On the 22nd of August, 1786, the news arrived that Frederic the Great had left this world!

* * * * *

The present monarch, the witness of my sufferings in my native country, sent me a royal passport to Berlin. The confiscation of my estates was annulled, and my deceased brother, in Prussia, had left my children his heirs.

* * * * *

I journey, within the Imperial permission, back to my country, from which I have been two-and-forty years expelled! I journey—not as a pardoned malefactor, but as a man whose innocence has been established by his actions, has been proved in his writings, and who is journeying to receive his reward.

Here I shall once more encounter my old friends my relations, and those who have known me in the days of my affliction. Here shall I appear, not as my country’s Traitor, but as my country’s Martyr!

Possible, though little probable, are still future storms. For these also I am prepared. Long had I reason daily to curse the rising sun, and, setting, to behold it with horror. Death to me appears a great benefit: a certain passage from agitation to peace, from motion to rest. As for my children, they, jocund in youth, delight in present existence. When I have fulfilled the duties of a father, to live or die will then be as I shall please.

Thou, O God! my righteous Judge, didst ordain that I should be an example of suffering to the world; Thou madest me what I am, gavest me these strong passions, these quick nerves, this thrilling of the blood, when I behold injustice. Strong was my mind, that deeply it might meditate on deep subjects; strong my memory, that these meditations I might retain; strong my body, that proudly it might support all it has pleased Thee to inflict.

Should I continue to exist, should identity go with me, and should I know what I was then, when I was called Trenck; when that combination of particles which Nature commanded should compose this body shall be decomposed, scattered, or in other bodies united; when I have no muscles to act, no brain to think, no retina on which pictures can mechanically be painted, my eyes wasted, and no tongue remaining to pronounce the Creator’s name, should I still behold a Creator—then, oh then, will my spirit mount, and indubitably associate with spirits of the just who expectant wait for their golden harps and glorious crowns from the Most High God. For human weaknesses, human failings, arising from our nature, springing from our temperament, which the Creator has ordained, shall be even thus, and not otherwise; for these have I suffered enough on earth.

Such is my confession of faith; in this have I lived, in this will I die. The duties of a man and of a Christian I have fulfilled; nay, often have exceeded, often have been too benevolent, too generous; perhaps also too proud, too vain. I could not bend, although liable to be broken.

That I have not served the world, in acts and employments where best I might, is perhaps my own fault: the fault of my manner, which is now too radical to be corrected in this, my sixtieth year. Yes, I acknowledge my failing, acknowledge it unblushingly; nay, glory in the pride of a noble nature.

For myself, I ask nothing of those who have read my history; to them do I commit my wife and children. My eldest son is a lieutenant in the Tuscan regiment of cavalry, under General Lasey, and does honour to his father’s principles. The second serves his present Prussian Majesty, as ensign in the Posadowsky dragoons, with equal promise. The third is still a child. My daughters will make worthy men happy, for they have imbibed virtue and gentleness with their mother’s milk. Monarchs may hereafter remember what I have suffered, what I have lost, and what is due to my ashes.

Here do I declare—I will seek no other revenge against my enemies than that of despising their evil deeds. It is my wish, and shall be my endeavour, to forget the past; and having committed no offence, neither will I solicit monarchs for posts of honour; as I have ever lived a free man, a free man will I die.

I conclude this part of my history on the evening preceding my journey to Berlin. God grant I may encounter no new afflictions, to be inserted in the remainder of this history.

This journey I prepared to undertake, but my ever-envious fate threw me on the bed of sickness, insomuch that small hope remained that I ever should again behold the country of my forefathers. I seemed following the Great Frederic to the mansions of the dead; then should I never have concluded the history of my life, or obtained the victory by which I am now crowned.

A variety of obstacles being overcome, I found it necessary to make a journey into Hungary, which was one of the most pleasant of my whole life.

I have no words to express my ardent wishes for the welfare of a nation where I met with so many proofs of friendship. Wherever I appeared I was welcomed with that love and enthusiasm which only await the fathers of their country. The valour of my cousin Trenck, who died ingloriously in the Spielberg, the loss of my great Hungarian estates, the fame of my writings, and the cruelty of my sufferings, had gone before me. The officers of the army, the nobles of the land, alike testified the warmth of their esteem.

