My last undertaking had employed me more than twelve months, and so weakened me that I appeared little better than a skeleton. Notwithstanding the greatness of my spirit, I should have sunk into despondency, at seeing an end like this to all my labours, had I not still cherished a secret hope of escaping, founded on the friends I had gained among the officers.

I soon felt the effects of the loss of my bed, and was a second time attacked by a violent fever, which would this time certainly have consumed me had not the officers, unknown to the governor, treated me with all possible compassion. Bruckhausen alone continued my enemy, and the slave of his orders; on his day of examination rules and commands in all their rigour were observed, nor durst I free myself from my irons, till I had for some weeks remarked those parts on which he invariably fixed his attention. I then cut through the link, and closed up the vacancy with bread. My hands I could always draw out, especially after illness had consumed the flesh off my bones. Half a year had elapsed before I had recovered sufficient strength to undertake, anew, labours like the past.

Necessity at length taught me the means of driving Bruckhausen from my dungeon, and of inducing him to commit his office to another. I learnt his olfactory nerves were somewhat delicate, and whenever I heard the doors unbar, I took care to make a stir in my night-table. This made him give back, and at length he would come no farther than the door. Such are the hard expedients of a poor unhappy prisoner!

One day he came, bloated with pride, just after a courier had brought the news of victory, and spoke of the Austrians, and the august person of the Empress-Queen with so much virulence, that, at last, enraged almost to madness, I snatched the sword of an officer from its sheath, and should certainly have ended him, had he not made a hasty retreat. From that day forward he durst no more come without guards to examine the dungeon. Two men always preceded him, with their bayonets fixed, and their pieces presented, behind whom he stood at the door. This was another fortunate incident, as I dreaded only his examination.

The following anecdote will afford a specimen of this man’s understanding. While digging in the earth I found a cannon-ball, and laid it in the middle of my prison. When he came to examine—“What in the name of God is that?” said he. “It is a part of the ammunition,” answered I, “that my Familiar brings me. The cannon will be here anon, and you will then see fine sport!” He was astonished, told this to others, nor could conceive such a ball might by any natural means enter my prison.

I wrote a satire on him, when the late Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel was governor of Magdeburg; and I had permission to write as will hereafter appear: the Landgrave gave it to him to read himself; and so gross was his conception, that though his own phraseology was introduced, part of his history and his character painted, yet he did not perceive the jest, but laughed heartily with the hearers. The Landgrave was highly diverted, and after I obtained my freedom, restored me the manuscript written in my own blood.

About the time that my last attempt at escaping failed, General Krusemarck came to my prison, whom I had formerly lived with in habits of intimacy, when cornet of the body guard. Without testifying friendship, esteem, or compassion, he asked, among other things, in an authoritative tone, how I could employ my time to prevent tediousness? I answered in as haughty a mood as he interrogated: for never could misfortune bend my mind. I told him, “I always could find sources of entertainment in my own thoughts; and that, as for my dreams, I imagined they would at least be as peaceful and pleasant as those of my oppressors.” “Had you in time,” replied he, “curbed this fervour of yours, had you asked pardon of the King, perhaps you would have been in very different circumstances; but he who has committed an offence in which he obstinately persists, endeavouring only to obtain freedom by seducing men from their duty, deserves no better fate.”

Justly was my anger roused! “Sir,” answered I, “you are a general of the King of Prussia, I am an Austrian captain. My royal mistress will protect, perhaps deliver me, or, at least, revenge my death; I have a conscience void of reproach. You, yourself, well know I have not deserved these chains. I place my hope in time, and the justness of my cause, calumniated and condemned, as I have been, without legal sentence or hearing. In such a situation, the philosopher will always be able to brave and despise the tyrant.”

He departed with threats, and his last words were, “The bird shall soon be taught to sing another tune.” The effects of this courteous visit were soon felt. An order came that I should be prevented sleeping, and that the sentinels should call, and wake me every quarter of an hour; which dreadful order was immediately executed.

This was indeed a punishment intolerable to nature! Yet did custom at length teach me to answer in my sleep. Four years did this unheard of cruelty continue! The noble Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel at length put an end to it a year before I was released from my dungeon, and once again, in mercy, suffered me to sleep in peace.

