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.
