On reaching the confines of the Electorate, the members of the deputation from England were received by personages of the highest official rank, who not only escorted them to the capital, but treated them on the way with a liberality so profuse as to be the wonder of all beholders. They were not allowed to disburse a farthing from their own purses; all they thought fit to order was paid for by the Electoral government, by whose orders they were lodged in the most commodious palace in Hanover, where as much homage was paid them as if each man had been a Kaiser in his own person. The Hanoverian gratitude went so far, that not only were the ambassador and suite treated as favoured guests, and those not alone of the princess but of the people--the latter being commanded to refrain from taking payment from any of them for any article of refreshment they required--but for many days all English travellers visiting the city were made equally free of its caravansaries, and were permitted to enjoy all that the inns could afford without being required to pay for the enjoyment. The delicate treatment of the Electoral government extended even to the servants of the earl and his suite. It was thought that to require them to dine upon the fragments of their master’s banquets would be derogatory to the splendour of the hospitality of the House of Hanover and an insult to the domestics who followed in the train of the earl. The government accordingly disbursed half-a-crown a day to each liveried follower, and considered such a ‘composition’ as glorious to the reputation of the Electoral house. The menials were even emancipated from service during the sojourn of the deputation in Hanover, and the Elector’s numerous servants waited upon the English visitors zealously throughout the day, but with most splendour in the morning; then, they were to be seen hurrying to the bed-rooms of the different members of the suite, bearing with them silver coffee and tea pots, and other requisites for breakfast, which meal appears to have been lazily indulged in--as if the legation had been habitually wont to ‘make a night of it’--in bed. And there _was_ a good deal of hard drinking on these occasions, but all at the expense of the husband of Sophia Dorothea, who, in her castle of Ahlden, was not even aware of that increase of honour which had fallen upon her consort, and in which she had a right to share.