The elector received this letter just when Prince Christian of Misnia, generalissimo of the empire, and uncle of the Prince Frederic who was defeated at Mühlberg, and still very ill of his wounds, the high chancellor of the tribunal, Count Wrede, Count Kallheim, president of the state-chancery, and the two von Tronkas, the cup-bearer, and the chamberlain, who had both been friends of the elector from his youth, were present in the castle. The chamberlain, who, as a privy counsellor of the elector, conducted private correspondence, with the privilege of using his name and coat of arms, first opened the subject, and after explaining at great length, that on his own authority he would never have set aside the petition which the horse-dealer had presented to the tribunal against his cousin the squire, if he had not been induced by false representations to consider it a mere vexatious and useless affair,--he came to the present state of things. He observed that neither according to divine nor human laws had the horse-dealer any right to take such a monstrous revenge, as he had allowed himself on account of this oversight. He dwelled on the lustre which would fall on the impious head of Kohlhaas, if he were treated as a party lawfully at war, and the dishonour which would result to the sacred person of the elector by such a proceeding appeared to him so great, that he said, with all the fire of eloquence, that he would rather see the decree of the round-headed rebel acted on, and the squire, his cousin, carried off to feed the horses at Kohlhaasenbrück, than he would see the proposition of Dr. Martin Luther accepted. The high chancellor of the tribunal, half turning to the chamberlain, expressed his regret that such a tender anxiety, as he now showed to clear up this affair to the honour of his sovereign, had not inspired him in the first instance. He pointed out to the elector his objection against the employment of force to carry out a measure which was manifestly unjust; he alluded to the constant increase of the horse-dealer’s followers as a most important circumstance, observing that the thread of misdeeds seemed to be spinning itself out to an infinite length, and declared that only an act of absolute justice, which should immediately and without reserve make good the false step that had been taken, could rescue the elector and the government from this hateful affair.