Such is the reward of the upright; such too are the proofs that this nation knows the just value of fortitude and virtue. Have I not reason to publish my gratitude, and to recommend my children to those who, when I am no more, shall dare uprightly to determine concerning the rights which have unjustly been snatched from me in Hungary?

Not a man in Hungary but will proclaim I have been unjustly dealt by; yet I have good reason to suspect I never shall find redress. Sentence had been already given; judges, more honest, cannot, without difficulty, reverse old decrees; and the present possessors of my estates are too powerful, too intimate with the governors of the earth, for me to hope I shall hereafter be more happy. God knows my heart; I wish the present possessors may render services to the state equal to those rendered by the family of the Trencks.

There is little probability I shall ever behold my noble friends in Hungary more. Here I bid them adieu, promising them to pass the remainder of any life so as still to merit the approbation of a people with whose ashes I would most willingly have mingled my own. May the God of heaven preserve every Hungarian from a fate similar to mine!

The Croats have ever been reckoned uncultivated; yet, among this uncultivated people I found more subscribers to my writings than among all the learned men of Vienna; and in Hungary, more than in all the Austrian dominions.

The Hungarians, the unlettered Croats, seek information. The people of Vienna ask their confessors’ permission to read instructive books. Various subscribers, having read the first volume of my work, brought it back, and re-demanded their money, because some monk had told them it was a book dangerous to be read. The judges of their courts have re-sold them to the booksellers for a few pence or given them to those who had the care of their consciences to burn.

In Vienna alone was my life described as a romance; in Hungary I found the compassion of men, their friendship, and effectual aid. Had my book been the production of an Englishman, good wishes would not have been his only reward.

We German writers have interested critics to encounter if we would unmask injustice; and if a book finds a rapid sale, dishonest printers issue spurious editions, defrauding the author of his labours.

The encouragement of the learned produces able teachers, and from their seminaries men of genius occasionally come forth. The world is inundated with books and pamphlets; the undiscerning reader knows not which to select; the more intelligent are disgusted, or do not read at all, and thus a work of merit becomes as little profitable to the author as to the state.

I left Vienna on the 5th of January, and came to Prague. Here I found nearly the same reception as in Hungary; my writings were read. Citizens, noblemen, and ladies treated me with like favour. May the monarch know how to value men of generous feelings and enlarged understandings!

I bade adieu to Prague, and continued my journey to Berlin. In Bohemia, I took leave of my son, who saw his father and his two brothers, destined for the Prussian service, depart. He felt the weight of this separation; I reminded him of his duty to the state he served; I spoke of the fearful fate of his uncle and father in Austria, and of the possessors of our vast estates in Hungary. He shrank back—a look from his father pierced him to the soul—tears stood in his eyes—his youthful blood flowed quick, and the following expression burst suddenly from his lips:—“I call God to witness that I will prove myself worthy of my father’s name; and that, while I live, his enemies shall be mine!”

At Peterswald, on the road to Dresden, my carriage broke down: my life was endangered; and my son received a contusion in the arm. The erysipelas broke out on him at Berlin, and I could not present him to the King for a month after.

I had been but a short time at Berlin before the well-known minister, Count Hertzberg, received me with kindness. Every man to whom his private worth is known will congratulate the state that has the wisdom to bestow on him so high an office. His scholastic and practical learning, his knowledge of languages, his acquaintance with sciences, are indeed wonderful. His zeal for his country is ardent, his love of his king unprejudiced, his industry admirable, his firmness that of a man. He is the most experienced man in the Prussian states. The enemies of his country may rely on his word. The artful he can encounter with art; those who menace, with fortitude; and with wise foresight can avert the rising storm. He seeks not splendour in sumptuous and ostentatious retinue; but if he can only enrich the state, and behold the poor happy, he is himself willing to remain poor. His estate, Briess, near Berlin, is no Chanteloup, but a model to those patriots who would study economy. Here he, every Wednesday, enjoys recreation. The services he renders the kingdom cost it only five thousand rix-dollars yearly; he, therefore, lives without ostentation, yet becoming his state, and with splendour when splendour is necessary. He does not plunder the public treasury that he may preserve his own private property.

