bassador to George I., in those Congress-of-Cambrai times; serenely
journeying on; when, near by Halberstadt, his carriage broke. Carriage
takes some time in mending; the tall Diplomatic Herr walks on, will
stretch his long legs, catch a glimpse of the Town withal, till they get
it ready again. And now, at some Guard-house of the place, a Prussian
Officer inquires, not too reverently of a nobleman without carriage,
"Who are you?" "Well," answered he smiling, "I am BOTSCHAFTER
(Message-bearer) from his Imperial Majesty. And who may you be that
ask?"--"To the Guard-house with us!" Whither he is marched accordingly.
"Kaiser's messenger, why not?" Being a most tall handsome man, this
Kaiser's BOTSCHAFTER, striding along on foot here, the Guard-house
Officials have decided to keep him, to teach him Prussian
drill-exercise;--and are thrown into a singular quandary, when his
valets and suite come up, full of alarm dissolving into joy, and call
him "Excellenz!" [Pollnitz, ii. 207-209.]

Tall Herr von Bentenrieder accepted the prostrate apology of these
Guard-house Officials. But he naturally spoke of the matter to George
I.; whose patience, often fretted by complaints on that head, seems to
have taken fire at this transcendent instance of Prussian insolency. In
consequence of this adventure, he commenced, says Pollnitz, a system
of decisive measures; of reprisals even, and of altogether peremptory,
minatory procedures, to clear Hanover of this nuisance; and to make it
cease, in very fact, and not in promise and profession merely.
These were the first rubs Queen Sophie met with, in pushing on the
Double-Marriage; and sore rubs they were, though she at last got over
them. Coming on the back of that fine Charlottenburg Visit, almost
within year and day, and directly in the teeth of such friendly aspects
and prospects, this conduct on the part of his Britannic Majesty much
grieved and angered Friedrich Wilhelm; and in fact involved him in
considerable practical troubles.

For it was the signal of a similar set of loud complaints, and menacing
remonstrances (with little twinges of fulfilment here and there) from
all quarters of Germany; a tempest of trouble and public indignation
rising everywhere, and raining in upon Friedrich Wilhelm and this
unfortunate Hobby of his. No riding of one's poor Hobby in peace
henceforth. Friedrich Wilhelm always answered, what was only
superficially the fact, That HE knew nothing of these violences