However that may be, Paikel, after his condemnation, proposed to the
Senate to disclose to the King in exchange for a pardon the secret of
the manufacture of gold; he made the experiment in prison, in the
presence of Colonel Hamilton and the magistrates of the town; and
whether he had really discovered some useful art, or whether he had
learned the art of cunning deception, as seems most probable, certain
it is that they carried the gold which was found at the bottom of the
crucible to the mint at Stockholm, and made such a circumstantial
report to the Senate that the Queen, Charles’s grandmother, ordered
that the execution should be suspended till the King had been informed
of this curious fact, and should send his orders from Stockholm.
The King answered that he had refused to pardon a criminal for the
entreaties of his friends, and that he would never do for the sake
of profit what he could not do for friendship. There was something
heroic in this inflexibility on the part of a prince who, it must be
remembered, thought the secret possible. When King Augustus heard of
the incident he remarked that he was not surprised that the King of
Sweden was so indifferent about the philosopher’s stone, as he had
found it in Saxony.
When the Czar heard of the strange peace that Augustus, in spite of
their treaties, had concluded at Altranstadt, and that Patkul, his
ambassador and plenipotentiary, had been handed over to the King of
Sweden, in defiance of international law, he advertised his complaints
in all the Courts of Europe. He wrote to the Emperor of Germany, to the
Queen of England, and to the States-General of the United Provinces.
He said that the unfortunate necessity to which Augustus had yielded
were merely cowardice and treachery. He called upon all these Powers
to mediate that his ambassador might be sent back, and to resist the
affront which, through him, was offered to all crowned heads; he
appealed to their honour not to stoop so low as to guarantee the Peace
of Altranstadt, which Charles was urging upon them by threats. The only
effect of these letters was to make the power of the King of Sweden
more obvious. The Emperor, England and Holland, were then carrying
on a destructive war against France; they thought it inexpedient to
exasperate Charles by refusing him the vain form of guaranteeing a
treaty. As for the wretched Patkul, not one Power mediated for him,
which proves both the danger of a subject’s reliance on a prince, and
also the great prestige of Charles.
A proposal was made in the Czar’s Council to retaliate on the Swedish
officers who were prisoners at Moscow. The Czar would not consent to
a barbarity which would have had such fatal results; there were more
Russians prisoners in Sweden than Swedes in Russia.