Here, however, is the Letter following on it two days after:--FRIEDRICH TO THE DUCHESS OF SACHSEN-GOTHA.
"LEIPZIG, 6th December, 1762.
"MADAM,--I should never have done, my adorable Duchess, if Irendered you account of all the impressions which the friendship you lavished on me has made on my heart. I could wish to answer it by entering into everything that can be agreeable to you [conduct of my Recruiters or Commissariat people first of all]. I take the liberty of forwarding the ANSWERS which have come in to the Two MEMOIRES you sent me. I am mortified, Madam, if I have not been able to fulfil completely your desires: but if you knew the situation I am in, I flatter myself you would have some consideration for it.
"I have found myself here [in Leipzig, as elsewhere] overwhelmed with business, and even to a degree I had not expected.
Meanwhile, if I ever can manage again to run over and pay you in person the homage of a heart which is more attached to you than that of your near relations, assuredly I will not neglect the first opportunity that shall present itself.
"Messieurs the English [Bute, Bedford and Company, with their Preliminaries signed, and all my Westphalian Provinces left in a condition we shall hear of] continue to betray. Poor M. Mitchell has had a stroke of apoplexy on hearing it. It is a hideous thing (CHOSE AFFREUSE); but I will speak of it no more. May you, Madam, enjoy all the prosperities that I wish for you, and not forget a Friend, who will be till his death, with sentiments of the highest esteem and the most perfect consideration,--Madam, your Highness's most faithful Cousin and Servant, FRIEDRICH."[<italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> xzvii. 201.]
For a fortnight past, Friedrich has had no doubt that general Peace is now actually at hand. November 25th, ten days before this visit, a Saxon Privy-Councillor, Baron von Fritsch, who, by Order from his Court, had privately been at Vienna on the errand, came privately next, with all speed, to Friedrich (Meissen, November 25th):
[Rodenbeck, ii. 193.] "Austria willing for Treaty; is your Majesty willing?" "Thrice-willing, I; my terms well known!" Friedrich would answer,--gladdest of mankind to see general Pacification coming to this vexed Earth again. The Dance of the Furies, waltzing itself off, HOME out of this upper sunlight: the mad Bellona steeds plunging down, down, towards their Abysses again, for a season!--This was a result which Friedrich had foreseen as nearly certain ever since the French and English signed their Preliminaries.
And there was only one thing which gave him anxiety; that of his Rhine Provinces and Strong Places, especially Wesel, which have been in French hands for six years past, ever since Spring, 1757.
Bute stipulates That those places and countries shall be evacuated by his Choiseul, as soon as weather and possibility permit;but Bute, astonishing to say, has not made the least stipulation as to whom they are to be delivered to,--allies or enemies, it is all one to Bute. Truly rather a shameful omission, Pitt might indignantly think,--and call the whole business steadily, as he persisted to do, "a shameful Peace," had there been no other article in it but this;--as Friedrich, with at least equal emphasis thought and felt. And, in fact, it had thrown him into very great embarrassment, on the first emergence of it.
For her Imperial Majesty began straightway to draw troops into those neighborhoods: "WE will take delivery, our Allies playing into our hand!" And Friedrich, who had no disposable troops, had to devise some rapid expedient; and did. Set his Free-Corps agents and recruiters in motion: "Enlist me those Light people of Duke Ferdinand's, who are all getting discharged; especially that BRITANNIC LEGION so called. All to be discharged; re-enlist them, you; Ferdinand will keep them till you do it. Be swift!" And it is done;--a small bit of actual enlistment among the many prospective that were going on, as we noticed above. Precise date of it not given; must have been soon after November 3d. There were from 5 to 6,000 of them; and it was promptly done. 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. To the French Garrisons the one thing needful was to get away in peace; Bauer with his brows gloomy is a dangerous neighbor. Perhaps the French Officers themselves rather favored Friedrich than his enemies. Enough, a private agreement, or mutual understanding on word of honor, was come to: and, very publicly, at length, on the 11th and 12th days of March, 1763 (Peace now settled everywhere), Wesel, in great gala, full of field-music, military salutations and mutual dining, saw the French all filing out, aud Bauer and people filing in, to the joy of that poor Town. [Preuss, ii. 342.]
Soon after which, painful to relate, such the inexorable pressure of finance, Bauer and people were all paid off, flung loose again:
ruthlessly paid off by a necessitous King! There were about 6,000of those poor fellows,--specimens of the bastard heroic, under difficulties, from every country in the world; Beckwith and I know not what other English specimens of the lawless heroic; who were all cashiered, officer and man, on getting to Berlin. As were the earlier Free-Corps, and indeed the subsequent, all and sundry, "except seven," whose names will not be interesting to you.
