5 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
troo