This man will live in the annals of Prussia: who was employed under the Great Frederic; had so much influence in the cabinets of Europe; and was a witness of the last actions, the last sensations, of his dying king; yet who never asked, nor ever received, the least gratuity. This is the minister whose conversation I had the happiness to partake at Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa, whose welfare is the wish of my heart, and whose memory I shall ever revere.

I was received with distinction at his table, and became acquainted with those whose science had benefited the Prussian states; nor was anything more flattering to my self-love than that men like these should think me worthy their friendship.

Not many days after I was presented to the court by the Prussian chamberlain, Prince Sacken, as it is not customary at Berlin for a foreign subject to be presented by the minister of his own court. Though a Prussian subject, I wore the Imperial uniform.

The King received me with condescension; all eyes were directed towards me, each welcomed me to my country. This moved me the more as it was remarked by the foreign ministers, who asked who that Austrian officer could be who was received with so much affection and such evident joy in Berlin. The gracious monarch himself gave tokens of pleasure at beholding me thus surrounded. Among the rest came the worthy General Prittwitz, who said aloud—

“This is the gentleman who might have ruined me to effect his own deliverance.”

Confused at so public a declaration, I desired him to expound this riddle; and he added—

“I was obliged to be one of your guards on your unfortunate journey from Dantzic to Magdeburg, in 1754, when I was a lieutenant. On the road I continued alone with you in an open carriage. This gave you an opportunity to escape, but you forbore. I afterwards saw the danger to which I had exposed myself. Had you been less noble-minded, had such a prisoner escaped through my negligence, I had certainly been ruined. The King believed you alike dangerous and deserving of punishment. I here acknowledge you as my saviour, and am in gratitude your friend.” I knew not that the generous man, who wished me so well, was the present General Prittwitz. That he should himself remind me of this incident does him the greater honour.

Having been introduced at court, I thought it necessary to observe ceremonies, and was presented by the Imperial ambassador, Prince Reuss, to all foreign ministers, and such families as are in the habit of admitting such visits. I was received by the Prince Royal, the reigning Queen, the Queen-Dowager, and the royal family in their various places, with favour never to be forgotten. His Royal Highness Prince Henry invited me to a private audience, continued long in conversation with me, promised me his future protection, admitted me to his private concerts, and sometimes made me sup at court.

A like reception I experienced in the palace of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, where I frequently dined and supped. His princess took delight in hearing my narratives, and loaded me with favour.

Prince Ferdinand’s mode of educating children is exemplary. The sons are instructed in the soldier’s duties, their bodies are inured to the inclemencies of weather; they are taught to ride, to swim, and are steeled to all the fatigue of war. Their hearts are formed for friendship, which they cannot fail to attain. Happy the nation in defence of which they are to act!

How ridiculous these their Royal Highnesses appear who, though born to rule, are not deserving to be the lackeys to the least of those whom they treat with contempt; and yet who swell, strut, stride, and contemplate themselves as creatures essentially different by nature, and of a superior rank in the scale of beings, though, in reality, their minds are of the lowest, the meanest class.

Happy the state whose prince is impressed with a sense that the people are not his property, but he the property of the people! A prince beloved by his people will ever render a nation more happy those he whose only wish is to inspire fear.

The pleasure I received at Berlin was great indeed. When I went to court, the citizens crowded to see me, and when anyone among them said, “That is Trenck,” the rest would cry, “Welcome once more to your country,” while many would reach me their hands, with the tears standing in their eyes. Frequent were the scenes I experienced of this kind. No malefactor would have been so received. It was the reward of innocence; this reward was bestowed throughout the Prussian territories.

Oh world, ill-judging world, deceived by show! Dost thou not blindly follow the opinion of the prince, be he severe, arbitrary, or just? Thy censure and thy praise equally originate in common report. In Magdeburg I lay, chained to the wall, ten years, sighing in wretchedness, every calamity of hunger, cold, nakedness, and contempt. And wherefore? Because the King, deceived by slanderers, pronounced me worthy of punishment. Because a wise King mistook me, and treated me with barbarity. Because a prudent King knew he had done wrong, yet would not have it so supposed. So was his heart turned to stone; nay, opposed by manly fortitude, was enraged to cruelty. Most men were convinced I was an innocent sufferer; “Yet did they all cry out the more, saying, let him be crucified!” My relations were ashamed to hear my name. My sister was barbarously treated because she assisted me in my misfortunes. No man durst avow himself my friend, durst own I merited compassion; or, much less, that the infallible King had erred. I was the most despised, forlorn man on earth; and when thus put on the rack, had I there expired, my epitaph would have been, “Here lies the traitor, Trenck.”

