Not that his Majesty, while at the deepest in domestic intricacies, ever neglects Public Business.  This very summer he is raising Hussar Squadrons; bent to introduce the Hussar kind of soldiery into his Army;-a good deal of horse-breaking and new sabre-exercise needed for that object. [Fassmann, pp. 417, 418.] The affairs of the Reich have at no moment been out of his eye; glad to see the Kaiser edging round to the Sea-Powers again, and things coming into their old posture, in spite of that sad Treaty of Seville.

Nay, for the last two years, while the domestic volcanoes were at their worst, his Majesty has been extensively dealing with a new question which has risen, that of the Salzburg protestants; concerning which we shall hear more anon.  Far and wide, in the Diets and elsewhere, he has been diligently, piously and with solid judgment, handling this question of the poor Salzburgers; and has even stored up moneys in intended solace of them (for he foresees what the end will be);-moneys which, it appears about this time, a certain Official over in Preussen has been peculating!  In the end of June, his Majesty sets off to Preussen on the usual Inspection Tour; which we should not mention, were it not in regard to that same Official, and to something very rhadamanthine and particular which befell him; significant of what his Majesty can do in the way of prompt justice.

CASE OF SCHLUBHUT.

The Konigsberg Domain-Board (Kriegs-und DOMANEN-Kammer) had fallen awry, in various points, of late; several things known to be out-at-elbows in that Country; the Kammer Raths evidently lax at their post; for which reason they have been sharply questioned, and shaken by the collar, so to speak.  Nay there is one Rath, a so-called Nobleman of those parts, by name Schlubhut, who has been found actually defaulting; peculating from that pious hoard intended for the Salzburgers:  he is proved, and confesses, to have put into his own scandalous purse no less than 11,000 thalers, some say 30,000 (almost 5,000 pounds), which belonged to the Public Treasury and the Salzburg Protestants!  These things, especially this latter unheard-of Schlubhut thing, the Supreme Court at Berlin (criminal-collegium) have been sitting on, for some time; and, in regard to Schlubhut, they have brought out a result, which Friedrich Wilhelm not a little admires at.  Schlubhut clearly guilty of the defamation, say they; but he has moneys, landed properties:  let him refund, principal and interest; and have, say, three or four years’ imprisonment, by way of memento.  “Years’ imprisonment?  Refund?  Is theft in the highest quarters a thing to be let off for refunding?” growls his Majesty; and will not confirm this sentence of his Criminal-Collegium; but leaves it till he get to the spot, and see with his own eyes.  Schlubhut, in arrest or mild confinement all this while, ought to be bethinking himself more than he is!

Once on the spot, judge if the Konigsberg Domain-Kammer had not a stiff muster to pass; especially if Schlubhut’s drill-exercise was gentle!  Schlubhut, summoned to private interview with his Majesty, carries his head higher than could be looked for:  Is very sorry; knows not how it happened; meant always to refund; will refund, to the last penny, and make all good.-“Refund?  Does He (er) know what stealing means, then?  How the commonest convicted private thief finds the gallows his portion; much more a public Magistrate convicted of theft?  Is He aware that He, in a very especial manner, deserves hanging, then?”-Schlubhut looks offended dignity; conscious of rank, if also of quasi-theft:  “Es ist nicht Manier (it is not the polite thing) to hang a Prussian Nobleman on those light terms! answers Schlubhut, high mannered at the wrong time:  I can and will pay the money back!-Noble-man?  Money back?  “I will none of His scoundrelly money.”  To strait Prison with this Schurke!-And thither he goes accordingly:  unhappiest of mortals; to be conscious of rank, not at the right place, when about to steal the money, but at the wrong, when answering to Rhadamanthus on it!

