He Walked Around the Horses | Page 4

heard voices and turned around, to see this gentleman speaking to
Wilhelm Beick and Fritz Herzer, who were greasing their wagon in the yard. He had not
been in the yard when I had turned away to empty the bucket, and I thought that he must
have come in from the street. This gentleman was asking Beick and Herzer where was his
coach, and when they told him they didn't know, he turned and ran into the inn.
Of my own knowledge, the man had not been inside the inn before then, nor had there
been any coach, or any of the people he spoke of, at the inn, and none of the things he
spoke of happened there, for otherwise I would know, since I was at the inn all day.
When I went back inside, I found him in the common room shouting at my master, and
claiming that he had been drugged and robbed. I saw that he was mad and was afraid that
he would do some mischief, so I went for the police.
Franz Bauer his (x) mark

(Statements of Wilhelm Beick and Fritz Herzer, peasants, taken at the police station at
Perleburg, 25 November, 1809.)
May it please your honor, my name is Wilhelm Beick, and I am a tenant on the estate of
the Baron von Hentig. On this day, I and Fritz Herzer were sent into Perleburg with a
load of potatoes and cabbages which the innkeeper at the Sword & Scepter had bought
from the estate superintendent. After we had unloaded them, we decided to grease our
wagon, which was very dry, before going back, so we unhitched and began working on it.
We took about two hours, starting just after we had eaten lunch, and in all that time, there
was no coach-and-four in the inn yard. We were just finishing when this gentleman spoke
to us, demanding to know where his coach was. We told him that there had been no
coach in the yard all the time we had been there, so he turned around and ran into the inn.
At the time, I thought that he had come out of the inn before speaking to us, for I know
that he could not have come in from the street. Now I do not know where he came from,
but I know that I never saw him before that moment.
Wilhelm Beick his (x) mark
I have heard the above testimony, and it is true to my own knowledge, and I have nothing
to add to it.
Fritz Herzer his (x) mark

(From Staatspolizeikapitan Ernst Hartenstein, to His Excellency, the Baron von Krutz,
Minister of Police.)
25 November, 1809
Your Excellency:
The accompanying copies of statements taken this day will explain how the prisoner, the
self-so-called Benjamin Bathurst, came into my custody. I have charged him with causing
disorder and being a suspicious person, to hold him until more can be learned about him.
However, as he represents himself to be a British diplomat, I am unwilling to assume any
further responsibility, and am having him sent to your excellency, in Berlin.
In the first place, your excellency, I have the strongest doubts of the man's story. The
statement which he made before me, and signed, is bad enough, with a coach-and-four
turning into a farm wagon, like Cinderella's coach into a pumpkin, and three people
vanishing as though swallowed by the earth. But all this is perfectly reasonable and
credible, beside the things he said to me, of which no record was made.
Your excellency will have noticed, in his statement, certain allusions to the Austrian
surrender, and to French troops in Austria. After his statement had been taken down, I
noticed these allusions, and I inquired, what surrender, and what were French troops

doing in Austria. The man looked at me in a pitying manner, and said:
"News seems to travel slowly, hereabouts; peace was concluded at Vienna on the 14th of
last month. And as for what French troops are doing in Austria, they're doing the same
things Bonaparte's brigands are doing everywhere in Europe."
"And who is Bonaparte?" I asked.
He stared at me as though I had asked him, "Who is the Lord Jehovah?" Then, after a
moment, a look of comprehension came into his face.
"So, you Prussians concede him the title of Emperor, and refer to him as Napoleon," he
said. "Well, I can assure you that His Britannic Majesty's government haven't done so,
and never will; not so long as one Englishman has a finger left to pull a trigger. General
Bonaparte is a usurper; His Britannic Majesty's government do not recognize any
sovereignty in France except the House of Bourbon." This he said very sternly, as though
rebuking me.
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