Frederic is dead, and the scene is changed; another monarch has ascended the throne, and the grub has changed to a beautiful butterfly! The witnesses to all I have asserted are still living, loudly now proclaim the truth, and embrace me with heart-felt affection.

Does the worth of a man depend upon his actions? his reward or punishment upon his virtue? In arbitrary states, certainly not. They depend on the breath of a king! Frederic was the most penetrating prince of his age, but the most obstinate also. A vice dreadful to those whom he selected as victims, who must be sacrificed to the promoting of his arbitrary views.

How many perished, the sin offerings of Frederic’s obstinate self-will, whose orphan children now cry to God for vengeance! The dead, alas! cannot plead. Trial began and ended with execution. The few words—It is the king’s command—were words of horror to the poor condemned wretch denied to plead his innocence! Yet what is the Ukase (Imperial order) in Russia, Tel est notre bon plaisir (Such is our pleasure) in France, or the Allergnadigste Hofresolution (The all-gracious sentence of the court), pronounced with the sweet tone of a Vienna matron? In what do these differ from the arbitrary order of a military despot?

Every prayer of man should be consecrated to man’s general good; for him to obtain freedom and universal justice! Together should we cry with one voice, and, if unable to shackle arbitrary power, still should we endeavour to show how dangerous it is! The priests of liberty should offer up their thanks to the monarch who declares “the word of power” a nullity, and “the sentence” of justice omnipotent.

Who can name the court in Europe where Louis, Peter, or Frederic, each and all surnamed The Great, have not been, and are not, imitated as models of perfection? Lettres-de-cachet, the knout, and cabinet-orders, superseding all right, are become law!

No reasoning, says the corporal to the poor grenadier, whom he canes!—No reasoning! exclaim judges; the court has decided.—No reasoning, rash and pertinacious Trenck, will the prudent reader echo. Throw thy pen in the fire, and expose not thyself to become the martyr of a state inquisition.

My fate is, and must remain, critical and undecided. I have six-and-thirty years been in the service of Austria, unrewarded, and beholding the repeated and generous efforts I made effectually to serve that state, unnoticed. The Emperor Joseph supposes me old, that the fruit is wasted, and that the husk only remains. It is also supposed I should not be satisfied with a little. To continue to oppress him who has once been oppressed, and who possess qualities that may make injustice manifest, is the policy of states. My journey to Berlin has given the slanderer further opportunity of painting me as a suspicious character: I smile at the ineffectual attempt.

I appeared in the Imperial uniform and belied such insinuations. To this purpose it was written to court, in November, when I went into Hungary, “The motions of Trenck ought to be observed in Hungary.” Ye poor malicious blood-suckers of the virtuous! Ye shall not be able to hurt a hair of my head. Ye cannot injure the man who has sixty years lived in honour. I will not, in my old age, bring upon myself the reproach of inconstancy, treachery, or desire of revenge. I will betray no political secrets: I wish not to injure those by whom I have been injured.—Such acts I will never commit. I never yet descended to the office of spy, nor will I die a rewarded villain.

Yes, I appeared in Berlin among the upright and the just. Instead of being its supposed enemy, I was declared an honour to my country. I appeared in the Imperial uniform and fulfilled the duties of my station: and now must the Prussian Trenck return to Austria, there to perform a father’s duty.

Yet more of what happened in Berlin.

Some days after I had been presented to the King, I entreated a private audience, and on the 12th of February received the following letter:—

“In answer to your letter of the 8th of this month, I inform you that, if you will come to me to-morrow, at five o’clock in the afternoon, I shall have the pleasure to speak with you; meantime, I pray God to take you into his holy keeping.

“Frederic William.

“Berlin, Feb. 12, 1787.”

“P.S.—After signing the above, I find it more convenient to appoint to-morrow, at nine in the morning, about which time you will come into the apartment named the Marmor Kammer (marble chamber).”

The anxiety with which I expected this wished-for interview may well be conceived. I found the Prussian Titus alone, and he continued in conversation with me more than an hour.

