text: " So much for defensive treaties! At this crisis the British ministry--fully impressed with the paramount importance of isolating in so far as might be the republican contagion within the confines of France and preventing it from spreading further--requested Lord Malmesbury as the fittest and most experienced diplomatist whose services they could command to proceed on a special mission to the court of Berlin and attempt by every means in his power to recall the king from his false and unnatural position