At this time the city of Altona, only half a mile from Hamburg, was crowded with the adherents and partisans of the queen, many of them being of the first families in Denmark. Hamburg offered more amusements than Altona, and they were therefore constantly to be found in the houses of the opulent citizens. Baron von Bülow, master of the horse to the Queen of Denmark, who was arrested at the time of the palace revolution, and eventually exiled to Altona, was among the number. They had already conceived the plan of effecting a counter revolution, and of restoring Queen Matilda, an enterprise to which they were urged by many motives. The new ministry in Denmark was already growing unpopular from its weakness, languor, and incapacity. It was understood that the king ardently desired the return of his consort. The engaging qualities, fortitude, and talents of that princess, rendered more interesting by adversity, had awakened the attachment of the Danes. A numerous and powerful party in the capital and throughout the nation anxiously desired her restoration. It was indispensable, in the first instance, previous to any attempt on the part of the exiled nobility, to ascertain with precision the sentiments of the queen herself. It was important for them to know whether she was willing to return to Copenhagen to resume the sovereign authority, which the king was incapable of exercising, and to co-operate with her friends toward her re-establishment. But the attempt to open any communication with the queen was equally dangerous and difficult. Though Celle was only eighty English miles distant from Hamburg and Altona, still, as the northern bank of the Elbe was in, or close to the Danish territory, the journey to and from Celle was extremely perilous. The latter court, as well as Altona, was full of spies and emissaries, maintained by the party possessing the authority at Copenhagen. Such were their suspicions, and so great was their vigilance, that no person could have passed and re-passed between those places without being watched. These impediments had hitherto prevented the queen's adherents from venturing to send any of their own body to lay their projects before her Majesty; nor did they appear to have found any other person to whom they could confide the execution of so momentous a commission. They were still under this embarrassment when chance threw Mr. Wraxall in their way.