a. The proposal I rejected with
disdain, and rather determined to seek my fortune in the East Indies than
continue in a country where, under the best of Queens, the most loyal of
subjects, and first of soldiers, might be rendered miserable by
interested, angry, and corrupt courtiers. Certain it is, as I now can
prove, though the bitterest of my enemies, and whose conduct towards me
merited my whole resentment, he was the best soldier in the Austrian
army, had been liberal of his blood and fortune in the Imperial service,
and would still so have continued had not his wealth, and his contempt
for Weber and Lowenwalde put him in the power of those wretches who were
the avowed enemies of courage and patriotism, and who only could maintain
their authority, and sate their thirst of gain, by the base and wicked
arts of courts. Had my cousin shared the plunder of the war among these
men, he had not fallen the martyr of their intrigues, and died in the
Spielberg. His accusers were, generally, unprincipled men of ruined
fortunes, and so insufficient were their accusations that a useful member
of society ought not, for any or all of them, to have suffered an hour's
imprisonment. Being fully informed, both of all the circumstances of the
prosecution and the inmost secrets of his heart, justice requires I
should thus publicly declare this truth and vindicate his memory. While
living he was my bitterest enemy, and even though dead, was the cause of
all my future sufferings; therefore the account I shall give of him will
certainly be the less liable to suspicion, where I shall show that he, as
well as myself, deserved better of Austria.

I was resolved forever to forsake Vienna. The friends of Trenck all
became distrustful of him because of his ingratitude to me. Prince
Charles still endeavoured to persuade me to a reconciliation, and gave me
a letter of recommendation to General Brown, who then commanded the
Imperial army in Italy. But more anxious of going to India, I left
Vienna in August, 1748, desirous of owing no obligation to that city or
its inhabitants, and went for Holland. Meantime, the enemies of Trenck
found no one to oppose their iniquitous proceedings, and obtained a
sentence of imprisonment, in the Spielberg, where he too late repented
having betrayed his faithful adviser, and prudent friend. I pitied him,
and his judges certainly deserved the punishment they inflicted: yet to
his last moments he showed his h