How kind was the monarch! How great! How nobly did he console me for the past! How entirely did his assurance of favour overpower my whole soul! He had read the history of my life. When prince of Prussia, he had been an eyewitness, in Magdeburg, of my martyrdom, and my attempts to escape. His Majesty parted from me with tokens of esteem and condescension.—My eyes bade adieu, but my heart remained in the marble chamber, in company with a prince capable of sensations so dignified; and my wishes for his welfare are eternal.

I have since travelled through the greater part of the Prussian states. Where is the country in which the people are all satisfied? Many complained of hard times, or industry unrewarded. My answer was:—

“Friends, kneel with the rising sun, and thank the God of heaven that you are Prussians. I have seen and known much of this world, and I assure you, you are among the happiest people of Europe. Causes of complaint everywhere exist; but you have a king, neither obstinate, ambitious, covetous, nor cruel: his will is that his people should have cause of content, and should he err by chance, his heart is not to blame if the subject suffers.”

Prussia is neither wanting in able nor learned men. The warmth of patriots glows in their veins. Everything remains with equal stability, as under the reign of Frederic; and should the thunder burst, the ready conductors will render the shock ineffectual.

Hertzberg still labours in the cabinet, still thinks, writes, and acts as he has done for years. The king is desirous that justice shall be done to his subjects, and will punish, perhaps, with more severity, whenever he finds himself deceived, than from the goodness of his disposition, might be supposed. The treasury is full, the army continues the same, and there is little reason to doubt but that industry, population, and wealth will increase. None but the vile and the wicked would leave the kingdom; while the oppressed and best subjects of other states would fly from their native country, certain of finding encouragement and security in Prussia.

The personal qualities of Fredric William merit description. He is tall and handsome, his mien is majestic, and his accomplishments of mind and body would procure him the love of men, were he not a king. He is affable without deceit, friendly and kind in conversation, and stately when stateliness is necessary. He is bountiful, but not profuse; he knows that without economy the Prussian must sink. He is not tormented by the spirit of conquest, he wishes harm to no nation, yet he will certainly not suffer other nations to make encroachments, nor will he be terrified by menaces.

The wise Frederic, when living, though himself learned, and a lover of the sciences, never encouraged them in his kingdom. Germany, under his reign, might have forgotten her language: he preferred the literature of France. KÖnigsberg, once the seminary of the North, contains, at present, few professors, or students; the former are fallen into disrepute, and are ill paid; the latter repair to Leipsic and Gottingen. We have every reason to suppose the present monarch, though no studious man himself, will encourage the academies of the literati, that men learned in jurisprudence and the sciences may not be wanting: which want is the more to be apprehended as the nobility must, without exception, serve in the army, so that learning has but few adherents, and these are deprived of the means of improvement.

Frederic William is also too much the friend of men to suffer them to pine in prisons. He abhors the barbarity with which the soldiers are beaten: his officers will not be fettered hand and foot; slavish subordination will be banished, and the noble in heart will be the noble of the land. May he, in his people, find perfect content! May his people be ever worthy of such a prince! Long may he reign, and may his ministers be ever enlightened and honourable men!

He sent for me a second time, conversed much with me, and confirmed those ideas which my first interview had inspired.

On the 11th of March I presented my son at another audience, whom I intended for the Prussian service. The King bestowed a commission on him in the Posadowsky dragoons, at my request.

I saw him at the review at Velau, and his superior officers formed great expectations from his zeal. Time will discover whether he who is in the Austrian, or this in the Prussian service, will first obtain the rewards due to their father. Should they both remain unnoticed, I will bestow him on the Grand Turk, rather than on European courts, whence equity to me and mine is banished.

To Austria I owe no thanks; all that could be taken from me was taken. I was a captain before I entered those territories, and, after six-and-thirty years’ service, I find myself in the rank of invalid major. The proof of all I have asserted, and of how little I am indebted to this state is most incontestable, since the history of my life is allowed by the royal censor to be publicly sold in Vienna.

It is remarkable that one only of all the eight officers, with whom I served, in the body guard, in 1745, is dead. Lieutenant-colonel Count Blumenthal lives in Berlin; Pannewitz is commander of the Knights of Malta: both gave me a friendly reception. Wagnitz is lieutenant-general in the service of Hesse-Cassel; he was my tent comrade, and was acquainted with all that happened. Kalkreuter and Grethusen live on their estates, and Jaschinsky is now alive at KÖnigsberg, but superannuated, and tortured by sickness, and remorse. He, instead of punishment, has forty years enjoyed a pension of a thousand rix-dollars. I have seen my lands confiscated, of the income of which I have been forty-two years deprived, and never yet received retribution.

