the Netherlands were solidly Protestant, but not Anglican)
(
mildred_of_midgard: Meant to point out that Katte studied law in the Netherlands (Utrecht), though apparently he's not in their matriculation records (shades of Peter Keith at Trinity), and I can't tell exactly how long, but if it was in 1722 and 1722-1723 is also the time of his Grand Tour, then apparently not for long, maybe only one semester.)July 1731: Andrew goes from the Netherlands to Paris where he remains until the beginning of 1732, at which point he sets out on a leisurely tour through France and Italy (where he meets Algarotti)
September 1734: Andrew back in Paris, where he stays for the remaining year and most of 1735
End of 1735: Andrew Mitchell returns to Britain.
(This meant he really had spend considerable time abroad, and was "proficient" in French and Italian.)
1736 - Mitchell resumes his law studies; he's admitted as a meber of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland; he's also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
1738 - Mitchell called to the English Bar; Algarotti stays at his house in Pall Mall during his first trip to England
1740 - Mitchell gains a seat at the council of the Royal Society
1741 - Mitchell becomes private secretary to the fourth Marquess of Tweeddale (again, what a name!) and is made undersecretary for Scotland when Tweeddale is appointed Secretary of State for Scotland in 1742
January 1746 - Tweeddale is forced into resigning, which means Mitchell also loses his job; he considers running in the general election in the next year as MP
April 1747: the MP for Aberdeenshire, Sir Arthur Forbes of Craigievar offers to stand down in Mitchell's favor so he can run for his seat; Mitchell accepts gratefully but pisses off the Duke of Argyll who runs a candidate against him, though said candidate stands down a week before the election; Mitchell wins the seat
1752: Mitchell at his first diplomatic post, as one of the two commissaries appointed to negotiate in Brussels the dispute over the Treaty of Barrier (which was from 1715 (it was about maritime trading privileges, inevitably)
1754: due to government changes, Mitchell does not seek reelection for Aberdeenshire, but he does run and gets elected for the Elgin burghs, and will hold that seat for the rest of his life
March 174: Robert, Earl of Holdernesse and pal of Mitchell's, gets transfered from the southern depatment of the Secretaryship of State to the Northern department
Summer of 1755: Holdernesse tries unsuccessfully to get Mitchell appointed as envoy to Vienna
end of January 1756: Mitchell appointed by Newcastle at the suggestion of Holderness as envoy to Berlin.