d by the blood of my forefathers were
confiscated; and thus was a youth, of one of the noblest families in the
land, whose heart was all zeal for the service of his King and country,
and who was among those most capable to render them service, banished by
his unjust and misled King, and treated like the worst of miscreants,
malefactors, and traitors.

I wrote to the King, and sent him a true state of my case; sent
indubitable proofs of my innocence, and supplicated justice, but received
no answer.

In this the monarch may be justified, at least in my apprehension. A
wicked man had maliciously and falsely accused me; Colonel Jaschinsky had
made him suspect me for a traitor, and it was impossible he should read
my heart. The first act of injustice had been hastily committed; I had
been condemned unheard, unjudged; and the injustice that had been done me
was known too late; Frederic the Great found he was not infallible.
Pardon I would not ask, for I had committed no offence; and the King
would not probably own, by a reverse of conduct, he had been guilty of
injustice. My resolution increased his obstinacy: but, in the discussion
of the cause, our power was very unequal.

The monarch once really loved me; he meant my punishment should only be
temporary, and as a trial of my fidelity. That I had been condemned to
no more than a year's imprisonment had never been told me, and was a fact
I did not learn till long after.

Major Doo, who, as I have said, was the creature of Fouquet, a mean and
covetous man, knowing I had money, had always acted the part of a
protector as he pretended to me, and continually told me I was condemned
for life. He perpetually turned the conversation on the great credit of
his general with the King, and his own great credit with the general. For
the present of a horse, on which I rode to Glatz, he gave me freedom of
walking about the fortress; and for another, worth a hundred ducats, I
rescued Ensign Reitz from death, who had been betrayed when endeavouring
to effect our escape. I have been assured that on that very day on which
I snatched his sword from his side, desperately passed through the
garrison, and leaped the walls of the rampart, he was expressly come to
tell me, after some prefatory threats, that by his general's
intercession, my punishment was only to be a year's imprisonment, and
that consequently I should be released in a few days.

How vile were means like these to wrest m