Time must decide; the king is generous, and I have too much pride to become a beggar. The name of Trenck shall be found in the history of the acts of Frederic. A tyrant himself, he was the slave of his passions; and even did not think an inquiry into my innocence worth the trouble. To be ashamed of doing right, because he has done wrong, or to persist in error, that fools, and fools only, can think him infallible, is a dreadful principle in a ruler.

Since I have been at Berlin, and was received there with so many testimonies of friendship, the newspapers of Germany have published various articles concerning me, intending to contribute to my honour or ease. They said my eldest daughter is appointed the governess of the young Princess. This has been the joke of some witty correspondent; for my eldest daughter is but fifteen, and stands in need of a governess herself. Perhaps they may suppose me mean enough to circulate falsehood.

I daily receive letters from all parts of Germany, wherein the sensations of the feeling heart are evident. Among these letters was one which I received from Bahrdt, Professor at Halle, dated April 10, 1787 wherein he says, “Receive, noble German, the thanks of one who, like you, has encountered difficulties; yet, far inferior to those you have encountered. You, with gigantic strength, have met a host of foes, and conquered. The pests of men attacked me also. From town to town, from land to land, I was pursued by priestcraft and persecution; yet I acquired fame. I fled for refuge and repose to the states of Frederic, but found them not. I have eight years laboured under affliction with perseverance, but have found no reward. By industry have I made myself what I am; by ministerial favour, never. Worn out and weak, the history of your life, worthy sir, fell into my hands, and poured balsam into my wounds. There I saw sufferings immeasurably greater; there, indeed, beheld fortitude most worthy of admiration. Compared to you, of what could I complain? Receive, noble German, my warmest thanks; while I live they shall flow. And should you find a fortunate moment, in the presence of your King, speak of me as one consigned to poverty; as one whose talents are buried in oblivion. Say to him—‘Mighty King! stretch forth thy hand, and dry up his tears.’ I know the nobleness of your mind, and doubt not your good wishes.”

To the Professor’s letter I returned the following answer:—

“I was affected, sir, by your letter. I never yet was unmoved, when the pen was obedient to the dictates of the heart. I feel for your situation; and if my example can teach wisdom even to the wise, I have cause to triumph. This is the sweetest of rewards. At Berlin I have received much honour, but little more. Men are deaf to him who confides only in his right. What have I gained? Shadowy fame for myself, and the vapour of hope for my heirs!

“Truth and Trenck, my good friend, flourish not in courts. You complain of priestcraft. He who would disturb their covetousness, he who speaks against the false opinions they scatter, considers not priests, and their aim, which is to dazzle the stupid and stupefy the wise. Deprecate their wrath! avoid their poisoned shafts, or they will infect tiny peace: will blast thy honour. And wherefore should we incur this danger. To cure ignorance of error is impossible. Let us then silently steal to our graves, and thus small we escape the breath of envy. He who should enjoy all even thought could grasp, should yet have but little. Having acquired this knowledge, the passions of the soul are lulled to apathy. I behold error, and I laugh; do thou, my friend, laugh also. If that can comfort us, men will do our memory justice—when we are dead! Fame plants her laurels over the grave, and there they flourish best.

“Baron Trenck

“Schangulach, near KÖnigsberg,
April 30th, 1787.”

“P.S—I have spoken, worthy Professor, the feelings of my heart, in answer to your kind panegyric. You will but do me justice, when you believe I think and act as I write with respect to my influence at court, it is as insignificant at Berlin as at Vienna or at Constantinople”

Among the various letters I have received, as it may answer a good purpose, I hope the reader will not think the insertion of the following improper.

In a letter from an unknown correspondent, who desired me to speak for this person at Berlin, eight others were enclosed. They came from the above person in distress, to this correspondent: and I was requested to let them appear in the Berlin Journal. I selected two of them, and here present them to the world, as it can do me injury, while they describe an unhappy victim of an extraordinary kind: and may perhaps obtain him some relief.

