guard.
I should not have cared so much if the Austrians had taken it, but
that that wretched Confederate army, even though they had ten
Austrian battalions with them, should have snatched it from me, is
heart breaking. However, they have but the capital, and it will
take them some time before they can do more."

Fink, who had been sent off, with six or seven thousand men, to aid
Wunsch to relieve Dresden, on the day before the news of its fall
came, did much. He and his fellow commander failed in their first
object; but they were not idle, for they recaptured Leipzig and
other towns that the Confederate army had taken, and snatched all
Saxony, save Dresden, from its clutches.

Schmettau was relieved of his command, and never again employed. He
had certainly failed in firmness, but Frederick's own letter to
him, which had never been cancelled, afforded him the strongest
ground of believing that there was no chance of his being relieved.
His record up to this time had been excellent, and he was esteemed
as being one of Frederick's best generals. Frederick's harshness to
him was, at the time, considered to have been excessive. The king,
however, always expected from his generals as much as he himself
would have accomplished, in the same circumstances, and failure to
obtain success was always punished. After the dismissal of his
brother and heir from his command, the king was not likely to
forgive failure in others.

The time was a most anxious one for him. He had nothing to do but
to wait, and for once he was well content to do so; for every day
brought winter nearer, every week would render the victualling of
the hostile armies more difficult, and delay was therefore all in
his favour. Messenger after messenger was sent to Prince Henry,
urging him to make every possible effort to make his way through or
round the cordon of Austrian and Russian posts, eighty miles long
and fifty or sixty broad, that intervened between them.

In the evenings the king was accustomed to put aside resolutely his
military troubles, and passed his time chiefly in the society of
the British ambassador, Earl Marischal Keith, and the young
Scottish aide-de-camp, with occasionally one or two Prussian
officers. One evening, when Fergus had been sent with an order to a
portion of the force lying some miles away, Sir John Mitchell said
to the king:

"I have been talking with the Earl Marischal over young Drummond's
affairs, your majesty. As you