ight be still
more frightful; and that, on the whole, their one course was that of
withdrawing to Spandau, and leaving poor Berlin to capitulate as
it could. Capitulation starts again with Tottleben that same night;
Gotzkowsky, a magnanimous Citizen and Merchant-Prince, stepping forth
with beautiful courageous furtherances of every kind; and it ends better
than one could have hoped: Ransom--not of Four Millions pure specie
(which would have been 600,000 pounds): 'Gracious Sir, it is beyond our
utmost possibility!'--but of One and a Half Million in modern Ephraim
coin; with a 30,000 pounds of douceur-money to the common man, Russian
and Austrian, for his forbearance;--'for the rest, we are at your
Excellency's mercy, in a manner!' And so,

"THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9th, about 7 in the morning, Tottleben marches in;
exactly six days since he first came circling to the Halle Gate and
began bombarding. Tottleben, knowing Friedrich, knew the value of
despatch; and, they say, was privately no enemy to Berlin, remembering
old grateful days here. For Tottleben has himself been in difficulties;
indeed, was never long out of them, during the long stormy life he
had. Not a Russian at all; though I suppose Father of the now Russian
Tottlebens whom one hears of: this one was a poor Saxon Gentleman, Page
once to poor old drunken Weissenfels, whom, for a certain fair soul's
sake, we sigh to remember! Weissenfels dying, Tottleben became a soldier
of Polish Majesty's;--acceptable soldier, but disagreed with Bruhl, for
which nobody will like him worse. Disagreed with Bruhl; went into the
Dutch service (may have been in Fontenoy for what I know); was there
till Aix-la-Chapelle, till after Aix-la-Chapelle; kindly treated, and
promoted in the Dutch Army; but with outlooks, I can fancy, rather
dull. Outlooks probably dull in such an element,--when, being a
handsome fellow in epaulettes (Major-General, in fact, though poor), he,
diligently endeavoring, caught the eye of a Dutch West-Indian Heiress;
soft creature with no end of money; whom he privately wedded, and ran
away with. To the horror of her appointed Dutch Lover and Friends; who
prosecuted the poor Major-General with the utmost rigor, not of Law
only. And were like to be the ruin of his fair West-Indian and him; when
Friedrich, about 1754 as I guess, gave him shelter in Berlin; finding
no insupportable objection in what the man had done. The rather, as
his Heiress and he were rich. Tottleben