And there, sure enough, Schlubhut lies, in his prison on the Schlossplatz, or Castle Square, of Konigsberg, all night; and hears, close by the DOMANEN-Kammer, which is in the same Square, DOMANEN-Kammer where his Office used to be, a terrible sound of carpentering go on;-unhappiest of Prussian Noblemen.  And in the morning, see, a high gallows built; close in upon the Domain-Kammer, looking into the very windows of it;-and there, sure enough, the unfortunate Schlubhut dies the thief’s death, few hours hence, speaking or thinking what, no man reports to me.  Death was certain for him; inevitable as fate.  And so he vibrates there, admonitory to the other Raths for days,-some say for weeks,-till by humble petition they got the gallows removed.  The stumps of it, sawed close by the stones, were long after visible in that Schlossplatz of Konigsberg.  Here is prompt justice with a witness!  Did readers ever hear of such a thing?  There is no doubt about the fact, [Benekendorf (Anonymous), Karakterzuge aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Berlin, 1788), vi-20; Forster (i, &c. &c.] though in all Prussian Books it is loosely smeared over, without the least precision of detail; and it was not till after long searching that I could so much as get it dated:  July, 1731, while Friedrich Crown-Prince is still in eclipse at Custrin, and some six weeks after Wilhelmina’s betrothal.  And here furthermore, direct from the then Schlubhut precincts, is a stray Note, meteorological chiefly; but worth picking up, since it is authentic.  “Wehlau,” we observe, is on the road homewards again,-on our return from uttermost Memel,-a days journey hitherwards of that place, half a days thitherwards of Konigsberg:-

“Tuesday, 10th July, 1731.  King dining with General Dockum at Wehlau,”-where he had been again reviewing, for about forty hours, all manner of regiments brought to rendezvous there for the purpose, poor “General Katte with his regiment” among them;-King at dinner with General Dockum after all that, “took the resolution to be off to Konigsberg; and arrived here at the stroke of midnight, in a deluge of rain.”  This brings us within a day, or two days, of Schlubhut’s death, Terrible “combat of Bisons (Uri, or AUEROCHSEN, with such manes, such heads), of two wild Bisons against six wild Bears,” then ensued; and the Schlubhut human tragedy; I know not in what sequence,-rather conjecture the Schlubhut had gone first. Pillau, road to Dantzig, on the narrow strip between the Frische Haf and Baltic, is the next stage homewards; at Pillau, General Finkenstein (excellent old Tutor of the Crown-Prince) is Commandant, and expects his rapid Majesty, day and hour given, to me not known, Majesty goes in three carriages; Old Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, Ginkel are among his suite; weather still very electric:-

“At Fischhausen, half-way to Pillau, Majesty had a bout of elk-hunting; killed sixty elks [Melton-Mowbray may consider it],-creatures of the deer sort, nimble as roes, but strong as bulls, and four palms higher than the biggest horse,-to the astonishment of Seckendorf, Ginkel and the strangers there.  Half an hour short of Pillau, furious electricity again; thunder-bolt shivered an oak-tree fifteen yards from Majestys carriage.  And at Pillau itself, the Battalion in Garrison there, drawn out in arms, by Count Finkenstein, to receive his Majesty [rain over by this time, we can hope], had suddenly to rush forward and take new ground; Frische Haf, on some pressure from the elements, having suddenly gushed out, two hundred paces beyond its old watermark in that place.

Pillau, Fischhausen,-this is where the excellent old Adalbert stamped the earth with his life “in the shape of a crucifix” eight hundred years ago:  and these are the new phenomena there!-The General Dockum, Colonel of Dragoons, whom his Majesty dined with at Wehlau, got his death not many months after.  One of Dockum’s Dragoon Lieutenants felt insulted at something, and demanded his discharge:  discharge given, he challenged Dockum, duel of pistols, and shot him dead. [7th April, 1732 (Militair-Lexikon, .] Nothing more to be said of Dockum, nor of that Lieutenant, in military annals.

CASE OF THE CRIMINAL-COLLEGIUM ITSELF.

And thus was the error of the Criminal-Collegium rectified in re Schlubhut.  For it is not in name only, but in fact, that this Sovereign is Supreme Judge, and bears the sword in God’s stead,-interfering now and then, when need is, in this terrible manner.  In the same dim authentic Benekendorf (himself a member of the Criminal-Collegium in later times), and from him in all the Books, is recorded another interference somewhat in the comic vein; which also we may give.  Undisputed fact, again totally without precision or details; not even datable, except that, on study, we perceive it may have been before this Schlubhut’s execution, and after the Criminal-Collegium had committed their error about him,-must have been while this of Schlubhut was still vividly in mind; Here is the unprecise but indubitable fact, as the Prussian Dryasdust has left us his smear of it:-

