“ Abut nine o’clock, Trenck (an Austrian commander, and a relation of mine) appeared with his turkish music, and set fire to several houses. As soon as we perceived it, we began to fire musketry out of the windows. The tumult was terrible. The town was so full of people that we could not force an entrance; the gate was shut and our field pieces kept firing from above. Trenck stopped the passage of the water; by midnight it was as high as our horses’ bellies, and we were almost entirely abandoned. ”

“ Sometimes, in a morning’s exercise, we had several men and horses killed or wounded. The horses were kept in the King’s stables; and he who could not dress, arm himself, saddle his horse, mount, and fall into his rank in eight minutes, was put under arrest for a fortnight.
The trumpet frequently sounded before we had scarcely got into bed, by way of giving the young men a habit of vigilance. The Life Guards lost more men and horses in a time of profound peace, than they would have done in two battles. ”

“ Eighteen thousand men were made prisoners of war: the number of the garrison killed and wounded during the siege not exceeding five hundred.
So far we met with no obstacle; however, the Imperial army, under the command of Prince Charles, who had left the banks of the Rhine, advanced to save Bohemia. His light armed troops being thrice as numerous as ours, prevented our foraging. Famine and want therefore obliged us to retreat, having no relief to hope for from the country behind us, which we had laid entirely waste on our march. ”

“ We immediately drew up in order of battle, and in less than ten minutes began the attack; notwithstanding our small number of men, (there were only five regiments of cavalry with our army,) and fell with the greatest rapidity on the enemy, at that moment employed in slowly forming their squadrons in the front of the defile. We drove them back into the defile, which was crowded full of men. The King immediately ordered the eight field pieces to be unmasked, and they made terrible havoc.
Nadaste Trenck, and the light troops that were to have attacked us in the rear, stopped to pillage our camp ”

“ The King had sent such large detachments into Saxony, Silesia, and Bohemia that the grand army consisted at most of twenty six thousand men, had surrounded the small number of Brandenburgh and Pomeranian troops with more than eighty six thousand men, and was in hopes of taking them all prisoners.
About midnight the King came into my tent and went likewise into those of the other officers to wake them; he ordered the horses to be saddled without noise, the baggage to be left behind, and the whole army to hold themselves in readiness for action. ”

“ He was desirous of seeing whether the favourable accounts he had heard of me were well founded; and to ascertain their truth, gave me the names of fifty soldiers to learn by heart, which I did in five minutes. He then gave me the subjects of two letters, and I composed them immediately in French and Latin, writing one and dictating the other. He afterwards desired me to draw the plan of a piece of ground, by the eye, and with all the dispatch possible; which I did with the same success. He then appointed me Cornet in the Life Guards. He spoke to me like a King and a father ”

“ Francis Baron Trenck, who commanded the Pandours in the service of Austria, having been dangerously wounded in Bavaria in the year 1743, wrote to my mother to tell her it was his intention to make me his heir. This letter, to which I made no answer, was sent to me at Potzdam. The 12th of February 1744 I was at Berlin and went to pay a visit to Captain Isachinzki, commandant of the Life Guards, in company with Lieutenant Studnitz, and Cornet Wagnitz, who lived with me in the same apartment. ”

“ A few days after the battle of Soran, the post-man brought me the following letter from my cousin Trenck dated from Essex, and written four months before.
‘I find by your letter from Berlin, of date Feb. 12th, that you desire me to send you some Hungarian horses, that you may employ them against my Hussars and Pandours. I perceived with pleasure in the last campaign, that the Prussian Trenck was a good soldier. As a proof of my attachment I sent you back your horses, which my people had taken. But if you want Hungarian horses, try next campaign to carry off mine by open force ”

“ I posted my Hussars in a convent, and went with the Rangers to a gentleman’s seat, to procure a sufficient number of waggons to bring off hay and straw from an adjacent farm. But a Lieutenant of Austrian Hussars, who lay concealed in a wood with thirty-six horse, having remarked the weakness of my escort, took advantage of the moment, when my people were employed in loading the waggons, and surprising my sentinel, fell suddenly upon them, and took the whole party prisoners in the farm-yard. ”

“ More than sixteen thousand wounded men were dressed there; some of whom could get no assistance till the third day.
The campaign passed in marching and counter-marching: we were the most fatigued, because the Guards encamped round the King's tent, which, placed in the middle of the camp, always formed the van-guard. ”

“ Some of the enemy’s Hussar's escaped by the back door; however we made twenty-two prisoners, among whom was a Lieutenant of the regiment of Kalnockichen. They had two men killed and one wounded, and I lost on my side two Rangers, who were killed in the hay loft where they were at work. After this reincounter we continued to forage with greater precaution, the horses we had taken served in part to draw waggons; and having laid the convent under contribution to the amount of a hundred and fifty ducats which I distributed among my soldiers to purchase their silence, we set off to rejoin the army. ”

“ I had not observed that the date of the letter was four months anterior to its receipt: this my Colonel did not fail to do.
2. It was probably a snare laid by Isachinzki. The sending back of my horses in the preceeding campaign had made a noise. Perhaps I had been persuaded to write, that I might be entrapped by a forged answer; for it is certain that my cousin maintained till his death, that he never received a letter from me, and that consequently he had sent no answer. I still think, and shall always continue in the same mind, the letter was forged. ”