I
behold injustice. Strong was my mind, that deeply it might meditate on
deep subjects; strong my memory, that these meditations I might retain;
strong my body, that proudly it might support all it has pleased Thee to
inflict.

Should I continue to exist, should identity go with me, and should I know
what I was then, when I was called Trenck; when that combination of
particles which Nature commanded should compose this body shall be
decomposed, scattered, or in other bodies united; when I have no muscles
to act, no brain to think, no retina on which pictures can mechanically
be painted, my eyes wasted, and no tongue remaining to pronounce the
Creator's name, should I still behold a Creator--then, oh then, will my
spirit mount, and indubitably associate with spirits of the just who
expectant wait for their golden harps and glorious crowns from the Most
High God. For human weaknesses, human failings, arising from our nature,
springing from our temperament, which the Creator has ordained, shall be
even thus, and not otherwise; for these have I suffered enough on earth.

Such is my confession of faith; in this have I lived, in this will I die.
The duties of a man and of a Christian I have fulfilled; nay, often have
exceeded, often have been too benevolent, too generous; perhaps also too
proud, too vain. I could not bend, although liable to be broken.

That I have not served the world, in acts and employments where best I
might, is perhaps my own fault: the fault of my manner, which is now too
radical to be corrected in this, my sixtieth year. Yes, I acknowledge my
failing, acknowledge it unblushingly; nay, glory in the pride of a noble
nature.

For myself, I ask nothing of those who have read my history; to them do I
commit my wife and children. My eldest son is a lieutenant in the Tuscan
regiment of cavalry, under General Lasey, and does honour to his father's
principles. The second serves his present Prussian Majesty, as ensign in
the Posadowsky dragoons, with equal promise. The third is still a child.
My daughters will make worthy men happy, for they have imbibed virtue and
gentleness with their mother's milk. Monarchs may hereafter remember
what I have suffered, what I have lost, and what is due to my ashes.

Here do I declare--I will seek no other revenge against my enemies than
that of despising their evil deeds. It is my wish, and shall be my
endeavour, to forget the past; and having committed no offenc