“One morning early” (might be before Schlubhut was hanged, and while only sentence of imprisonment and restitution lay on him), General Graf von Donhof, Colonel of a Musketeer Regiment, favorite old soldier,-who did vote on the mild side in that Court-Martial on the Crown-Prince lately; but I hope has been forgiven by his Majesty, being much esteemed by him these long years past;-this Donhof, early one morning, calls upon the King, with a grimly lamenting air.  “What is wrong, Herr General?”-“Your Majesty, my best musketeer, an excellent soldier, and of good inches, fell into a mistake lately,-bad company getting round the poor fellow; they, he among them, slipt into a house and stole something; trifle and without violence:  pay is but three halfpence, your Majesty, and the Devil tempts men!  Well, the Criminal-Collegium have condemned him to be hanged; an excellent soldier and of good inches, for that one fault.  Nobleman Schlubhut was ‘to make restitution,’ they decreed:  that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set; and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a three-halfpenny matter!”-So would Donhof represent the thing,-“fact being,” says my Dryasdust, “it was a case of house-breaking with theft to the value of 6,000 thalers and this musketeer the ringleader!”-Well; but was Schlubhut sentenced to hanging?  Do you keep two weights and two measures, in that Criminal-Collegium of yours, then?

Friedrich Wilhelm feels this sad contrast very much; the more, as the soldier is his own chattel withal, and of superlative inches:  Friedrich Wilhelm flames up into wrath; sends off swift messengers to bring these Judges, one and all instantly into his presence.  The Judges are still in their dressing-gowns, shaving, breakfasting; they make what haste they can.  So soon as the first three or four are reported to be in the anteroom, Friedrich Wilhelm, in extreme impatience has them called in; starts discoursing with them upon the two weights and two measures.  Apologies, subterfuges do but provoke him farther; it is not long till he starts up, growling terribly:  “Ihr SCHURKEN (Ye Scoundrels), how could you?” and smites down upon the crowns of them with the Royal Cudgel itself.  Fancy the hurry-scurry, the unforensic attitudes and pleadings!  Royal Cudgel rains blows, right and left:  blood is drawn, crowns cracked, crowns nearly broken; and “several Judges lost a few teeth, and had their noses battered,” before they could get out.  The second relay meeting them in this dilapidated state, on the staircases, dashed home again without the honor of a Royal interview. [Benekendorf, vi; Forster, i.] Let them learn to keep one balance, and one set of weights, in their Law-Court hence forth.-This is an actual scene, of date Berlin, 1731, or thereby; unusual in the annals of Themis.  Of which no constitutional country can hope to see the fellow, were the need never so pressing.-I wish his Majesty had been a thought more equal, when he was so rhadamanthine!  Schlubhut he hanged, Schlubhut being only Schlubhuts chattel; this musketeer, his Majestys own chattel, he did not hang, but set him shouldering arms again, after some preliminary dusting!-

His Majesty was always excessively severe on défalcations; any Chancellor, with his Exchequer-bills gone wrong, would have fared ill in that country.  One Treasury dignitary, named Wilke (who had “dealt in tall recruits,” as a kind of by-trade, and played foul in some slight measure), the King was clear for hanging; his poor Wife galloped to Potsdam, shrieking mercy; upon which Friedrich Wilhelm had him whipt by the hangman, and stuck for life into Spandau.  Still more tragical-was poor Hesse’s case.  Hesse, some domain Rath out at Konigsberg, concerned with moneys, was found with account-books in a state of confusion, and several thousands short, when the outcome was cleared up.  What has become of these thousands, Sir?  Poor old Hesse could not tell:  “God is my witness, no penny of them eyer stuck to me,” asseverated poor old Hesse; “but where they are ?  My account-books are in such a state;-alas, and my poor old memory is not what it was!” They brought him to Berlin; in the end they actually hanged the poor old soul;-and then afterwards in his dusty lumber-rooms, hidden in pots, stuffed into this nook and that, most or all of the money was found! [Forster (i, &c. &c.] Date and document exist for all these cases, though my Dryasdust gives none; and the cases are indubitable; very rhadamanthine indeed.  The soft quality of mercy,-ah, yes, it is beautiful and blessed, when permissible (though thrice-accursed, when not):  but it is on the hard quality of justice, first of all, that Empires are built up, and beneficent and lasting things become achievable to mankind, in this world!-

SKIPPER JENKINS IN THE GULF OF FLORIDA.

