A few days after the battle of Sorau, the usual camp postman brought me a letter from my cousin Trenck, the colonel of pandours, antedated at Effek four months, of which the following is a copy:-"Your letter, of the 12th of February, from Berlin, informs me you desire to have some Hungarian horses. On these you would come and attack me and my pandours. I saw with pleasure, during the last campaign, that the Prussian Trenck was a good soldier; and that Imight give you some proofs of my attachment, I then returned the horses which my men had taken. If, however, you wish to have Hungarian horses, you must take mine in like manner from me in the field of battle: or, should you so think fit, come and join one who will receive you with open arms, like his friend and son, and who will procure you every advantage you can desire," &c.
At first I was terrified at reading this letter, yet could not help smiling. Cornet Wagenitz, now general in chief of the Hesse Cassel forces, and Lieutenant Grotthausen, both now alive, and then present, were my camp comrades. I gave them the letter to read, and they laughed at its contents. It was determined to show it to our superior officer, Jaschinsky, on a promise of secrecy, and it was accordingly shown him within an hour after it was received.
The reader will be so kind as to recollect that, as I have before said, it was this Colonel Jaschinsky who on the 12th of February, the same year, at Berlin, prevailed on me to write to the Austrian Trenck, my cousin; that he received the letter open, and undertook to send it according to its address; also that, in this letter, I in jest had asked him to send me some Hungarian horses, and, should they come, had promised one to Jaschinsky. He read the letter with an air of some surprise; we laughed, and, it being whispered through the army that, in consequence of our late victory, detached corps would be sent into Hungary, Jaschinsky said, "We shall now go and take Hungarian horses for ourselves." Here the conversation ended, and I, little suspecting future consequences, returned to my tent.
I must here remark the following observations:-1st. I had not observed the date of the letter brought by the postman, which, as I have said, was antedated four months: this, however, the colonel did not fail to remark.
2ndly. The probability is that this was a net, spread for me by this false and wicked man. The return of my horses, during the preceding campaign, had been the subject of much conversation. It is possible he had the King's orders to watch me; but more probably he only prevailed on me to write that he might entrap me by a fictitious answer. Certain it is, my cousin Trenck, at Vienna, affirmed to his death he never received any letter from me, consequently never could send any answer. I must therefore conclude this letter was forged.
Jaschinsky was at this time one of the King's favourites; his spy over the army; a tale-bearer; an inventor of wicked lies and calumnies. Some years after the event of which I am now speaking, the King was obliged to break and banish him the country.
He was then also the paramour of the beauteous Madame Brossart, wife of the Saxon resident at Berlin, and there can be little doubt but that this false letter was, by her means, conveyed to some Saxon or Austrian post-office, and thence, according to its address, sent to me. He had daily opportunities of infusing suspicions into the King's mind concerning me; and, unknown to me, of pursuing his diabolical plan.
I must likewise add he was four hundred ducats indebted to me. At that time I had always a plentiful supply of money. This booty became his own when I, unexamined, was arrested, and thrown into prison. In like manner he seized on the greatest part of my camp equipage.
Further, we had quarrelled during our first campaign, because he had beaten one of my servants; we even were proceeding to fight with pistols, had not Colonel Winterfield interfered, and amicably ended our quarrel. The Lithuanian is, by nature, obstinate and revengeful; and, from that day, I have reason to believe he sought my destruction.
God only knows what were the means he took to excite the King's suspicious; for it is incredible that Frederic, considering his WELL-KNOWN PROFESSIONS of public justice, should treat me in the manner he did, without a hearing, without examination, and without a court-martial. This to me has ever remained a mystery, which the King alone was able to explain; he afterwards was convinced I was innocent: but my sufferings had been too cruel, and the miseries he had inflicted too horrible, for me ever to hope for compensation.
In an affair of this nature, which will soon he known to all Europe, as it long has been in Prussia, the weakest is always guilty. Ihave been made a terrible example to this our age, how true that maxim is in despotic States.
A man of my rank, having once unjustly suffered, and not having the power of making his sufferings known, must ever be highly rewarded or still more unjustly punished. My name and injuries will ever stain the annals of Frederic THE GREAT; even those who read this book will perhaps suppose that I, from political motives of hope or fear, have sometimes concealed truth by endeavouring to palliate his conduct.
