THE ESTERHAZY MISSION.
Wrrworz indulging any desire to believe that we ourselves were " in the right," we are by no means prepared to admit the ready and confident denials of the report which we had from Vienna via Paris in our second edition last Saturday. We then stated that "Prince Esterhazy leaves Vienna for Lon- don on an extraordinary mission." This report was in part confirmed by the Daily News of Monday last.
Others of our contemporaries evidently did not know exactly what to say ; and only on Tuesday the Morning Herald had "authority to state that the announcement made by one of our contemporaries, that Prince Paul Ester- hazy is expected in London on a diplomatic mission, is entirely without foundation." It will be observed that this passage is very guarded, although it has an air of being unqualified.
It seems that, not the visit, but its diplomatic character, was "entirely without foundation " ; for the routs of the same day, in its second edition, reported by a letter from Vienna that on that very Tuesday Prince Ester- hazy would "leave for England," his Highness "wishing to see old friends and exchange ideas and opinions," but "having a mission neither to her Majesty nor to the Government."
On the following day the well-informed Paris correspondent of the Moll: repeated the statement current in Vienna, notwithstanding the denial of Government papers, " that Paul Esterhazy is actually sent to enforce on whatever Cabinet he may find in existence on his arrival in London the ab- solute necessity (?) of England's recognizing and guaranteeing this quadri- lateral position of Austria on the Po as an indispensable barrier for the Ger- man confederacy. with a view to the coming European interference between the belligerents. Prince Paul, being brought up at one of your great pub- lic schools, counts many statesmen of both sides of your House as his col- legiate chums."
There have since been denials that Prince Esterhazy was coming at all; but whether it is now thought worth while to persevere with the intention or not, we have the strongest reason for believing that the Prince was to have come, and we have very high authority for the belief that if Prince Esterhazy should come at all, he will come, undoubtedly, "to exchange ideas and opinions," but with an exceedingly practical object, and with the previous knowledge and anxious concurrence of the Austrian Government.
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