My brother returned to London in November, to defend his cause in the Court of King’s Bench; but the swindlers had disappeared, and the lawyer required a hundred pounds to proceed. The conclusion was that my brother returned with seventy pounds less in his pocket, spent as travelling expenses, and the stock in the hands of my wine-merchants was detained on pretence of paying the bail. They brought me an apothecary’s bill, and all was lost.
The Swedish General Sprengporten came to Aix-la-Chapelle in 1776. He had planned and carried into execution the revolution so favourable to the King, but had left Sweden in discontent, and came to take the waters with a rooted hypochondria.
He was the most dangerous man in Sweden, and had told the King himself, after the revolution, in the presence of his guards, “While Sprengporten can hold a sword, the King has nothing to command.”
It was feared he would go to Russia, and Prince Charles wrote to me in the name of the monarch, desiring I would exert myself to persuade him to return to Sweden. He was a man of pride, which rendered him either a fool or a madman. He despised everything that was not Swedish.
The Prussian Minister, Count Hertzberg, the same year came to Aix-la-Chapelle. I enjoyed his society for three months, and accompanied this great man. To his liberality am I indebted that I can return to my country with honour.
The time I had to spare was not spent in idleness; I attacked, in my weekly writings, those sharpers who attend at Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa to plunder both inhabitants and visitants, under the connivance of the magistracy; nor are there wanting foreign noblemen who become the associates of these pests of society. The publication of such truths endangered my life from the desperadoes, who, when detected, had nothing more to lose. How powerful is an innocent life, nothing can more fully prove than that I still exist, in despite of all the attempts of wicked monks and despicable sharpers.
Though my life was much disturbed, yet I do not repent of my manner of acting; many a youth, many a brave man, have I detained from the gaming-table, and pointed out to them the most notorious sharpers.
This was so injurious to Spa, that the Bishop of Liége himself, who enjoys a tax on all their winnings, and therefore protects such villains, offered me an annual pension of five hundred guineas if I would not come to Spa; or three per cent. on the winnings, would I but associate myself with Colonel N---t, and raise recruits for the gaming-table. My answer may easily be imagined; yet for this was I threatened to be excommunicated by the Holy Catholic Church!
I and my family passed sixteen summers in Spa. My house became the rendezvous of the most respectable part of the company, and I was known to some of the most respectable characters in Europe.
A contest arose between the town of Aix-la-Chapelle and Baron Blankart, the master of the hounds to the Elector Palatine: it originated in a dispute concerning precedence between the before-mentioned wife of the Recorder Geyer and the sister of the Burgomaster of Aix-la-Chapelle, Kahr, who governed that town with despotism.