It had been arranged that the Queen and Prince Albert should pay their visit to their daughter and son-in-law at Coburg at the end of September. By a most unfortunate chance there had occurred about the middle of the month one of those "incidents" which are sometimes, when mishandled by officialdom and magnified by offended national pride, allowed to exercise an influence ludicrously disproportionate to their real triviality. The Macdonald affair, as it was called, at one moment threatened to bring about a serious breach between England and Prussia, and as it was unquestionably one of the causes of the dislike and suspicion with which the Princess Royal was to be regarded by a section of the Prussians, it is worth while to record it in some detail. A Scottish gentleman, a certain Captain Macdonald, had a dispute about a seat in a railway carriage at Bonn. He knew no German, was ignorant of Prussian law, and very likely behaved, or was considered by the authorities to have behaved, in an autocratic manner. However that may be, he was not only ejected from the carriage but was committed to prison, where he remained from September 12 to 18. On the 18th he was tried and fined twenty thalers and costs. The English residents at Bonn warmly espoused his cause, and Captain Macdonald seems, apart from the original dispute, to have had reason to complain of violence used to him and also of his treatment while in prison. It was also particularly unfortunate that at the trial the Staatsprocurator, or public prosecutor, should have denounced the behaviour when abroad of English people generally. "The English residing and travelling," he said, "are notorious for the rudeness, impudence, and boorish arrogance of their conduct." This accusation, whether well founded or not, naturally seemed to English lawyers and the English public a piece of gratuitous irrelevance, intended merely to excite prejudice against Captain Macdonald. It is impossible now to apportion the blame for the way in which the incident was allowed to embitter public opinion in both countries. The affair dragged on for months--indeed, it was not finally disposed of till the following May. There were questions in Parliament, Lord Palmerston was extremely angry, and an article in the _Times_ served to pour oil on the flame. In the circumstances the incident inevitably rather dashed the joy of the happy family party at Coburg. The Queen conferred with Lord John Russell, then Foreign Secretary, whom she had brought with her, and she alludes in her journal to "the ejection and imprisonment (unfairly, it seems) of a Captain Macdonald, and the subsequent offensive behaviour of the authorities. It has led to ill blood, and much correspondence, but Lord John is very reasonable about it, and not inclined to do anything rash. These foreign governments are very arbitrary and violent, and our people apt to give offence, and to pay no regard to the laws of the country."