A couple of weeks before Schlubhut’s death, the English Newspapers are somewhat astir,-in the way of narrative merely, as yet.  Ship Rebecca, Captain Robert Jenkins Master, has arrived in the Port of London, with a strange story in her log-book.  Of which, after due sifting, this is accurately the substance:-

“London, 23d-27th June, 1731.  Captain Jenkins left this Port with the Rebecca, several months ago; sailed to Jamaica, for a cargo of sugar.  He took in his cargo at Jamaica; put to sea again, 6th April, 1731, and proceeded on the Voyage homewards; with indifferent winds for the first fortnight.  April 20th, with no wind or none that would suit, he was hanging about in the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, not far from the Havana,”-almost too near it, I should think; but these baffling winds!-“not far from the Havana, when a Spanish Guarda-Costa hove in sight; came down on Jenkins, and furiously boarded him:  ’Scoundrel, what do you want; contrabanding in these seas?  Jamaica, say you?  Sugar?  Likely!  Let us see your logwood, hides, Spanish pieces-of-eight!’ And broke in upon Jenkins, ship and person, in a most extraordinary manner.  Tore up his hatches; plunged down, seeking logwood, hides, pieces-of-eight; found none,-not the least trace of contraband on board of Jenkins.  They brought up his quadrants, sextants, however; likewise his stock of tallow candles:  they shook and rummaged him, and all things, for pieces-of-eight; furiously advised him, cutlass in hand, to confess guilt.  They slashed the head of Jenkins, his left ear almost off.  Order had been given, ’Scalp him!’-but as he had no hair, they omitted that; merely brought away the wig, and slashed:-still no confession, nor any pieces-of-eight.  They hung him up to the yard-arm,-actual neck-halter, but it seems to have been tarry, and did not run:-still no confession.  They hoisted him higher, tied his cabin-boy to his feet; neck-halter then became awfully stringent upon Jenkins; had not the cabin-boy (without head to speak of) slipt through, noose being tarry; which was a sensible relief to Jenkins.  Before very death, they lowered Jenkins, ‘Confess, scoundrel, then!’ Scoundrel could not confess; spoke of ’British Majesty’s flag, peaceable English subject on the high seas.’-’British Majesty; high seas!’ answered they, and again hoisted.  Thrice over they tried Jenkins in this manner at the yard-arm, once with cabin-boy at his feet:  never had man such a day, outrageous whiskerando cut-throats tossing him about, his poor Rebecca and him, at such rate!  Sun getting low, and not the least trace of contraband found, they made a last assault on Jenkins; clutched the bloody slit ear of him; tore it mercilessly off; flung it in his face, ‘Carry that to your King, and tell him of it!’ Then went their way; taking Jenkins’s tallow candles, and the best of his sextants with them; so that he could hardly work his passage home again, for want of latitudes;-and has lost in goods 112 pounds, not to speak of his ear.  Strictly true all this; ship’s company, if required, will testify on their oath.” [Daily Journal (and the other London Newspapers), 12th-17th June (o.s.), 1731.  Coxe’s Walpole, , 560 (indistinct, and needing correction).]

These surely are singular facts; calculated to awaken a maritime public careful of its honor.  Which they did,-after about eight years, as the reader will see!  For the present, there are growlings in the coffee-houses; and, “Thursday, 28th June,” say the Newspapers, “This day Captain Jenkins with his Owners,” ear in his pocket, I hope, “went out to Hampton Court to lay the matter before his Grace of Newcastle:”  “Please your Grace, it is hardly three months since the illustrious Treaty of Vienna was signed; Dutch and we leading in the Termagant of Spain, and nothing but halcyon weather to be looked for on that side!” Grace of Newcastle, anxious to avoid trouble with Spain, answers I can only fancy what; and nothing was done upon Jenkins and his ear;

["The Spaniards own they did a witty thing,
Who cropt our ears, and sent them to the King.” 
-Pope (date not given me).]

BABY CARLOS GETS HIS APANAGE.

