Wesel

“ I said, reddening. "Wesel is not far from Emmerich by the road. Should we not have an excellent chance of reaching it before our pursuers come up?"
"You might reach it," Master Lindstrom said gravely. "Though, again, you might not."
"And, Wesel once reached," I persisted, "there is less fear of violence being attempted there than in Santon. It is a larger town."
"True," he admitted. "But it is just this. Will you be able to reach Wesel? It is the getting there--that is the difficulty; the getting there before you are caught."
"If we have a good start, why should we not?" ”

“ The city of Wesel is distinctly seen at twenty miles distance, and Xanten at twenty-six miles distance. By conjecture, it may be 200 feet above the level of the river Lippe.
What is called the Camp is an oblong square, bounded on the South and East sides, and on part of the North, by cultivated grounds: on the rest of the North side is a slight appearance of a Vallum, and it is the only one discernible. To the Westward, no separation can be discerned from the rest of the level heath. ”

“ After having left these two Places, there is no considerable Town till we come to Wesel, which stands upon the Rhine, and is a part of the Duchy of Cleves. 'Tis now one of the strongest Places in Europe ”

“ About three o'clock we reached the little town dominated, as we saw from afar, by an ancient minster, and, preferring not to enter it, landed at the steps of an inn a quarter of a mile short of the gates, and marking a point where we might take the road to Wesel, or, crossing the river, the road to Santon. Master Lindstrom seemed well known, but there were difficulties about the horses. The German landlord listened to his story with apparent sympathy--but no horses! ”

“ At Wesel he spent the rest of his life, which he devoted entirely to the study of history. In 1717 he was offered a post in the supreme court at Berlin, but refused on the ground of his insufficient knowledge of law ”

“ The French, commanded by the Marquis de Castries, advanced to raise the siege of Wesel, and encamped half a league behind the convent of Campen, with Frischer's corps posted within the convent. The Inniskilling dragoons passed the Rhine by a bridge two miles below Wesel, and having joined the Hereditary Prince, advanced at ten o'clock, on the evening of the 15th of October, to surprise the enemy's camp. It being necessary to dislodge the troops in the convent, the firing alarmed the French army, which instantly formed for battle. ”

“ Divided into various regiments; chief command of them given to a Colonel Bauer, under whom a Colonel Beckwith whose name we have heard: these, to the surprise of Imperial Majesty, and alarm of a pacific Versailles, suddenly appeared in the Cleve Countries, handy for Wesel, for Geldern; in such posts, and in such force and condition as intimated, "It shall be we, under favor, that take delivery!" Snatch Wesel from them, some night, sword in hand: that had been Bauer's notion; but nothing of that kind was found necessary; mere demonstration proved sufficient. ”

“ Our affairs are not looking better, nor is the requisition of Wesel of so great importance as to justify our involving Flanders in a new and more atrocious war than that which has so lately been suspended. ”

“ In 1643 he was recalled and returned with great riches to Holland, where he was made general-in-chief of cavalry and governor of the fortress of Wesel. The Elector of Brandenburg made him afterward grand master of the Teutonic order and governor of Cleves, where he established magnificent gardens. ”

“ By these vigorous and cruel, but perhaps necessary, measures the brigands were at last extirpated, and honest people began to sleep in their beds.
On the 18th August Maurice took up a strong position at Bislich, not far from Wesel, where the River Lippe empties itself into the Rhine. Mondragon, with his army strengthened by reinforcements from garrisons in Gelderland, and by four hundred men brought by Frederic, van den Berg from Grol, had advanced to a place called Walston in den Ham, in the neighbourhood of Wesel. The Lippe flowed between the two hostile forces. ”

“ In Summer, 1755, after the West-Country Reviews, and a short Journey into Ost-Friesland, whence to Wesel on the Rhine,—whither Friedrich had invited D'Alembert to meet him, whom he finds "UN TRES-AIMABLE GARCON," likely for the task in hand,—Friedrich decided on a run into Holland: strictly INCOGNITO, accompanied only by Balbi (Engineer, a Genoese) and one page. Bade his D'Alembert adieu; and left Wesel thitherward June 19th. [Rodenbeck, i. 287.] At Amsterdam he viewed the Bramkamp Picture-Gallery, the illustrious Country-house of Jew Pinto at TULPENBURG (Tulip-borough!) ... ”

