The fellow-scholar whom we honour in this volume and the present writer have an interest in common, in what might loosely be labelled ‘bribery and corruption in international relations’, though our periods do not quite overlap and we have concentrated on different areas of Europe in our investigations. My own initial curiosity was aroused by the sweeping assertions of some historians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that bribery and corruption was prevalent among all those connected with foreign affairs, from the lowest to the highest, whereas in my own researches, at that time limited to a single decade in the early eighteenth century and to Dutch, French and English archives only, had pointed to a clear division between customary, legitimate gratifications to men of stature, and secret presents and pensions meant to corrupt. The only examples I had come across of the latter were limited to minor officials: copyists and clerks who could sometimes be prevailed upon to give the clauses of a treaty before it was published, preferably with one or more of its secret articles – or the contents of an important letter – and to postmasters or their assistants who permitted the opening of mail and the perusal or the copying of specific despatches.

The legitimate presents soon sorted themselves out. They were not concealed, though at times the recipient had to obtain the permission of his own sovereign before acceptance.