Saxony about these kidnapping operations: and always in the Diets,
when question rose of this matter, August had been particularly
loud in his denouncings. Which was unkind, though not unexpected.
But now, in the Spring of 1727, here has a worse case than
any arisen.

Captain Natzmer, of I know not what Prussian Regiment,
"Sachsen-Weimar Cuirassiers" [ Militair-Lexikon, italic> iii. 104.] or another, had dropt over into Saxony, to see
what could be done in picking up a tall man or two. Tall men, one
or two, Captain Natzmer did pick up, nay a tall deserter or two
(Saxon soldier, inveigled to desert); but finding his operations
get air, he hastily withdrew into Brandenburg territory again.
Saxon Officials followed him into Brandenburg territory; snapt
him back into Saxon; tried him by Saxon law there;--Saxon law,
express in such case, condemns him to be hanged; and that is his doom accordingly.

"Captain Natzmer to swing on the gallows? Taken on Brandenburg
territory too, and not the least notice given me?" Friedrich
Wilhelm blazes into flaming whirlwind; sends an Official
Gentleman, one Katsch, to his Excellenz Baron von Suhm (the
Crown-Prince's cultivated friend), with this appalling message:
"If Natzmer be hanged, for certain I will use reprisals;
you yourself shall swing!" Whereupon Suhm, in panic, fled over the
marches to his Master; who bullied him for his pusillanimous
terrors; and applied to Friedrich Wilhelm, in fine frenzy of
indignant astonishment, "What, in Heaven's name, such meditated
outrage on the law of nations, and flat insult to the Majesty of
Kings, can have meant?" Friedrich Wilhelm, the first fury being
spent, sees that he is quite out of square; disavows the reprisals