Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia" BOOK VIII.
Page: 20

sure enough, the unfortunate Schlubhut dies the thief's death, few
hours hence, speaking or thinking what, no man reports to me.
Death was certain for him; inevitable as fate. And so he vibrates
there, admonitory to the other Raths for days,--some say for
weeks,--till by humble petition they got the gallows removed.
The stumps of it, sawed close by the stones, were long after
visible in that Schlossplatz of Konigsberg. Here is prompt justice
with a witness! Did readers ever hear of such a thing? There is no
doubt about the fact, [Benekendorf (Anonymous),
Karakterzuge aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I.
(Berlin, 1788), vii. 15-20; Forster (ii. 268), &c. &c.] though in
all Prussian Books it is loosely smeared over, without the least
precision of detail; and it was not till after long searching that
I could so much as get it dated: July, 1731, while Friedrich
Crown-Prince is still in eclipse at Custrin, and some six weeks
after Wilhelmina's betrothal. And here furthermore, direct from
the then Schlubhut precincts, is a stray Note, meteorological
chiefly; but worth picking up, since it is authentic. "Wehlau," we
observe, is on the road homewards again,--on our return from
uttermost Memel,--a day's journey hitherwards of that place, half
a day's thitherwards of Konigsberg:--

"TUESDAY, 10th JULY, 1731. King dining with General Dockum at
Wehlau,"--where he had been again reviewing, for about forty
hours, all manner of regiments brought to rendezvous there for the
purpose, poor "General Katte with his regiment" among them;--King
at dinner with General Dockum after all that, "took the resolution
to be off to Konigsberg; and arrived here at the stroke of
midnight, in a deluge of rain." This brings us within a day, or
two days, of Schlubhut's death, Terrible "combat of Bisons (URI,
or AUEROCHSEN, with such manes, such heads), of two wild Bisons
against six wild Bears," then ensued; and the Schlubhut human
tragedy; I know not in what sequence,--rather conjecture the
Schlubhut had gone FIRST. Pillau, road to Dantzig, on the narrow
strip between the Frische Haf and Baltic, is the next stage