(Report of Traugott Zeller, _Oberwachtmeister_, _Staatspolizei_,
made at Perleburg, 25 November, 1809.)
At about ten minutes past two of the afternoon of Saturday, 25
November, while I was at the police station, there entered a man
known to me as Franz Bauer, an inn servant employed by Christian
Hauck, at the sign of the Sword & Scepter, here in Perleburg.
This man Franz Bauer made complaint to _Staatspolizeikapitan_
Ernst Hartenstein, saying that there was a madman making trouble
at the inn where he, Franz Bauer, worked. I was, therefore,
directed, by _Staatspolizeikapitan_ Hartenstein, to go to the
Sword & Scepter Inn, there to act at discretion to maintain the
peace.
Arriving at the inn in company with the said Franz Bauer, I found
a considerable crowd of people in the common room, and, in the
midst of them, the innkeeper, Christian Hauck, in altercation with
a stranger. This stranger was a gentlemanly-appearing person,
dressed in traveling clothes, who had under his arm a small
leather dispatch case. As I entered, I could hear him, speaking in
German with a strong English accent, abusing the innkeeper, the
said Christian Hauck, and accusing him of having drugged his, the
stranger's, wine, and of having stolen his, the stranger's,
coach-and-four, and of having abducted his, the stranger's,
secretary and servants. This the said Christian Hauck was loudly
denying, and the other people in the inn were taking the
innkeeper's part, and mocking the stranger for a madman.
On entering, I commanded everyone to be silent, in the king's name,
and then, as he appeared to be the complaining party of the dispute,
I required the foreign gentleman to state to me what was the
trouble. He then repeated his accusations against the innkeeper,
Hauck, saying that Hauck, or, rather, another man who resembled
Hauck and who had claimed to be the innkeeper, had drugged his wine
and stolen his coach and made off with his secretary and his
servants. At this point, the innkeeper and the bystanders all began
shouting denials and contradictions, so that I had to pound on a
table with my truncheon to command silence.
I then required the innkeeper, Christian Hauck, to answer the
charges which the stranger had made; this he did with a complete
denial of all of them, saying that the stranger had had no wine
in his inn, and that he had not been inside the inn until a few
minutes before, when he had burst in shouting accusations, and
that there had been no secretary, and no valet, and no coachman,
and no coach-and-four, at the inn, and that the gentleman was
raving mad. To all this, he called the people who were in the
common room to witness.
I then required the stranger to account for himself. He said
that his name was Benjamin Bathurst, and that he was a British
diplomat, returning to England from Vienna. To prove this, he
produced from his dispatch case sundry papers. One of these was
a letter of safe-conduct, issued by the Prussian Chancellery, in
which he was named and described as Benjamin Bathurst. The other
papers were English, all bearing seals, and appearing to be
official documents.
Accordingly, I requested him to accompany me to the police station,
and also the innkeeper, and three men whom the innkeeper wanted to
bring as witnesses.
Traugott Zeller
_Oberwachtmeister_
Report approved,
Ernst Hartenstein
_Staatspolizeikapitan_
(Statement of the self-so-called Benjamin Bathurst, taken at the
police station at Perleburg, 25 November, 1809.)
My name is Benjamin Bathurst, and I am Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary of the government of His Britannic Majesty
to the court of His Majesty Franz I, Emperor of Austria, or, at
least, I was until the events following the Austrian surrender
made necessary my return to London. I left Vienna on the morning
of Monday, the 20th, to go to Hamburg to take ship home; I was
traveling in my own coach-and-four, with my secretary, Mr. Bertram
Jardine, and my valet, William Small, both British subjects, and
a coachman, Josef Bidek, an Austrian subject, whom I had hired
for the trip. Because of the presence of French troops, whom I
was anxious to avoid, I was forced to make a detour west as far
as Salzburg before turning north toward Magdeburg, where I
crossed the Elbe. I was unable to get a change of horses for my
coach after leaving Gera, until I reached Perleburg, where I
stopped at the Sword & Scepter Inn.
Arriving there, I left my coach in the inn yard, and I and my
secretary, Mr. Jardine, went into the inn. A man, not this fellow
here, but another rogue, with more beard and less paunch, and
more shabbily dressed, but as like him as though he were his
brother, represented himself as the innkeeper, and I dealt with
him for a change of horses, and ordered a bottle of wine for
myself and my secretary, and also a pot of beer apiece for my
valet and the coachman, to be taken outside to them. Then Jardine
and I sat down to our wine, at a table in the common room, until
the man who claimed to be the innkeeper came back and told us
that the fresh horses were harnessed to the coach and ready to
go. Then we went outside again.
I looked at the two horses on the off side, and then walked around
in front of the team to look at the two nigh-side horses, and as I
did I felt giddy, as though I were about to fall, and everything
went black before my eyes. I thought I was having a fainting
spell, something I am not at all subject to, and I put out my hand
to grasp the hitching bar, but could not find it. I am sure, now,
that I was unconscious for some time, because when my head
cleared, the coach and horses were gone, and in their place was a
big farm wagon, jacked up in front, with the right front wheel
off, and two peasants were greasing the detached wheel.
I looked at them for a moment, unable to credit my eyes, and
then I spoke to them in German, saying, "Where the devil's my
coach-and-four?"
They both straightened, startled: the one who was holding the wheel
almost dropped it.
"Pardon, excellency," he said, "there's been no coach-and-four here,
all the time we've been here."
"Yes," said his mate, "and we've been here since just after noon."
I did not attempt to argue with them. It occurred to me--and
it is still my opinion--that I was the victim of some plot; that
my wine had been drugged, that I had been unconscious for some
time, during which my coach had been removed and this wagon
substituted for it, and that these peasants had been put to work
on it and instructed what to say if questioned. If my arrival at
the inn had been anticipated, and everything put in readiness,
the whole business would not have taken ten minutes.
I therefore entered the inn, determined to have it out with
this rascally innkeeper, but when I returned to the common room,
he was nowhere to be seen, and this other fellow, who has given
his name as Christian Hauck, claimed to be the innkeeper and
denied knowledge of any of the things I have just stated.
Furthermore, there were four cavalrymen, Uhlans, drinking beer
and playing cards at the table where Jardine and I had had our
wine, and they claimed to have been there for several hours.
I have no idea why such an elaborate prank, involving the
participation of many people, should be played on me, except at
the instigation of the French. In that case, I cannot understand
why Prussian soldiers should lend themselves to it.