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 Iappear, 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 Iknow 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 Idie. 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, Iacknowledge 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 Ihave 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 Iever 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 Iappeared 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.
