Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 9

1. Louis Ernst, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was commander-in-chief of the Dutch army, while his brother, Ferdinand, was a former Prussian field marshall, the victorious commander at the Battle of Minden in 1758. The Duke's family probably believed that he remained attached to Austria, as opposed to Prussia, because of prior service as an Austrian field marshall. Their displeasure with the Duke is understandable in view of Ferdinand's allegiance to Prussia and the fact that one of the Duke's sisters was the wife of Frederick the Great and another the wife of Frederick's brother Charles (Alice Clare Carter, The Dutch Republic in Europe in the Seven Years War, London, 1971, p. 27–28; Hoefer, Nouv. biog. générale ).

This and the following paragraph were paraphrased and included in JA's second letter of 3 April to the president of Congress (No. 33, calendared, below).