“That his Prussian majesty, desirous of seizing every opportunity of showing his friendship and attention to the king, had ordered him, Count Finckenstein, to take the earliest moment of acquainting me with this event, and at the same time to give me a copy of the declaration, which I here enclose—that his chargé d’affaires in London had likewise received orders to inform the king’s ministers on this subject, and to communicate to them the declaration.”
The reply of the English minister to this momentous announcement, exhibits, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary instances of ministerial negligence on record. On a subject which might have moved the very stones to mutiny, and which, in its consequences, involved the interests of all Europe, the only answer of the King of England was contained in the following note, written in French:—“The king is willing to suppose that the three courts have convinced themselves of the justice of their respective pretensions, although his majesty is not informed of the motives of their conduct.” “You will observe,” adds Lord Suffolk, “in the terns in which I express myself, that though this mode of expression was preferable to an absolute silence, the utmost caution has been used.” The caution was indeed sufficiently circumspect, for it was wholly useless; and the consequence was perfect impunity to the perpetrators.
Frederick was the great infidel of his day. He had been so long involved in hostilities with Austria, the most superstitious court in Europe, that he adopted “free-thinking” as a part of his policy; and his eagerness for European fame connected him with Voltaire and the French infidels, whose wit and wickedness had made them the leaders of philosophical fashion. But there is a principle of belief in human nature which revenges itself on the infidel. There are no men more liable to groundless fears, than those who reject the object of legitimate awe. The man who will not believe in a deity, has often believed in witchcraft; and those who will not acknowledge a Providence, have often trembled before a conjurer. At this period, Frederick had grown peculiarly anxious and irascible—a temper for which the ambassador accounts by a sudden impulse of superstition. He says—“Amongst several other incredible follies in so great a character, he has that of not entirely disbelieving judicial astrology; and I am told, from one whose authority is not despicable, that the fear of a prediction being this year fulfilled, which was pronounced by a Saxon fortune-teller whom his majesty was weak enough some time ago to consult, dwells on his mind, and augments the sourness of a disposition naturally crabbed. I should have paid no attention to these reports, which savour so much of the nursery, had I not myself observed him displeased at a mourning coat at his levee, and seen his countenance visibly alter on being informed of any man’s dying a sudden death.”
We then have a curious letter from Lord Grantham, the ambassador at Madrid, giving an account of an expedition to Algiers, which derives an interest from the present state of African affairs.
“You will learn that a very unsuccessful attempt has been made at Algiers, and that the Spanish troops have been repulsed with a loss and disablement of upwards of 5000 men. The fleet, consisting of 450 sail, and carrying about 40,000 men, sailed from Carthagena, and reached Algiers the 1st inst., (July 1775.) On the night of the 7th, the infantry, and two detachments of about 8000 men each, landed. The first detachment advanced too eagerly, could not be supported to any purpose, and, after thirteen hours’ engagement, all that could regained the ships. But the loss of killed and wounded, first estimated at 3000, certainly exceeded five or six. The transports with the army are returned to Carthagena and Alicante. I leave you to judge how deep an impression this severe failure makes here. The Marquis de la Romana is killed—all the generals, except Buck, are wounded. Among the wounded are twenty-eight officers of the Spanish guards, and twelve out of seventeen engineers.”
The court of Frederick would form a singular contrast to what is called the British Household, composed of the great officers of state. “You are not ignorant,” says Harris, writing to William Eden, “that the great officers of the court are merely titular, and never allowed to have any authority annexed to their office. This is given to some menial servants, who are constantly about the king’s person, and his treasurer was a Russian named Deiss, in whom his Majesty placed more confidence than he appears to have deserved; since for maladministration, or some equally notorious fault, his majesty a few days ago, dismissed him from his high post, and ordered him to be employed as a drummer in a marching regiment. Deiss affected to submit patiently to his sentence, and, on being arrested, begged leave of the officer only to go into his room, adjoining the king’s writing-closet, to fetch his hat. This being granted, he immediately locked the door, took a pistol from his pocket, and shot himself through the head. The king heard and was alarmed by the report of a pistol so near him, and being told what had happened, he pitied Deiss, said that he was out of his senses, and ordered all that he died worth to be distributed equally among his children. Deiss had charged the pistol with small-shot and crooked nails, and put the muzzle of it into his mouth.”
A striking anecdote is given of General Seidlitz, the officer who formed the Prussian cavalry. When only a lieutenant, he happened to be near the king on a bridge which crossed the Oder. The king asked him, “if both the avenues of the bridge were possessed by the enemy, what he would do to disengage himself.” Seidlitz, without making an answer, immediately leaped his horse over the rails into the river, and notwithstanding its breadth and rapidity, swam safe ashore. The king, who took it for granted that he must be drowned, on seeing him come towards him, said in French, “Major, I beg of you not to run such hazards in future.”
Despotic power has certainly great advantages, in its rapid administration of justice, and sometimes in its reaching offences which would altogether baffle trial by jury. Frederick was ridiculously fond of exhibiting his musical attainments; and among the other preparatives for the reception of the Russian grand-duke (afterwards the Emperor Paul) at Berlin, was a piece of music composed by the king. The husband of the first singer at the opera, the well-known Madame Mara, was imprudent enough to observe of this performance, that “the composer knew more about soldiers than music.” The king ordered him to be instantly made over to the corps-de-garde, with orders to punish him, enough to make him more cautious of criticism in future. The soldiers accordingly, as there happened to be no punishment in the military regulations for impertinent remarks on royal amateurs, took the affair into their own hands. They began by dressing him in a uniform, covering his face with a huge pair of whiskers, and loading him with the heaviest firelock which they could find, they then made him perform the manual exercise for two hours—accompanying the lesson with all the usual discipline of the cane—then ordered him to dance and sing, finishing their discipline by making the surgeon take from him a large quantity of blood, obviously to reduce the heat of temper which had given rise to such impertinence. After this lesson he was sent back to his wife. Severe as it may have appeared, Harris regarded it as earned by many previous impertinences of the same kind, but of which it may fairly be presumed this was the last.
At last the grand-duke arrived, and was received with the most unusual pomp and ceremony by the Prussian court. By some curious instance of choice, Sunday is selected on the Continent as the day for every thing in the shape of show. The Russian prince made his public entry into Berlin on Sunday, and was met by the trading companies in uniform, by escorts of cavalry, and the equipages of the king and royal family. In the evening, after a sumptuous dinner, there was a concert and ball. The rest of the week was similarly occupied. The grand-duke had come to demand the Princess of Wirtemberg in marriage. When we recollect the fate of this unhappy monarch, murdered on the Russian throne, and contrast it with the brilliancy of his early reception in the world, and his actual powers when master of the diadem, a deeper lesson of the instability of human fortune has seldom been given to man.
A laughable anecdote of Russian and Prussian discipline is told. All the domestics belonging to the Imperial family of Russia have military rank; the grand-duke’s coachman and the king’s going one evening to drink together, a dispute arose about precedence. “What is your rank?” said the Prussian. “A lieutenant-colonel,” said the other.