ABSTRACT

Three days after the aforesaid events it happened that Grabow summoned the aforesaid twelve doomsmen to sign and seal their sentence, and nursed good hopes that the sentence of death would be fully sealed and committed to writing. But the six privates who served in the Castle sturdily opposed this, denying that they had sentenced me to death, whereat a coolness and dissension arose between the two parties, for they entirely refused either to pronounce that verdict, or to agree to it or to sign it, namely that I had forfeited my life; and by this they stood firm. Grabow declared that he would appoint six other men from the Arsenal in their place, in order to spite them, and that these should pronounce my life forfeited, if they would not. They said that that lay in his own hands, and quitted the office in high dudgeon. But when Grabow observed and noted their stubbornness, and saw that they were not to be come over, he sent a message to them, and when they returned they came to an agreement that the whole affair should be laid before the King, and that whatever he decided should stand. And thus all the Provost’s spiteful conduct and behaviour was of necessity included in the report, though Grabow long opposed it, and in this manner the judgment was compiled, signed and sent to the King at Frederiksborg, for the privates in particular would be content with nothing less than that the conduct and false charges of the Provost to the Court and the doomsmen should be all committed to writing for the King’s eyes.