ced
him of Friedrich's inhumanity, in a crying case.

"Belleisle is lugged on to Hanover; his case not doubtful to
Munchhausen, or the English Ministry,--though it raised great argument,
(was the capture fair, was it unfair? Is he entitled to exchange by
cartel, or not entitled?' and produced, in the next eight months, much
angry animated pamphleteering and negotiation. For we hear by and by,
he is to be forwarded to Stade, on the Hamburg sea-coast, where English
Seventy-fours are waiting for him; his case still undecided;--and,
in effect, it was not till after eight months that he got dismissal.
'Lodged handsomely in Windsor Palace,' in the interim; free on his
parole, people of rank very civil to him, though the Gazetteers were
sometimes ill-tongued,--had he understood their PATOIS, or concerned
himself about such things

["TUESDAY, 18th FEBRUARY [1st March, 1745], Marshal Belleisle landed at
Harwich; lay at Greenwich Palace, having crossed Thames at the Isle of
Dogs: next morning, about 10, set out, in a coach-and-six, Colonel
Douglas and two troops of horse escorting; arrived 3 P.M.,--by
Camberwell, Clapham, Wandsworth, over Kingston and Staines Bridges,--at
Windsor Castle, and the apartments ready for him." (_Gentleman's
Magazine,_ 1745, p 107.) Was let go 13th (24th) August, again with great
pomp and civilities (ib. p. 442). See Adelung, iv. 299, 346; v. 83, 84.]

"It was a current notion among contemporary mankind, this of Friedrich,
that Belleisle's capture might be a mere collusion, meant to bring about
a Peace in that Tallard fashion,--wide of the truth as such a notion
is, far as any Peace was from following. To Britannic George and his
Hanoverians it had merely seemed, Here was a chief War-Captain and
Diplomatist among the French; the pivot of all these world-wide
movements, as Valori defines him; which pivot, a chance offering, it
were well to twitch from its socket, and see what would follow. Perhaps
nothing will follow; next to nothing? A world, all waltzing in mad war,
is not to be stopped by acting on any pivot; your waltzing world will
find new pivots, or do without any, and perhaps only waltz the more
madly for wanting the principal one."

This withdrawal of Belleisle, the one Frenchman respected by Friedrich,
or much interested for his own sake in things German, is reckoned a main
cause why the French Alliance turned out so ill for Friedrich; and why
French effort took more and more a Netherlands