religion, were
laid aside, where might ruled supreme with iron sceptre. Under the
shelter of anarchy and impunity, every vice flourished, and men became
as wild as the country. No station was too dignified for outrage, no
property too holy for rapine and avarice. In a word, the soldier
reigned supreme; and that most brutal of despots often made his own
officer feel his power. The leader of an army was a far more important
person within any country where he appeared, than its lawful governor,
who was frequently obliged to fly before him into his own castles for
safety. Germany swarmed with these petty tyrants, and the country
suffered equally from its enemies and its protectors. These wounds
rankled the deeper, when the unhappy victims recollected that Germany
was sacrificed to the ambition of foreign powers, who, for their own
ends, prolonged the miseries of war. Germany bled under the scourge, to
extend the conquests and influence of Sweden; and the torch of discord
was kept alive within the Empire, that the services of Richelieu might
be rendered indispensable in France.

But, in truth, it was not merely interested voices which opposed a
peace; and if both Sweden and the German states were anxious, from
corrupt motives, to prolong the conflict, they were seconded in their
views by sound policy. After the defeat of Nordlingen, an equitable
peace was not to be expected from the Emperor; and, this being the case,
was it not too great a sacrifice, after seventeen years of war, with all
its miseries, to abandon the contest, not only without advantage, but
even with loss? What would avail so much bloodshed, if all was to
remain as it had been; if their rights and pretensions were neither
larger nor safer; if all that had been won with so much difficulty was
to be surrendered for a peace at any cost? Would it not be better to
endure, for two or three years more, the burdens they had borne so long,
and to reap at last some recompense for twenty years of suffering?
Neither was it doubtful, that peace might at last be obtained on
favourable terms, if only the Swedes and the German Protestants should
continue united in the cabinet and in the field, and pursued their
common interests with a reciprocal sympathy and zeal. Their divisions
alone, had rendered the enemy formidable, and protracted the acquisition
of a lasting and general peace. And this great evil the Elector of
Saxony had brought upon the Protestant cause by concludi