Under this new affliction, I wrote an Elegy which may be found in the second volume of my works, a few lines of which I shall cite.

Wake me, ye guards, for hark, the quarter strikes!
Sport with my woes, laugh loud at my miseries
Hearken if you hear my chains clank! Knock! Beat!
Of an inexorable tyrant be ye
Th’ inexorable instruments! Wake me, ye slaves;
Ye do but as you’re bade. Soon shall he lie
Sleepless, or dreaming, the spectres of conscience
Behold and shriek, who me deprives of rest.

Wake me: Again the quarter strikes! Call loud
Rip up all my bleeding wounds, and shrink not!
Yet think ’tis I that answer, God that hears!
To every wretch in chains sleep is permitted:
I, I alone, am robb’d of this last refuge
Of sinking nature! Hark! Again they thunder!
Again they iterate yells of Trenck and death.

Peace to thy anger, peace, thou suffering heart!
Nor indignant beat, adding tenfold pangs to pain.

Ye burthened limbs, arise from momentary
Slumbers! Shake your chains! Murmur not, but rise!
And ye! Watch-dogs of Power! let loose your rage:
Fear not, for I am helpless, unprotected.
And yet, not so—The noble mind, within
Itself, resources finds innumerable.

Thou, Oh God, thought’st good me t’ imprison thus:
Thou, Oh God, in Thy good time, wilt me deliver.

Wake me then, nor fear! My soul slumbers not.
And who can say but those who fetter me,
May, ere to-morrow, groan themselves in fetters!
Wake me! For lo! their sleep’s less sweet than mine.

Call! Call! From night to morn, from twilight to dawn,
Incessant! Yea, in God’s name, Call! Call! Call!
Amen! Amen! Thy will, Oh God, be done!
Yet surely Thou at length shalt hear my sighs!
Shalt burst my prison doors! Shalt shew me fair
Creation! Yea, the very heav’n of heav’ns!

With whom these orders originated, unexampled in the history even of tyranny, I shall not venture to say. The major, who was my friend, advised me to persist in not answering. I followed his advice; and it produced this good effect that we mutually forced each other to a capitulation: they restored me my bed, and I was obliged to reply.

Immediately after this regulation, the sub-governor, General Borck, my bitter enemy, became insane, was dispossessed of his post, and Lieutenant-General Reichmann, the benevolent friend of humanity, was made sub-governor.

About the same time the Court fled from Berlin, and the Queen, the Prince of Prussia, the Princess Amelia, and the Margrave Henry, chose Magdeburg for their residence. Bruckhausen grew more polite, probably perceiving I was not wholly deserted, and that it was yet possible I might obtain my freedom. The cruel are usually cowards, and there is reason to suppose Bruckhausen was actuated by his fears to treat me with greater respect.

The worthy new governor had not indeed the power to lighten my chains, or alter the general regulations; what he could, he did. If he did not command, he connived at the doors being occasionally at first, and at length, daily, kept open some hours, to admit daylight and fresh air. After a time, they were open the whole day, and only closed by the officers when they returned from their visit to Walrabe.

Having light, I began to carve, with a nail, on the pewter cup in which I drank, satirical verses and various figures, and attained so much perfection that my cups, at last, were considered as master-pieces, both of engraving and invention, and were sold dear, as rare curiosities. My first attempts were rude, as may well be imagined. My cup was carried to town, and shown to visitors by the governor, who sent me another. I improved, and each of the inspecting officers wished to possess one. I grew more expert, and spent a whole year in this employment, which thus passed swiftly away. The perfection I had now acquired obtained me the permission of candle-light, and this continued till I was restored to freedom.

The King gave orders these cups should all be inspected by government, because I wished, by my verses and devices, to inform the world of my fate. But this command was not obeyed; the officers made merchandise of my cups, and sold them at last for twelve ducats each. Their value increased so much, when I was released from prison, that they are now to be found in various museums throughout Europe. Twelve years ago the late Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel presented one of them to my wife; and another came, in a very unaccountable manner, from the Queen-Dowager of Prussia to Paris. I have given prints of both these, with the verses they contained, in my works; whence it may be seen how artificially they were engraved.