“ Wesel is a strong Town; but for obvious reasons one nearer Berlin, farther from the frontier, would be preferable. Towards Berlin, however, there is no route all on Prussian ground: from these divided Cleve Countries we have to cross a bit of Hanover, a bit of Hessen-Cassel: suppose these Serene Highnesses were to interfere? Not likely they will interfere, answer ancient military men, of due grimness; at any rate, we can go a roundabout road, and they need not know! That is the method settled on; neighborhood of Berlin, clearly somewhere there, must be the place? ”

“ From Hamm, next morning (June 6th) , they get to Wesel by 11 A.M. (only sixty miles) ; Wesel all in gala, as Lippstadt was, or still more than Lippstadt; and for four days farther, they continue there very busy. As Roden is our chief errand, let us attend to Roden.
WESEL, MONDAY, JUNE 6th, "Dinner being done," says an authentic Third-Party, [Rodenbeck, ii. 217.] "the King had Kammer-Director Meyen summoned to him with his Register-Books, Schedules and Reports [what they call ETATS] ; and was but indifferently contented with Meyen and them." ”

“ After enduring great hardships they reached Wesel, where on their arrival they could find no shelter, and suffering from cold and hunger they were about to pass the nicrht in the church porch, when they casually discovered Francis de Rivers, minister of the refugee Walloons there, by whose kind aid they were comfortably settled in a hired cottage. ”

“ I see plainly ye know not how to go a-mousing: one must first explore"; and therewith drew his sword and hung his hat on the point, and pushing it through the hole again and again, "So," says he, "We shall find out if the good man be at home or not." This ended, the huntsman of Wesel was the first to creep through. And with that Jump-i'-th'-field had him by the arm which held his sword, and asked, would he cry for quarter? ”

“ Erfurt was in his day the headquarters of a humanism which was both devout and opposed to the realist metaphysic and the Thomist theology which prevailed in the universities of Cologne and Heidelberg. Wesel was one of the professors at Erfurt between 1445 and 1456, and was vice-rector in 1458. In 1460 he was appointed preacher at Mainz, in 1462 at Worms, and in 1479, when an old and worn-out man, he was brought before the Dominican inquisitor Gerhard Elten of Cologne. ”

“ King Friedrich did not quite keep his day at Wesel; indeed this 24th was not the first day, but the last of several, he had appointed to himself for finis to that Journey in the Cleve Countries; Journey rather complex to arrange. He has several businesses ahead in those parts; and, as usual, will group them with good judgment, and thrift of time. Not inspections merely, but amusements, meetings with friends, especially French friends: the question is, how to group them with skill, so that the necessary elements may converge at the right moment, and one shot kill three or four birds. ”

“ From Utrecht I went to Wesel, and from thence thro' Westphalia to the Duchy of Magdebourg. The City of this Name was formerly an Archbishopric, erected by the Emperor Otho the Great in favor of the Vandals newly converted, but by the Peace of Westphalia the whole Country was seculariz'd with the Title of a Duchy, in favor of the Brandenburg Family, in Exchange for that part of Pomerania which was yielded to the Swedes. There are few Towns in Germany that have suffer'd so many Revolutions as Magdebourg. ”

“ The king did as requested, and saw at the foot of the hill the whole parish of Weselheim congregated together—men, women, and children. They all stood with their faces turned towards the palace. Many knelt upon the ground. The king was visibly affected at the sight.
“The whole village unite with us in asking your majesty to give us back our dear, good, pious Jesuit father,” said the burgomaster. ”

