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his own safety’s sake not to say a word about the matter.
In Dresden they divided the booty, dressed themselves in
Sinclair’s clothes, and disappeared, whilst Couturier was
examined by the Russian ambassador, and allowed to
continue his journey after having been paid 500 Ducats.
For five days the murder remained undiscovered. At last
a clergyman of the small neighbouring town of Naumburg
in Silesia found the corpse, already much decomposed,
lying on its face with arm outstretched. A bullet had •
pierced the body, and there was a sword-cut on the head.
Excepting a gold ring on his finger and a snuff-box,
everything else had been taken from the dead man. These relics,
as well as a broken sword-blade and the officer’s dress, were
preserved in the Castle of Naumburg, whilst the body
itself was conveyed to Stralsund, where it was buried at the
expense of the Swedish King in the Church of St Nicolas.
The news of the murder caused an unprecedented
commotion in Stockholm, and in fact all over the world.
Letters from the Swedish Government were at once
despatched to St Petersburg and Vienna. The Russian
ambassador at Stockholm, Bestucheff, solemnly protested
his sovereign’s innocence and ignorance of the whole
matter; but he was not believed, the less so since it
turned out that a tradesman painter had by his order
painted a portrait of Sinclair, which, he was made to
believe, was a present for a very handsome young lady.
Towards the end of 1739 the opened letters and
documents of Sinclair, the murdered man, carefully wrapped
in waxcloth, reached the Swedish post-office at Hamburg.
The parcel bore the address, “ An das Schwedische
Postamt, Hamburg,” but no trace of the place it came from,
or of the person who delivered it, could be discovered.1
1 Omständelig Berättelse om thet pä Majoren Malkolm Sinclair then 17
Junii Jir 1739 Jorofvade grymme mord ( 1741), i.e. ** Accurate Account
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