Should this hope be verified, I am acquainted with him who wishes to remain concealed, can introduce him to the knowledge of such as might wish to interfere in his behalf. Should they not, the reader will still find them well-written and affecting letters; such as may inspire compassion. The following is the first of those I selected.

LETTER I

“Neuland, Feb 12th, 1787.

“I thought I had so satisfactorily answered you by my last, that you would have left me in peaceful possession of my sorrows! but your remarks, entreaties, and remonstrances, succeed each other with such rapidity, that I am induced to renew the contest. Cowardice, I believe, you are convinced, is not a native in my heart, and should I now yield, you might suppose that age and the miseries I have suffered, had weakened my powers of mind as well as body; and that I ought to have been classed among the unhappy multitudes whose sufferings have sunk them to despondency.

“Baron Trenck, that man of many woes, once so despised, but who now is held in admiration, where he was before so much the object of hatred; who now speaks so loudly in his own defence, where, formerly, the man who had but whispered his name would have lived suspected; Baron Trenck you propose as an example of salvation for me. You are wrong. Have you considered how dissimilar our past lives have been; how different, too, are our circumstances? Or, omitting these, have you considered to whom you would have me appeal?

“In 1767, I became acquainted, in Vienna, with this sufferer of fortitude, this agreeable companion. We are taught that a noble aspect bespeaks a corresponding mind; this I believe him to possess. But what expectations can I form from Baron Trenck?

“I will briefly answer the questions you have put. Baron Trenck was a man born to inherit great estates; this and the fire of his youth, fanned by flattering hopes from his famous kinsman, rendered him too haughty to his King; and this alone was the origin of all his future sufferings. I, on the contrary, though the son of a Silesian nobleman of property, did not inherit so much as the pay of a common soldier; the family having been robbed by the hand of power, after being accused by wickedness under the mask of virtue. You know my father’s fate, the esteem in which he was held by the Empress Theresa; and that a pretended miracle was the occasion of his fall. Suddenly was he plunged from the height to which industry, talents, and virtue had raised him, to the depth of poverty. At length, at the beginning of the seven years’ war, one of the King of Prussia’s subjects represented him to the Austrian court as a dangerous correspondent of Marshal Schwerin’s. Then at sixty years of age, my father was seized at Jagerndorf, and imprisoned in the fortress of Gratz, in Styria. He had an allowance just sufficient to keep him alive in his dungeon; but, for the space of seven years, never beheld the sun rise or set. I was a boy when this happened, however, I was not heard. I only received some pecuniary relief from the Empress, with permission to shed my blood in her defence. In this situation we first vowed eternal friendship; but from this I soon was snatched by my father’s enemies. What the Empress had bestowed, her ministers tore from me. I was seized at midnight, and was brought, in company with two other officers, to the fortress of Gratz. Here I remained immured six years. My true name was concealed, and another given me.

“Peace being restored, Trenck, I, and my father were released; but the mode of our release was very different. The first obtained his freedom at the intercession of Theresa, she, too, afforded him a provision. We, on the contrary, according to the amnesty, stipulated in the treaty of peace, were led from our dungeons as state prisoners, without inquiry concerning the verity or falsehood of our crimes. Extreme poverty, wretchedness, and misery, were our reward for the sufferings we had endured.

“Not only was my health destroyed, but my jawbone was lost, eaten away by the scurvy. I laid before Frederic the Great the proofs of the calamities I had undergone, and the dismal state to which I was reduced, by his foe, and for his sake; entreated bread to preserve me and my father from starving, but his ear was deaf to my prayer, his heart insensible to my sighs.

“Providence, however, raised me up a saviour,—Count Gellhorn was the man. After the taking of Breslau, he had been also sent a state prisoner to Gratz. During his imprisonment, he had heard the report of my sufferings and my innocence. No sooner did he learn I was released, than he became my benefactor, my friend, and restored me to the converse of men, to which I had so long been dead.

“I defer the continuance of my narrative to the next post. The remembrance of past woes inflict new ones. I am eternally.”

LETTER II.

“February 24, 1787.

“Dear Friend,—After an interval of silence, remembering my promise, I again continue my story.