But in regard to that Treaty of Vienna, seventh and last of the travail-throes for Baby Carloss Apanage, let the too oblivious reader accept the following Extract, to keep him on a level with Public Events, as they are pleased to denominate themselves:-

“By that dreadful Treaty of Seville, Cardinal Fleury and the Spaniards should have joined with England, and coerced the Kaiser vi et ARMIS to admit Spanish Garrisons [instead of neutral] into Parma and Piacenza, and so secure Baby Carlos his heritage there, which all Nature was in travail till he got.  ‘War in Italy to a certainty!’ said all the Newspapers, after Seville:  and Crown-Prince Friedrich, we saw, was running off to have a stroke in said War;-inevitable, as the Kaiser still obstinately refused.  And the English, and great George their King, were ready.  Nevertheless, no War came.  Old Fleury, not wanting war, wanting only to fish out something useful for himself,-Lorraine how welcome, and indeed the smallest contributions are welcome!-Old Fleury manoeuvred, hung back; till the Spaniards and Termagant Elizabeth lost all patience, and the very English were weary, and getting auspicious.  Whereupon the Kaiser edged round to the Sea-Powers again, or they to him; and comfortable as-you-were was got accomplished:  much to the joy of Friedrich Wilhelm and others.  Here are some of the dates to these sublime phenomena: 

“March 16th, 1731, Treaty of Vienna, England and the Kaiser coalescing again into comfortable as-you-were.  Treaty done by Robinson [Sir Thomas, ultimately Earl of Grantham, whom we shall often hear of in time coming]; was confirmed and enlarged by a kind of second edition, 22d July, 1731; Dutch joining, Spain itself acceding, and all being now right.  Which could hardly have been expected.

“For before the first edition of that Treaty, and while Robinson at Vienna was still laboring like Hercules in it,-the poor Duke of Parma died.  Died; and no vestige of a ‘Spanish Garrison’ yet there, to induct Baby Carlos according to old bargain.  On the contrary, the Kaiser himself took possession,-’till once the Duke’s Widow, who declares herself in the family-way, be brought to bed!  If of a Son, of course he must have the Duchies; if of a Daughter only, then Carlos shall get them, let not Robinson fear.’  The due months ran, but neither son nor daughter came; and the Treaty of Vienna, first edition and also second, was signed; and, “October 20th, 1731, Spanish Garrisons, no longer an but a bodily fact, 6,000 strong, ‘convoyed by the British Fleet,’ came into Leghorn, and proceeded to lodge themselves in the long-litigated Parma and Piacenza;-and, in fine, the day after Christmas, blessed be Heaven.

“December 26th, Baby Carlos in highest person came in:  Baby Carlos (more power to him!) got the Duchies, and we hope there was an end.  No young gentleman ever had such a pother to make among his fellow-creatures about a little heritable property.  If Baby Carloss performance in it be anything in proportion, he will be a supereminent sovereign!-

“There is still some haggle about Tuscany, the Duke of which is old and heirless; Last of the Medici, as he proved.  Baby Carlos would much like to have Tuscany too; but that is a Fief of the Empire, and might easily be better disposed of, thinks the Kaiser.  A more or less uncertain point, that of Tuscany; as many points are!  Last of the Medici complained, in a polite manner, that they were parting his clothes before he had put them off:  however, having no strength, he did not attempt resistance, but politely composed himself, ‘Well, then!’ [Scholl, i-221; Coxe’s Walpole, ; Coxe’s House of Austria (London, 1854), ii.] Do readers need to be informed that this same Baby Carlos came to be King of Naples, and even ultimately to be Carlos iii. of Spain, leaving a younger Son to be King of Naples, ancestor of the now Majesty there?”

And thus, after such Diplomatic earthquakes and travail of Nature, there is at last birth; the Seventh Travail-throe has been successful, in some measure successful.  Here actually is Baby Carlos’s Apanage; there probably, by favor of Heaven and of the Sea-Powers, will the Kaiser’s Pragmatic Sanction be, one day.  Treaty of Seville, most imminent of all those dreadful Imminencies of War, has passed off as they all did; peaceably adjusts itself into Treaty of Vienna:  A Termagant, as it were, sated; a Kaiser hopeful to be so, Pragmatic Sanction and all:  for the Sea-Powers and everybody mere halcyon weather henceforth,-not extending to the Gulf of Florida and Captain Jenkins, as would seem!  Robinson, who did the thing,-an expert man, bred to business as old Horace Walpole’s Secretary, at Soissons and elsewhere, and now come to act on his own score,-regards this Treaty of Vienna (which indeed had its multiform difficulties) as a thing to immortalize a man.

Crown-Prince has, long since, by Papa’s order, written to the Kaiser, to thank Imperial Majesty for that beneficent intercession, which has proved the saving of his life, as Papa inculcates.  We must now see a little how the saved Crown-Prince is getting on, in his eclipsed state, among the Domain Sciences at Custrin.