February 8th, 1753, no redress obtainable, poor Newcastle shrieks, "Can't, must n't; astonishing!" and "the people are in great wrath about it. April 12th, Friedrich replies, in the kindest terms;but sticking to his point." [Adelung, vii. 336-338.] And punctually continued so, and did as he had said. With what rumor in the City, commentaries in the Newspapers and flutter to his Grace of Newcastle, may be imagined. "What a Nephew have I!" thinks Britannic Majesty: "Hah, and Embden, Ost-Friesland, is not his.
Embden itself is mine!" A great deal of ill-nature was generated, in England, by this one affair of the Privateers, had there been no other: and in dark cellars of men's minds (empty and dark on this matter), there arose strange caricature Portraitures of Friedrich:
and very mad notions--of Friedrich's perversity, astucity, injustice, malign and dangerous intentions--are more or less vocal in the Old Newspapers and Distinguished Correspondences of those days. Of which, this one sample:
To what height the humor of the English ran against Friedrich is still curiously noticeable, in a small Transaction of tragic Ex-Jacobite nature, which then happened, and in the commentaries it awoke in their imagination. Cameron of Lochiel, who forced his way through the Nether-Bow in Edinburgh, had been a notable rebel;but got away to France, and was safe in some military post there.
Dr. Archibald Cameron, Lochiel's Brother, a studious contemplative gentleman, bred to Physic, but not practising except for charity, had quitted his books, and attended the Rebel March in a medical capacity,--"not from choice," as he alleged, "but from compulsion of kindred;"--and had been of help to various Loyalists as well;a foe of Human Pain, and not of anything else whatever: in fact, as appears, a very mild form of Jacobite Rebel. He too got, to France;but had left his Wife, Children and frugal Patrimonies behind him, --and had to return in proper concealment, more than once, to look after them. Two Visits, I think two, had been successfully transacted, at intervals; but the third, in 1753, proved otherwise.
March 12th, 1753, wind of him being had, and the slot-hounds uncoupled and put on his trail, poor Cameron was unearthed "at the Laird of Glenbucket's," and there laid hold of; locked in Edinburgh Castle,--thence to the Tower, and to Trial for High Treason.
Which went against him; in spite of his fine pleadings, and manful conciliatory appearances and manners. Executed 7th June, 1753.
His poor Wife had twice squeezed her way into the Royal Levee at Kensington, with Petition for mercy;--fainted, the first time, owing to the press and the agitation; but did, the second time, fall on her knees before Royal George, and supplicate,--who had to turn a deaf ear, royal gentleman; I hope, not without pain.
The truth is, poor Cameron---though, I believe, he had some vague Jacobite errands withal--never would have harmed anybody in the rebel way; and might with all safety have been let live. But his Grace of Newcastle, and the English generally, had got the strangest notion into their head. Those appointments of Earl Marischal to Paris, of Tyrconnel to Berlin; Friedrich's nefarious spoiling of that salutary Romish-King Project; and now simultaneous with that, his nefarious oonduct in our Privateer Business:
all this, does it not prove him--as the Hanburys, Demon Newswriters and well-informed persons have taught us--to be one of the worst men living, and a King bent upon our ruin? What is certain, though now well-nigh inconceivable, it was then, in the upper Classes and Political Circles, universally believed, That this Dr. Cameron was properly an "Emissary of the King of Prussia's;" that Cameron's errand here was to rally the Jacobite embers into new flame;--and that, at the first clear sputter, Friedrich had 15,000 men, of his best Prussian-Spartan troops, ready to ferry over, and help Jacobitism to do the matter this time! [Walpole, <italic> George the Second, <end italic> i. 333, 353; and <italic> Letters to Horace Mann <end italic> (Summer, 1753), for the belief held.
Adelung, vii. 338-341, for the poor Cameron tragedy itself.]
About as likely as that the Cham of Tartary had interfered in the "Bangorian Controversy" (raging, I believe, some time since,--in Cremorne Gardens fist of all, which was Bishop Hoadly's Place,--to the terror of mitres and wigs); or that, the Emperor of China was concerned in Meux's Porter-Brewery, with an eye to sale of NUXVOMICA. Among all the Kings that then were, or that ever were, King Friedrich distinguished himself by the grand human virtue (one of the most important for Kings and for men) of keeping well at home, --of always minding his own affairs. These were, in fact, the one thing he minded; and he did that well. He was vigilant, observant all round, for weather-symptoms; thoroughly well informed of what his neighbors had on hand; ready to interfere, generally in some judicious soft way, at any moment, if his own Countries or their interests came to be concerned; certain, till then, to continue a speculative observer merely. He had knowledge, to an extent of accuracy which often surprised his neighbors: but there is no instance in which he meddled where he had no business;--and few, I believe, in which he did not meddle, and to the purpose, when he had.
Later in his Reign, in the time of the American War (1777), there is, on the English part, in regard to Friedrich, an equally distracted notion of the same kind brought to light. Again, a conviction, namely, or moral-certainty, that Friedrich is about assisting the American Insurgents against us;--and a very strange and indubitable step is ordered to be taken in consequence.
