Some 'eight cart-loads of hay,' worth say almost 5 pounds or 10pounds sterling: who is to mow that grass, I wonder?"--Friedrich Wilhelm feels that all this is a pettifogging vexatious course of procedure; and that his little Cousin the COMODIANT is not treating him very like a gentleman. "Is he, your Majesty!"suggests the Smoking Parliament.--About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears Borck, an Official not of the Grumkow party, sulkily commenting on "the constant hostility of the Hanover Ministry to us" in all manner of points;---inquires withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, his Prussian Majesty being somewhat anxious upon it? [Despatch, 17th March, 1729.]
Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely meditative of such a matter in the night-watches, is capable of springing out of bed, with an "Eureka! I have found what will do!" and demanding writing materials. He writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious Majesty; despatches his Eureka by estafette on the wings of the wind: and your Townshend, your UNmeditative George, receives it with curt official negative, and a polite sneer. [Dubourgay, 12th-14th April, 1729; and the Answer from St. James's.]
A few weeks farther on, this is what the Newspapers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian Majesty's desire to have some mercy shown the poor infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel," his Britannic Majesty and Squire in that sad business, "REFUSE to withdraw their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satisfaction be given them for the arrears of the Charges they have been at in putting the Sentence of the Aulic Council [Kaiser's REICHSHOFRATH and rusty thunder] into execution against the said Duke." [Salmon's Chronological Historian (London, 1748,--a Book never to be quoted without caution), ii. 216;--date (translated into new style), 10th July, 1729.]
Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the Summer of 1729. Part of his road lies through Prussian Territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his late Majesty was wont?" asks the Prussian Official person. "If he write to request them, yes," answers Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no." George does not write;pays for his post-horses;--flourishes along to Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish Brother-in-Law. You would say he looks over the head of him, as if there were no such clown in existence;--he has never yet so much as notified his arrival.
"What is this? There exists no Prussia, then, for little George?"Friedrich Wilhelm's inarticulate, interjectionary utterances, in clangorous metallic tone, we can fancy them, now and then; and the Tobacco-Parliament is busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady old military gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is intent to keep down mischief, writes at last to Hanover, submissively suggesting, "Could not, as was the old wont, some notification of the King's arrival be sent hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty?"To which my Lord Townshend answers, "Has not been the custom, I am informed [WRONG informed, your Lordship]; not necessary in the circumstances." Which is a high course between neighbors and royal gentlemen and kinsfolk. The Prussian Court hereupon likewise shuts its lips; no mention of the Hanoverian Court, not even by her Majesty and to Englishmen, for several weeks past. [Dubourgay.]
Some inarticulate metallic growl, in private, at dinner or in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM: the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover Recruits (according to our List of Pressed Hanoverians) in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows settled; "Big Meadow"or "Little one," both of which the Brandenburgers have mown in the mean time.
Hanover Pressed men not coming home,--I think, not one of them,--the Hanover Officials decide to seize such Prussian Soldiers as happen to be seizable, in Hanover Territory. The highway in that border-country runs now on this side of the march, now on that;--watch well, and you will get Prussian Soldiers from time to time!
Which the Hanover people do; and seize several, common men and even officers. Here is once more a high course of proceeding.
Here is coal to raise smoke enough, if well blown upon,--which, with Seckendorf and Grumkow working the bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what follows, independently of bellows.
On the 28th June, 1729, hay lying now quite dry upon the Meadow of Clamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hanoverian Buhlitz, Unpicturesque Traveller will find the peat-smoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dusty little Town called Luchow, midway from Hamburg to Magdeburg; altogether peaty, mossy country; in the Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendic populations, and a Marck or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set up against them:--Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies forth with several carts, with all the population of the Village, with a troop of horse to escort, and probably flags flying and some kind of drums beating;--publicly rakes together the hay, defiant of the Prussian Majesty and all men; loads it on his carts, and rolls home with it; leaving to the Brandenburgers nothing but stubble and the memory of having mown for Hanover to eat. This is the 28th June, 1729; King of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops; within a hundred miles of these contested quag-countries: who can blame him that he flames up now into clear blaze of royal indignation?
The correspondence henceforth becomes altogether lively:
but in the Britannic Archives there is nothing of it,--Dubourgay having received warning from my Lord Townshend to be altogether ignorant of the matter henceforth, and let the Hanover Officials manage it. His Prussian Majesty returns home in the most tempestuous condition.
