Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Trenck

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ The respectable Field-marshal Konigseck, governor of Vienna, was appointed president; but, being an old man, he was unable to preside at any one sitting of the court. Count S--- was the vice-president, a subtle, insatiable judge, who never thought he had money enough. I took 3,000 ducats, which Baron Lopresti gave me, to this most worthy counsellor. The two counsellors, Komerkansquy and Zetto, each received 4,000 rix-dollars, with a promise of double the sum if Trenck were acquitted ”

“ I was obliged to act an artful, but, at the same time, a very dangerous part.
My cousin, Baron Trenck, died in the Spielberg, October 4, 1749, and left me his heir, on condition I should only serve the house of Austria. In March, 1750, Count Bernes received the citation sent me to enter on this inheritance. I would hear nothing of Vienna; the abominable treatment of my cousin terrified me. I well knew the origin of his prosecution, the services he had rendered his country, and had been an eye-witness of the injustice by which he was repaid. ”

“ My good faith to the King had been too ill repaid; my talents might gain me bread in any part of the world, and I would not again subject myself to the danger of unmerited imprisonment.
His persuasions were strong, but ineffectual. “My dear Trenck,” said he, “God is my judge that my intentions are honest; I will pledge myself, that my sovereign will insure your fortune: you do not know Vienna; you will lose all by the suits in which you are involved, and will be persecuted because you do not carry a rosary.”
How often have I repented I did not then return to Berlin! ”

“ Men have acquired a greater extent of true knowledge, and have begun to perceive that a University ought to be a place of instruction, and not a field of battle; and that blood cannot be honourably shed, except in defence of life or country.
In November, 1742, the King sent his adjutant-general, Baron Lottum, who was related to my mother, to Königsberg, with whom I dined at my grandfather’s. ”

“ Yet how could it be supposed that I would not willingly have remained three weeks longer in prison, to have been honourably restored to liberty, to have prevented the confiscation of my estate, and to have once more returned to my beloved mistress at Berlin.
And now was I in Bohemia, a fugitive stranger without money, protector, or friend, and only twenty years of age.
In the campaign of 1744 I had been quartered at Braunau with a weaver, whom I advised and assisted to bury his effects, and preserve them from being plundered. The worthy man received us with joy and gratitude. ”

“ The instant I entered, the King demanded if I returned singly. “No, please your Majesty,” answered I; “I have brought five-and-twenty loads of forage, and two-and-twenty prisoners, with their officer and horses.”
The King then commanded me to sit down, and turning himself towards the English ambassador, who was near him, said, laying his hand on my shoulder, “C’est un Matador de ma jeunesse.” ”

“ My ills were increased by a new accident. Soon after the departure of Bernes, the Prussian minister, taking me aside, in the house of the Palatine envoy, M. Becker, proposed my return to Berlin, assured me the King had forgotten all that was past, was convinced of my innocence, that my good fortune would there be certain, and be pledged his honour to recover the inheritance of Trenck. I answered, the favour came too late; I had suffered injustice too flagrant, in my own country, and that I would trust no prince on earth whose will might annihilate all the rights of men. ”

“ He died convinced of my integrity, yet without affording me retribution! Man is formed by misfortune; virtue is active in adversity. It is indifferent to me that the companions of my youth have their ears gratified, delighted with the titles of General! Field-Marshal I have learned to live without such additions; I am known in my works.
I returned to my dungeon. Here, after my last conference with the Landgrave, I waited my fate with a mind more at ease than that of a prince in a palace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those indeed who sacrificed a man most ardent in his country’s service to their own private and selfish views, are now in their graves.
I shall insert no more of his history here than what is interwoven with my own, and relate the rest in its proper place.
A revision of his suit was at this time instituted. Scarcely was I arrived in Vienna before his confidential agent, M. Leber, presented me to Prince Charles and the Emperor; both knew the services of Trenck, and the malice of his enemies ”

“ Let the situation of Trenck be considered; he was the chief of a band of robbers who supposed they were authorised to take whatever they pleased in an enemy’s country, a banditti that had so often defied the gallows, and had never known military subordination. Let such men be led to the field and opposed to regular troops. That they are never actuated by honour is evident: their leader is obliged to excite their avidity by the hope of plunder to engage them in action; for if they perceive no personal advantage, the interest of the sovereign is insufficient to make them act. ”

“ It is the more necessary to establish this truth, because no one can comprehend why the Great Frederic should have proceeded against me in a manner so cruel that, when it comes to be related, must raise the indignation of the just, and move hearts of iron to commiserate.
Men so vile, so wicked, as I have described them, in conjunction with one Weingarten, secretary to Count Puebla, then Austrian minister at Berlin, have brought on me these my misfortunes. ”

“ An innocent man, languishing in a dungeon, who by his own endeavours, has broken his chains, and regained his liberty, in despite of all the arbitrary power of princes, who vainly would oppose him, conceives in moments like these such an abhorrence of despotism, that I could not well comprehend how I ever could resolve to live under governments where wealth, content, honour, liberty, and life all depend upon a master’s will, and who, were his intentions the most pure, could not be able, singly, to do justice to a whole nation. ”

