Keith soon found that nothing remained for him but to play the waiting game at the court of Denmark. He was subjected to a form of boycott, and both at court and the foreign office he was kept at arm's length. "At the court," he writes, "where everything is carried on with an affection of mystery, where the Sovereign and the Prime Minister are equally inaccessible, a foreign envoy is obliged to watch ... the slightest indications to form a judgment of the system of politics likely to be adopted."[173] And again he writes to his father privately: "An intercourse of an hour for once a week with the court, a formal supper once a fortnight with the fashionable people--make the whole of my public appearances. And what may form a sure prognostic of the future society, I can safely assure you that in a residence of two months I have not been admitted to any one visit that I have made to man or woman, Dane or _diplomatique_."[174] [173] Keith's despatch, Copenhagen, August 31, 1771. [174] _Memoirs of Sir Robert Murray Keith_, vol. i. In October he writes again to his father: "I am sorry to say that the climate, society and politics of this kingdom are equally uncomfortable.... The little of summer I saw was sultry and languid, August and almost all September rotten and rainy, and the few clear days we have had lately too chilly to be abroad with pleasure. Five months of a dismal and variable winter are now awaiting us, with as little defence against the cold, both of body and spirit, as can well be imagined. After looking round me with an anxious yet a benevolent eye for anything that may be called 'society,' or even a single friend, male or female, I am forced to own to myself that there is not any hope of succeeding."[175] [175] _Memoirs of Sir Robert Murray Keith_, vol. i.