Daniel Hailes

During his mission in Warsaw, he followed a policy of Anglo-Prussian understanding at Loo in 1788, seeking to form the Polish Republic, Turkey and Sweden into an alliance against Russia and Austria and backing the reforms of the Great Sejm and the idea of giving Danzig to Prussia.

One of these foreigners described as a tall gentleman with a jacket and monocle who said in a broken but triumphant voice "Had the stupid Danish government spent only half the amount that is lost here tonight in sending a fleet against France, it could have won the war in three years, benefited its own and Europe's cause and still covered its losses".

This result showed the Danish government's inability to control the press and thus further angered Hailes, who refused to meet the Danish foreign minister Andreas Peter Bernstorff for seven weeks after the trial[3] - a serious problem, since Anglo-Danish relations were at this time strained to breaking point due to Denmark's neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars.

Bernstorff was at this time negotiating the release or ransom of several Danish ships seized by Britain on accusations of carrying contraband (Denmark had continued to trade with both Britain and France during the wars), but after the trial Hailes protested that "as long as the English government emissary is being insulted in Copenhagen, no one in London can think of releasing the Danish ships".

[4] That sentiment was probably instrumental in the poet Heiberg being fined 300 rigsdaler later in 1794 for insulting King George III in his play Vor klub er dog en herlig sag (Our club is a wonderful case)[5]