Robert, 4th Earl of Holdernesse the Secretary of State in the Northern Department as well as a former diplomat, cited this political point in 1754 as one of the reasons for delaying talks about renewing the Bavarian subsidy treaty. Thus, in the same month as Holdernesse's first comment, the British government intercepted and decyphered a dispatch from Michell, the Prussian envoy in London. French manuscript newsletters were freer in their comments than the printed newspapers, and were used by the British press. The French-language culture of print was also the prime medium through which news about Britain was transmitted to the Continent. Restrictions on access to information also affected the foreign newspapers from which the British drew much information. The public politics of the United Provinces ensured that it was a centre for the dissemination of reports intended to influence Dutch opinion, and these reports helped feed the Dutch press.