A third fell into the hands of Prince Augustus Lobkowitz, then a prisoner of war at Magdeburg, who, on his return to Vienna, presented it to the Emperor, who placed it in his museum. Among other devices on this cup, was a landscape, representing a vineyard and husbandmen, and under it the following words:—By my labours my vineyard flourished, and I hoped to have gathered the fruit; but Ahab came. Alas! for Naboth.

The allusion was so pointed, both to the wrongs done me in Vienna, and my sufferings in Prussia, that it made a very strong impression on the Empress-Queen, who immediately commanded her minister to make every exertion for my deliverance. She would probably at last have even restored me to my estates, had not the possessors of them been so powerful, or had she herself lived one year longer. To these my engraved cups was I indebted for being once more remembered at Vienna. On the same cup, also, was another engraving of a bird in a cage, held by a Turk, with the following inscription:—The bird sings even in the storm; open his cage, break his fetters, ye friends of virtue, and his songs shall be the delight of your abodes!

There is another remarkable circumstance attending these cups. All were forbidden under pain of death to hold conversation with me, or to supply me with pen and ink; yet by this open permission of writing what I pleased on pewter, was I enabled to inform the world of all I wished, and to prove a man of merit was oppressed. The difficulties of this engraving will be conceived, when it is remembered that I worked by candle-light on shining pewter, attained the art of giving light and shade, and by practice could divide a cup into two-and-thirty compartments as regularly with a stroke of the hand as with a pair of compasses. The writing was so minute that it could only be read with glasses. I could use but one hand, both, being separated by the bar, and therefore held the cup between my knees. My sole instrument was a sharpened nail, yet did I write two lines on the rim only.

My labour became so excessive, that I was in danger of distraction or blindness. Everybody wished for cups, and I wished to oblige everybody, so that I worked eighteen hours a day. The reflection of the light from the pewter was injurious to my eyes, and the labour of invention for apposite subjects and verses was most fatiguing. I had learnt only architectural drawing.

Enough of these cups, which procured me so much honour, so many advantages, and helped to shorten so many mournful hours. My greatest encumbrance was the huge iron collar, with its enormous appendages, which, when suffered to press the arteries in the back of my neck, occasioned intolerable headaches. I sat too much, and a third time fell sick. A Brunswick sausage, secretly given me by a friend, occasioned an indigestion, which endangered my life; a putrid fever followed, and my body was reduced to a skeleton. Medicines, however, were conveyed to me by the officers, and, now and then, warm food.

After my recovery, I again thought it necessary to endeavour to regain my liberty. I had but forty louis-d’ors remaining, and these I could not get till I had first broken up the flooring.

Lieutenant Sonntag was consumptive, and obtained his discharge. I supplied bins with money to defray the expenses of his journey, and with an order that four hundred florins should be annually paid him from my effects till his death or my release. I commissioned him to seek an audience from the Empress, endeavour to excite her compassion in my behalf, and to remit me four thousand florins, for which I gave a proper acquittance, by the way of Hamburgh. The money-draft was addressed to my administrators, Counsellors Kempf and Huttner.

But no one, alas! in Vienna, wished my return; they had already begun to share my property, of which they never rendered me an account. Poor Sonntag was arrested as a spy, imprisoned, ill treated for some weeks, and, at last, when naked and destitute, received a hundred florins, and was escorted beyond the Austrian confines. The worthy man fell a shameful sacrifice to his honesty, could never obtain an audience of the Empress, and returned poor and miserable on foot to Berlin, where he was twelve months secretly maintained by his brother, and with whom he died. He wrote an account of all this to the good Knoblauch, my Hamburgh agent, and I, from my small store, sent him a hundred ducats.

How much must I despair of finding any place of refuge on earth, hearing accounts like these from Vienna.

A friend, whom I will never name, by the aid of one of the lieutenants, secretly visited me, and supplied me with six hundred ducats. The same friend, in the year 1763, paid four thousand florins to the imperial envoy, Baron Reidt, at Berlin, for the furthering of my freedom, as I shall presently more fully show. Thus I had once more money.

