..the ingenious professor of Königsberg, who preaches atheism and revolution in such hard words that the honest Germans imagine they do not understand him. They are in a predicament something like Cromwell's gentry, who thought he was seeking the Lord, when he was only seeking a corkscrew. The professor of the royal university seeks to spread atheism and revolution and at the same time to keep his place. I believe this is the true glossary to his hard words.
--John Quincy Adams (at the time US Minister to Prussia), Letter to Rufus King, 25 May 1799
For the corkscrew see Hume's History of England.
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