The door to the office on the west side of the British embassy in Cologne swung open. Sir Briggs, seated behind a dark brown desk, looked up, saw his assistant, and immediately picked up the pages in front of him and waved them at him. "Harvey, these just came from London. Take a look. We've now become the diplomatic focus of the entire United Kingdom.
"Still, that's not without its advantages. His Lordship personally approved two thousand pounds in funding for us."
The lord he referred to was, of course, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lord Hawkesbury.
Just a week earlier, the Holy See had suddenly announced that it would relinquish a vast range of Church interests within the Holy Trade Alliance.
As a result, with almost inconceivable efficiency, the Cologne Parliament had decided to hold a vote ten days later on its "intention to join the Holy Trade Alliance." In all his dealings with the Cologne Parliament, Sir Briggs had never seen the people of Cologne so united in their views.
Then the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs had sent him instructions: he had to ensure that the vote did not produce a result the Empire did not wish to see.
According to what Briggs had heard, the Holy See's decision had already spread across more than half of Europe. Almost every Catholic country had expressed tremendous interest-apart from the Austro-Hungarian Empire-and diplomats from various countries were flocking to Münster to learn the details.
After all, Cologne was the Trade Alliance's first stop in the territory of the North German Confederation, giving it immense symbolic significance. If this succeeded, a whole host of countries would surely follow its lead and join. If Cologne refused, it would also encourage other countries to wait and see.
His assistant, Harvey Vernon,