Honored Sir:
The accompanying dossier will acquaint you with the problem
confronting this Chancellery, without needless repetition on my
part. Please to understand that it is not, and never was, any
part of the intentions of the government of His Majesty Friedrich
Wilhelm III to offer any injury or indignity to the government of
His Britannic Majesty George III. We would never contemplate
holding in arrest the person, or tampering with the papers, of an
accredited envoy of your government. However, we have the gravest
doubt, to make a considerable understatement, that this person
who calls himself Benjamin Bathurst is any such envoy, and we do
not think that it would be any service to the government of His
Britannic Majesty to allow an impostor to travel about Europe in
the guise of a British diplomatic representative. We certainly
should not thank the government of His Britannic Majesty for
failing to take steps to deal with some person who, in England,
might falsely represent himself to be a Prussian diplomat.
This affair touches us as closely as it does your own government;
this man had in his possession a letter of safe-conduct, which
you will find in the accompanying dispatch case. It is of the
regular form, as issued by this Chancellery, and is sealed with
the Chancellery seal, or with a very exact counterfeit of it.
However, it has been signed, as Chancellor of Prussia, with a
signature indistinguishable from that of the Baron Stein, who is
the present Prussian Minister of Agriculture. Baron Stein was
shown the signature, with the rest of the letter covered, and
without hesitation acknowledged it for his own writing. However,
when the letter was uncovered and shown to him, his surprise and
horror were such as would require the pen of a Goethe or a
Schiller to describe, and he denied categorically ever having
seen the document before.
I have no choice but to believe him. It is impossible to think
that a man of Baron Stein's honorable and serious character would
be party to the fabrication of a paper of this sort. Even aside
from this, I am in the thing as deeply as he; if it is signed
with his signature, it is also sealed with my seal, which has not
been out of my personal keeping in the ten years that I have been
Chancellor here. In fact, the word "impossible" can be used to
describe the entire business. It was impossible for the man
Benjamin Bathurst to have entered the inn yard--yet he did. It
was impossible that he should carry papers of the sort found in
his dispatch case, or that such papers should exist--yet I am
sending them to you with this letter. It is impossible that Baron
von Stein should sign a paper of the sort he did, or that it
should be sealed by the Chancellery--yet it bears both Stein's
signature and my seal.
You will also find in the dispatch case other credentials,
ostensibly originating with the British Foreign Office, of the
same character, being signed by persons having no connection with
the Foreign Office, or even with the government, but being sealed
with apparently authentic seals. If you send these papers to
London, I fancy you will find that they will there create the same
situation as that caused here by this letter of safe-conduct.
I am also sending you a charcoal sketch of the person who calls
himself Benjamin Bathurst. This portrait was taken without its
subject's knowledge. Baron von Krutz's nephew, Lieutenant von
Tarlburg, who is the son of our mutual friend Count von Tarlburg,
has a little friend, a very clever young lady who is, as you will
see, an expert at this sort of work: she was introduced into a
room at the Ministry of Police and placed behind a screen, where
she could sketch our prisoner's face. If you should send this
picture to London, I think that there is a good chance that it
might be recognized. I can vouch that it is an excellent likeness.
To tell the truth, we are at our wits' end about this affair.
I cannot understand how such excellent imitations of these
various seals could be made, and the signature of the Baron von
Stein is the most expert forgery that I have ever seen, in thirty
years' experience as a statesman. This would indicate careful and
painstaking work on the part of somebody; how, then, do we
reconcile this with such clumsy mistakes, recognizable as such by
any schoolboy, as signing the name of Baron Stein as Prussian
Chancellor, or Mr. George Canning, who is a member of the
opposition party and not connected with your government, as
British Foreign secretary.
[Illustration: 25 NOVEMBER 1808]
These are mistakes which only a madman would make. There are those
who think our prisoner is mad, because of his apparent delusions
about the great conqueror, General Bonaparte, alias the Emperor
Napoleon. Madmen have been known to fabricate evidence to support
their delusions, it is true, but I shudder to think of a madman
having at his disposal the resources to manufacture the papers you
will find in this dispatch case. Moreover, some of our foremost
medical men, who have specialized in the disorders of the mind,
have interviewed this man Bathurst and say that, save for his
fixed belief in a nonexistent situation, he is perfectly sane.
Personally, I believe that the whole thing is a gigantic hoax,
perpetrated for some hidden and sinister purpose, possibly to
create confusion, and to undermine the confidence existing
between your government and mine, and to set against one another
various persons connected with both governments, or else as a
mask for some other conspiratorial activity. Only a few months
ago, you will recall, there was a Jacobin plot unmasked at Köln.
But, whatever this business may portend, I do not like it. I
want to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible, and I will
thank you, my dear sir, and your government, for any assistance
you may find possible.