2d. "In the year 1762, the third Silesian Campaign engaged the whole
attention of the King." [No one has ever claimed that he had any per-
sonal share in enacting the Regulations of 1762, which were in fact made
at Bordeaux in France, by nine Commissioners.] "On the 1st of May,
1786, he resided, a martyr to the gout, decrepit and weary of life, in his
castle of Sans Souci, near Potsdam, not in Berlin. Soon after the 10th of
September, 178;, he went from Berlin to Potsdam, and never returned to
Berlin : and on the 17th of April, 1761, he removed to the castle of Sans
Souci, which he never afterwards left."

3d. " It is therefore a falsehood that King Frederic the Great had con-
voked, on the 1st of May, 1786, in Ms residence at Berlin, a Grand
Council for regulating the high degrees."

Frederic was not troubled with the gout, at ail, in 1786. It had left
him in the fall of 1785. The phrase "decrepit and weary of life," involves
a falsehood, or rather two. He had the dropsy : he could not sleep, except
in a chair : he was feeble of body, could not ride without suffering great
fatigue : but his intellect was as keen, clear, and vigorous and bold as ever. He
could labor in the discharge of his kingly duties, as many hours in the twenty-
four as ever, and the work was as well done as ever. The protocol plainly
means the word " decrepit " to give the impression that he was feeble of
mind as well as body, and not in a condition to pay attention to the mak-
ing of Constitutions for the Scottish Masonry.
