[p. 540]
|540| even in taxation, which, in everything that the relations of the Empire and of the circles brought with them, was not dependent on the consent of the estates, they are greater than in the one formerly existing”.
Further the King declares that, in order to achieve a common understanding about the applicability of the proposals, he will have oral negotiations through plenipotentiaries from both sides opened.
The estates, as stated above, made their co-operation in raising the extraordinary needs dependent on the granting of their demands. The immediate means they saw in a state loan; to obtain one on advantageous terms, the guarantee of the estates of the realm would without doubt have been of importance. Here was the moment, with the words they had in their mouths, to be ready to sacrifice goods and blood for the fatherland, to prove the truth of their good will, – a proof which can be furnished only by deed. – This active proof could at the same time have become an introduction to an understanding in general and, more closely, to the establishment of a common fund for the redemption of debts. But they did not offer this guarantee; rather, on 18 April they sent to the King a couple of their essays, which they had in stock, repeated their monotonous representations, and then declared themselves ready, for their part, to proceed to the election of plenipotentiaries.
On 24 April the assembly appointed a committee of 25 members, who were to prepare the negotiations, and four commissioners for negotiation with the four councillors of state appointed to that end by the King, who, as far as one can recall, seem to have been all old-Württembergers. Now a closer preliminary seemed to have set in, which could give hope of leading to the matter. It showed itself at once that the committee had understood by the preparation assigned to it the direction of the negotiations and the instructing of the commissioners of the estates,
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