“ And so My Lords the States, the Elector of Brandenburg, and others interested are cheated and made fools of. And we are as much troubled by these tricks as by armed force. Yes, more; for we know that great enterprises are preparing this year against Germany and ourselves, that all Neuburg's troops have been disbanded and re-enlisted under the Spanish commanders, and that forces are levying not only in Italy and Spain, but in Germany, Lorraine, Luxemburg, and Upper Burgundy, and that Wesel has been stuffed full of gunpowder and other munitions, and very strongly fortified. ”

“ Traheron in sondrie readings before his contremen in Germaine,’ Wesel? 8vo; other editions, London, 1573, 8vo, and London, 1577, 8vo. Two other works followed in 1558, an ‘Answere made by Bar. Traheron to a privie papiste which crepte in to the english congregation of christian exiles ...,’ Wesel? 8vo (Lambeth Library; cf. Maitland, Essays on the Reformation, pp. 75–85) , and ‘A Warning to England to repente and to turn to god from idolatrie and poperie by the terrible exemple of Calece given the 7 of March Anno C. 1558 by Benthalmai Outis [i.e. Bartholomew Traheron] , ...,’ Wesel? 8vo. ”

“ For now, you may take the whole space between Weser and Vistula (north of the mountains) , as wild barbarian (Saxon or Goth) ; but, piercing the source of the Franks at Waldeck, you will find them gradually, but swiftly, filling all the space between Weser and the mouths of Rhine, passing from mountain foam into calmer diffusion over the Netherland, where their straying forest and pastoral life has at last to embank itself into muddy agriculture, and in bleak-flying sea mist, forget the sunshine on its basalt crags. ”

“ No one can claim to know Wessex until some hours of quiet have been spent within the walls of the ancient capital, and no one can know England until the spirit of the English countryside, the secluded and primary village of the byways with its mothering church, rich with the best of the past, has been studied, known and loved. This is the essential England for which the yeoman of England, whose memorials will be seen in almost every Wessex hamlet, have given their lives. ”

“ The faithful energetic followers of Wesley were already numbered among the pioneers. They were brave, resolute men, who could shoulder the rifle and lead to battle, swing the glittering ax in the forest, or point the way to heaven. Theirs was the religion for the time. Freed from the restraints and conventionalities of civilized life, it was from the heart. Its representatives were men whose words were plain to the uneducated backwoodsman, and who never set forth truth beyond their comprehension.
For a time after the expedition of Colonel Clark comparative peace reigned along the frontier. ”

“ Wessel halted them with the threat that every man Jack in the fleet should be made to walk the plank, saved the ships, and took their admiral prisoner to his chief. When others slept, Wessel was abroad with his swift sailer. If wind and sea went against him, he knew how to turn his mishap to account. Driven in under the hostile shore once, he took the opportunity, as was his wont, to get the lay of the land and of the enemy. He learned quickly that in the harbor of Wesensö, not far away, a Swedish cutter was lying with a Danish prize. She carried eight guns and had a crew of thirty-six men ”

“ All this storied beauty is without the scope of this book but within the greater Wessex that came to the King who is the really representative hero of his countrymen. The genius of the West Saxon became for a time, and to a certain extent through force of circumstance, a jealous and rather narrow insularity, without wide views and generous ideals, but to this people may be ascribed some of the higher traits that go to redeem our race. ”

“ Across the Weser all was beauty and repose: green meadows covered with peacefully grazing cattle; clumps of trees dotting the valleys and the banks of the stream; hills in the hazy distance, and the picturesque ruins of what had once been the residence of the steward of the Petershagen domains (the Koppel) in the immediate foreground. The air was balmy; the thin, white clouds floating in the sky threw light shadows on the beautiful German earth ”

“ We crossed a railroad, a double-tracked one with rock ballast, which my map showed to be a line which runs to Bremen, and a little later we came to the Weser. This river brought up pleasant recollections of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who drowned the rats in the Weser by the magic of his pipe. But there was no romance in it as we came upon it in a gray and misty dawn. It was only another barrier to our freedom.
There were bunches of willows on the water's edge, and some fine beeches, whose leaves were slightly tinged with yellow, farther back. ”