Suddenly was he plunged from the height to which industry, talents, and virtue had raised him, to the depth of poverty. At length, at the beginning of the seven years' war, one of the King of Prussia's subjects represented him to the Austrian court as a dangerous correspondent of Marshal Schwerin's. Then at sixty years of age, my father was seized at Jagerndorf, and imprisoned in the fortress of Gratz, in Styria. He had an allowance just sufficient to keep him alive in his dungeon; but, for the space of seven years, never beheld the sun rise or set. I was a boy when this happened, however, I was not heard. I only received some pecuniary relief from the Empress, with permission to shed my blood in her defence.
In this situation we first vowed eternal friendship; but from this Isoon was snatched by my father's enemies. What the Empress had bestowed, her ministers tore from me. I was seized at midnight, and was brought, in company with two other officers, to the fortress of Gratz. Here I remained immured six years. My true name was concealed, and another given me.
"Peace being restored, Trenck, I, and my father were released; but the mode of our release was very different. The first obtained his freedom at the intercession of Theresa, she, too, afforded him a provision. We, on the contrary, according to the amnesty, stipulated in the treaty of peace, were led from our dungeons as state prisoners, without inquiry concerning the verity or falsehood of our crimes. Extreme poverty, wretchedness, and misery, were our reward for the sufferings we had endured.
"Not only was my health destroyed, but my jawbone was lost, eaten away by the scurvy. I laid before Frederic the Great the proofs of the calamities I had undergone, and the dismal state to which I was reduced, by his foe, and for his sake; entreated bread to preserve me and my father from starving, but his ear was deaf to my prayer, his heart insensible to my sighs.
"Providence, however, raised me up a saviour,--Count Gellhorn was the man. After the taking of Breslau, he had been also sent a state prisoner to Gratz. During his imprisonment, he had heard the report of my sufferings and my innocence. No sooner did he learn I was released, than he became my benefactor, my friend, and restored me to the converse of men, to which I had so long been dead.
"I defer the continuance of my narrative to the next post. The remembrance of past woes inflict new ones. I am eternally."LETTER II.
"February 24, 1787.
"Dear Friend,--After an interval of silence, remembering my promise, I again continue my story.
"My personal sufferings have not been less than those of Trenck.
His, I am acquainted with only from the inaccurate relations I have heard: my own I have felt. A colonel in the Prussian service, whose name was Hallasch, was four years my companion; he was insane, and believed himself the Christ that was to appear at the millennium: he persecuted me with his reveries, which I was obliged to listen to, and approve, or suffer violence from one stronger than myself.
"The society of men or books, everything that could console or amuse, were forbidden me; and I considered it as wonderful that Idid not myself grow mad, in the company of this madman. Four hard winters I existed without feeling the feeble emanation of a winter sun, much less the warmth of fire. The madman felt more pity than my keeper, and lent me his cloak to cover my body, though the other denied me a truss of straw, notwithstanding I had lost the use of my hands and feet. The place where we were confined was called a chamber; it rather resembled the temple of Cloacina. The noxious damps and vapours so poisoned my blood that an unskilful surgeon, who tortured me during nine months, with insult as a Prussian traitor, and state criminal, I lost the greatest part of my jaw.