“ I wrote to the King, and sent him a true state of my case; sent indubitable proofs of my innocence, and supplicated justice, but received no answer.
In this the monarch may be justified, at least in my apprehension. A wicked man had maliciously and falsely accused me; Colonel Jaschinsky had made him suspect me for a traitor, and it was impossible he should read my heart. The first act of injustice had been hastily committed; I had been condemned unheard, unjudged; and the injustice that had been done me was known too late; Frederic the Great found he was not infallible. ”

“ Persuasion was in vain with men determined to risk nothing, but, if they went, to go in safety. Will, indeed, was not wanting in Glotin and Sonntag; but the first was a poltroon, and the latter a man of scruples, who thought this step might likewise be the ruin of his brother at Berlin.
The sentinels were doubled, therefore my escape through my hole, which had been two years dug, could not, unperceived by them, be effected: still less could I, in the face of the guard, clamber the twelve feet high pallisadoes. ”

“ It is here most worthy of remark that I was told by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, governor of Magdeburg, he had received orders to prepare my prison at Magdeburg before I set out from Hungary.
Nay, more; it had been written from Vienna to Berlin that the King must beware of Trenck, for that he would be at Dantzic at the time when the King was to visit his camp in Prussia.
What thing more vile, what contrivance more abominable, could the wickedest wretch on earth find to banish a man his country, that he might securely enjoy the property of which the other had been robbed? ”

“ This is a problem which the people of Berlin must resolve. My brother has no children, and, without going to law, will bequeath Great Sharlack to mine, when he shall happen to die. If he is forced in effect to restore it without being reimbursed, the King instead of granting a favour, has not done justice. I do not request any restitution like this, since such restitution would be made without asking it as a favour of the King. If his Majesty takes off the confiscation because he is convinced it was originally violent and unjust, then have I a right to demand the rents of two-and-forty years. ”

“ I lived, as I vainly imagined, without inciting enmity or malice, and my mind was wholly occupied by the desire of earning well-founded fame.
I had hitherto remained ignorant of love, and had been terrified from illicit commerce by beholding the dreadful objects of the hospital at Potzdam. During the winter of 1743, the nuptials of his Majesty’s sister were celebrated, who was married to the King of Sweden, where she is at present Queen Dowager, mother of the reigning Gustavus. I, as officer of my corps, had the honour to mount guard and escort her as far as Stettin. ”

“ He perpetually turned the conversation on the great credit of his general with the King, and his own great credit with the general. For the present of a horse, on which I rode to Glatz, he gave me freedom of walking about the fortress; and for another, worth a hundred ducats, I rescued Ensign Reitz from death, who had been betrayed when endeavouring to effect our escape. ”

“ It is a remarkable circumstance that I should so continually have been despoiled by unjust judges. Who would have had the temerity to affirm that their evil deeds should bring them to attend on the city scavenger? I indeed knew them but too well, and fearlessly spoke what I knew. It was my misfortune that I was acquainted with their malpractices sooner than gracious Sovereign.
Let the scene close on my litigations at Aix-la-Chapelle and Vienna. May God preserve every honest man from the like! ”

“ My friend the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who had been Governor of Magdeburg during my imprisonment, offered me a commission among the troops going to America, but I answered—“Gracious prince, my heart beats in the cause of freedom only; I will never assist in enslaving men. Were I at the head of your brave grenadiers. I should revolt to the Americans.”
During 1775 I continued at Aix-la-Chapelle my essays, entitled, “The Friend of Men.” My writings had made some impression; the people began to read; the monks were ridiculed, but my partisans increased, and their leader got himself cudgelled. ”

“ My last-mentioned brother chose the life of a private man, and lived at his ease, in independence, among the first people of the kingdom. The hatred of the monarch extended itself to my sister, who had married the son of General Waldow, and lived in widowhood, from the year 1749, to her second marriage. The misfortunes of this woman, in consequence of the treachery of Weingarten, and the aid she sent to me in my prison at Magdeburg, I have before related. ”

“ The Prussian army also demolished the fine forests.
After the war, the King assisted all the ruined families of Brandenburg; she alone obtained nothing, because she was my sister. She petitioned the King, who repined she must seek for redress from her dear brother. She died, in the flower of her age, a short time after she had married her second husband, the present Colonel Pape: her son, also, died last year. He was captain in the regiment of the Gotz dragoons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The poem did me honour, but entailed new persecutions; yet I never could repent: I have had the honour of presenting it to five reigning princes, by none of whom it has been burnt. The Empress alone was highly enraged. I had spoken as Nathan did to David, and the Jesuits now openly became my enemies.
The following trick was played me in 1768. A friend in Brussels was commissioned to receive my pay, from whom I learnt an interdict had been laid upon it by the court called Hofkriegsrath, in Vienna, in which I was condemned to pay seven hundred florins to one Bussy, with fourteen years’ interest. ”