with 15,000 chosen
Prussians for Jacobite purposes,--and the Cham of Tartary to have taken
part in the Bangorian Controversy,--was there a more perfect platitude,
or a deeper depth of ignorance as to adjacent objects on the part of
Governing Men. For shame, my friends!--

This surprising bit of Burglary, so far as I can gather from the
Prussian Books, must have been done on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25th, 1777;
Box (with essence pumped out) restored to staircase night of
Thursday,--Police already busy, Governor Ramin and Justice-President
Philippi already apprised, and suspicion falling on the English
Minister,--whose Servant ("Arrest him we cannot without a King's
Warrant, only procurable at Potsdam!") vanishes bodily. Friday, 27th,
Ramin and Philippi make report; King answers, "greatly astonished:" a
"GARSTIGE SACHE (ugly Business), which will do the English no honor:"
"Servant fled, say you? Trace it to the bottom; swift!" Excellency
Elliot, seeing how matters lay, owned honestly to the Official People,
That it was his Servant (Servant safe gone, Chief Pickpocket not
mentioned at all); SUNDAY EVENING, 29th, King orders thereupon, "Let the
matter drop." These Official Pieces, signed by the King, by Hertzberg,
Ramin and others, we do not give: here is Friedrich's own notice of it
to his Brother Henri:--

"POTSDAM, 29th JUNE, 1777.... There has just occurred a strange thing
at Berlin. Three days ago, in absence of the Sieur Lee, Envoy of the
American Colonies, the Envoy of England went [sent!] to the Inn where
Lee lodged, and carried off his Portfolio; it seems he was in fear,
however, and threw it down, without opening it, on the stairs [alas,
no, your Majesty, not till after pumping the essence out]. All Berlin is
talking of it. If one were to act with rigor, it would be necessary to
forbid this man the Court, since he has committed a public theft: but,
not to make a noise, I suppress the thing. Sha'n't fail, however, to
write to England about it, and indicate that there was another way of
dealing with such a matter, for they are impertinent" (say, ignorant,
blind as moles, your Majesty; that is the charitable reading!).
[_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvi. 394. In PREUSS, v. (he calls it "iv." or
"URKUNDENBUCH to vol. iv.," but it is really and practically vol. v.)
278, 279, are the various Official Reports.]

This was not Excellency Elliot's Burglary, as readers see,--among all
the Excellencies going, I know not that there is on