About this time the French army advanced to within five miles of Magdeburg. This important fortress was, at that time, the key of the whole Prussian power. It required a garrison of sixteen thousand men, and contained not more than fifteen hundred. The French might have marched in unopposed, and at once have put an end to the war. The officers brought me all the news, and my hopes rose as they approached. What was my astonishment when the major informed me that three waggons had entered the town in the night, had been sent back loaded with money, and that the French were retreating. This, I can assure my readers, on my honour, is literally truth, to the eternal disgrace of the French general. The major, who informed me, was himself an eye-witness of the fact. It was pretended the money was for the army of the King, but everybody could guess whither it was going; it left the town without a convoy, and the French were then in the neighbourhood. Such were the allies of Maria Theresa; the receivers of this money are known in Paris. Not only were my hopes this way frustrated, but in Russia likewise, where the Countess of Bestuchef and the Chancellor had fallen into disgrace.

I now imagined another, and, indeed, a fearful and dangerous project. The garrison of Magdeburg at this moment consisted but of nine hundred militia, who were discontented men. Two majors and two lieutenants were in my interest. The guard of the Star Fort amounted but to a hundred and fifteen men. Fronting the gate of this fort was the town gate, guarded only by twelve men and an inferior officer; beside these lay the casemates, in which were seven thousand Croat prisoners. Baron K---y, a captain, and prisoner of war, also was in our interest, and would hold his comrades ready at a certain place and time to support my undertaking. Another friend was, under some pretence, to hold his company ready, with their muskets loaded, and the plan was such that I should have had four hundred men in arms ready to carry it into execution.

The officer was to have placed the two men we most suspected and feared, as sentinels over me; he was to command them to take away my bed, and when encumbered, I was to spring out, and shut them in the prison. Clothing and arms were to have been procured, and brought me into my prison; the town-gate was to have been surprised; I was to have run to the casemate, and called to the Croats, “Trenck to arms!” My friends, at the same instant, were to break forth, and the plan was so well concerted that it could not have failed. Magdeburg, the magazine of the army, the royal treasury, arsenal, all would have been mine; and sixteen thousand men, who were then prisoners of war, would have enabled me to keep possession.

The most essential secret, by which all this was to have been effected, I dare not reveal; suffice it to say, everything was provided for, everything made secure; I shall only add that the garrison, in the harvest months, was exceedingly weakened, because the farmers paid the captains a florin per man each day, and the men for their labour likewise, to obtain hands. The sub-governor connived at the practice.

One Lieutenant G--- procured a furlough to visit his friends; but, supplied by me with money, he went to Vienna. I furnished him with a letter, addressed to Counsellors Kempf and Huttner, including a draft for two thousand ducats; wherein I said that, by these means, I should not only soon be at liberty, but in possession of the fortress of Magdeburg; and that the bearer was entrusted with the rest.

The lieutenant came safe to Vienna, underwent a thousand interrogatories, and his name was repeatedly asked. This, fortunately, he concealed. They advised him not to be concerned in so dangerous an undertaking; told him I had not so much money due to me, and gave him, instead of two thousand ducats, one thousand florins. With these he left Vienna, but with very prudent suspicions which prevented him ever returning to Magdeburg. A month had scarcely passed before the late Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, then chief governor, entered my prison, showed me my letter, and demanded to know who had carried the letter, and who were to free me and betray Magdeburg. Whether the letter was sent immediately to the King or the governor I know not; it is sufficient that I was once more betrayed at Vienna. The truth was, the administrators of my effects had acted as if I were deceased, and did not choose to refund two thousand ducats. They wished not I should obtain my freedom, in a manner that would have obliged the government to have rewarded me, and restore the effects they had embezzled and the estates they had seized. What happened afterwards at Vienna, which will be related in its place, will incontestably prove this surmise to be well founded.

These bad men did not, it is true, die in the manner they ought, but they are all dead, and I am still living, an honest, though poor man: they did not die so. Be this read and remembered by their luxurious heirs, who refuse to restore my children to their rights.