"They gave her (Caroline Matilda) the title of Countess of Aalborg, and condemned her to be shut up in the castle of that name. The King of England had certainly known her story two years before. A clerk in the secretary's office having opened a letter that came with the account, told me that he had seen it before the secretaries gave it to the king. It was now believed that this intelligence had occasioned the Princess of Wales to make her extraordinary journey to Germany, where she saw her daughter, though to no purpose. Princess Amelia told Lord Hertford, on the 26th, that when the King of Denmark was in England, observing how coldly he spoke of his wife, she asked him why he did not like her. He answered, 'Mais elle est si blonde!' The princess added, that Queen Matilda had a very high spirit, and that she believed the Danes would consent to let her go to Hanover. 'But she will not be let go thither,' added the princess, meaning that the queen's brother, Prince Charles of Mecklenburg, commanded there, 'or to Zell, but she will not go thither (another of the queen's brothers was there); perhaps she _may_ go to Lüneburg."[37] It is very probable, too, that the temper of the British nation, which had undergone a complete revulsion on the announcement of the fleet sailing, had something to do with its suspension. At any rate, we read in the _General Evening Post_ for April 30, the following painful account:-- "Nothing, surely, is a greater impeachment of our laws, and more, of our lawgivers and magistrates, than the unrestrained licentiousness daily exhibited by the common people in this metropolis. Yesterday, in some parts of the city, men were crying about printed papers containing the most scandalous, ruinous, and impudent reflections on the Queen of Denmark. The worst prostitute that ever Covent Garden produced could not have had more gross abuse bestowed on her." But Sir R. M. Keith had been working hard in the meanwhile, and on the receipt of his letters of recall and news of the menaces of England in equipping a fleet, the regency gave in at once, promised to repay the queen's dowry, allow her five thousand a-year, and let her go to Hanover, beyond Jordan, anywhere, so long as they could only be rid of her. In reply to the despatch in which Sir R. M. Keith announced his success, he received the following official letter:-- LORD SUFFOLK TO SIR R. M. KEITH. _St. James's, May_ 1, 1772. SIR, Your despatches by King the messenger have been already acknowledged; those by Pearson were received on Wednesday afternoon, and I now answer both together.