“My personal sufferings have not been less than those of Trenck. His, I am acquainted with only from the inaccurate relations I have heard: my own I have felt. A colonel in the Prussian service, whose name was Hallasch, was four years my companion; he was insane, and believed himself the Christ that was to appear at the millennium: he persecuted me with his reveries, which I was obliged to listen to, and approve, or suffer violence from one stronger than myself.

“The society of men or books, everything that could console or amuse, were forbidden me; and I considered it as wonderful that I did not myself grow mad, in the company of this madman. Four hard winters I existed without feeling the feeble emanation of a winter sun, much less the warmth of fire. The madman felt more pity than my keeper, and lent me his cloak to cover my body, though the other denied me a truss of straw, notwithstanding I had lost the use of my hands and feet. The place where we were confined was called a chamber; it rather resembled the temple of Cloacina. The noxious damps and vapours so poisoned my blood that an unskilful surgeon, who tortured me during nine months, with insult as a Prussian traitor, and state criminal, I lost the greatest part of my jaw.

“Schottendorf was our governor and tyrant; a man who repaid the friendship he found in the mansion of my fathers—with cruelty. He was ripe for the sickle, and Time cut him off. Tormentini and Galer were his successors in office, by them we were carefully watched, but we were treated with commiseration. Their precautions rendered imprisonment less wretched. Ever shall I hold their memory sacred. Yet, benevolent as they were, their goodness was exceeded by that of Rottensteiner, the head gaoler. He considered his prisoners as his children; and he was their benefactor. Of this I had experience, during two years after the release of Hallasch.

“Here I but cursorily describe misery, at which the monarch shall shudder, if the blood of a tyrant flow not in his veins. Theresa could not wish these things. But she was fallible, and not omniscient.

“From the above narrative, you will perceive how opposite the effects must be which the histories of Baron Trenck and of myself must produce.

“Trenck left his dungeon shielded from contempt; the day of freedom was the day of triumph. I, on the contrary, was exposed to every calamity. The spirit of Trenck again raised itself. I have laboured many a night that I might neither beg nor perish the following day: working for judges who neither knew law nor had powers of mind to behold the beauty of justice: settling accounts that, item after item, did not prove that the lord they were intended for, was an imbecile dupe.

“Trenck remembers his calamities, but the remembrance is advantageous to himself and his family; while with me, the past did but increase, did but agonise, the present and the future. He was not like me, obliged to crouch in presence of those vulgar, those incapable minds, that do but consider the bent back as the footstool of pride. Every man is too busy to act in behalf of others; pity me therefore, but advise me not to hope assistance, by petitioning princes at second hand. I know your good wishes, and, for these, I have nothing to return but barren thanks.—I am, &c.”

The reasons why I published the foregoing letters are already stated, and will appear satisfactory to the reader. Once more to affairs that concern myself.

I met at Berlin many old friends of both sexes; among others, an aged invalid came to see me, who was at Glatz, in 1746, when I cut my way through the guard. He was one of the sentinels before my door, whom I had thrown down the stairs.

The hour of quitting Berlin, and continuing my journey into Prussia, towards KÖnigsberg, approached. On the eve of my departure, I had the happiness of conversing with her Royal Highness the Princess Amelia, sister of Frederic the Great. She protected me in my hour of adversity; heaped benefits upon me, and contributed to gain my deliverance. She received me as a friend, as an aged patriot; and laid her commands upon me to write to my wife, and request that she would come to Berlin, in the month of June, with her two eldest daughters. I received her promise that the happiness of the latter should be her care; nay, that she would remember my wife in her will.

At this moment, when about to depart, she asked me if I had money sufficient for my journey: “Yes, madam,” was my reply; “I want nothing, ask nothing; but may you remember my children!”

The deep feeling with which I pronounced these words moved the princess; she showed me how she comprehended my meaning, and said, “Return, my friend, quickly: I shall be most happy to see you.”

I left the room: a kind of indecision came over me. I was inclined to remain longer at Berlin. Had I done so, my presence would have been of great advantage to my children. Alas! under the guidance of my evil genius, I began my journey. The purpose for which I came to Berlin was frustrated: for after my departure, the Princess Amelia died!

Peace be to thy ashes, noble princess! Thy will was good, and be that sufficient. I shall not want materials to write a commentary on the history of Frederic, when, in company with thee, I shall wander on the banks of Styx; there the events that happened on this earth may be written without danger.

So proceed we with our story.