Alfred was perfectly convinced, both from the cordial hatred with which the commissioner now spoke of his son-in-law, and from Mr. Falconer’s disposition, that he had nothing to do with the cruel measures which Sir Robert had taken against his father. Commissioner Falconer was not a malevolent, but a weak man--incapable of being a disinterested friend--equally incapable of becoming a malicious enemy. The commissioner now proceeded to his own affairs, and to the business of his visit. He said that he had been disappointed in all his hopes from the Greenwich party--that when _that sad business of Mrs. Falconer’s came out_, they had seized this as a pretence for _dropping_ him altogether--that when they had, by Lord Oldborough’s retreat from office, obtained every thing they wanted, and had no more occasion for assistance or information, they had shamefully forgotten, or disowned, all their former promises to Cunningham. They had refused to accredit him at the court of Denmark, refused even to defray the expenses of his journey thither, which, in the style he had thought it necessary for an ambassador to travel in, had been considerable. Upon the hopes held out, he had taken a splendid house in Copenhagen, and had every day, for some weeks, been in expectation of the arrival of his credentials. When it was publicly known that another ambassador was appointed, Cunningham’s creditors became clamorous; he contrived to escape from Copenhagen in the night, and was proceeding _incog._ in his journey homewards, when he was stopped at one of the small frontier towns, and was there actually detained in prison for his debts. The poor commissioner produced his son’s letter, giving an account of his detention, and stating that, unless the money he had raised in Copenhagen was paid, there was no hope of his being liberated--he must perish in a foreign jail.