e, neither
will I solicit monarchs for posts of honour; as I have ever lived a free
man, a free man will I die.

I conclude this part of my history on the evening preceding my journey to
Berlin. God grant I may encounter no new afflictions, to be inserted in
the remainder of this history.

This journey I prepared to undertake, but my ever-envious fate threw me
on the bed of sickness, insomuch that small hope remained that I ever
should again behold the country of my forefathers. I seemed following
the Great Frederic to the mansions of the dead; then should I never have
concluded the history of my life, or obtained the victory by which I am
now crowned.

A variety of obstacles being overcome, I found it necessary to make a
journey into Hungary, which was one of the most pleasant of my whole
life.

I have no words to express my ardent wishes for the welfare of a nation
where I met with so many proofs of friendship. Wherever I appeared I was
welcomed with that love and enthusiasm which only await the fathers of
their country. The valour of my cousin Trenck, who died ingloriously in
the Spielberg, the loss of my great Hungarian estates, the fame of my
writings, and the cruelty of my sufferings, had gone before me. The
officers of the army, the nobles of the land, alike testified the warmth
of their esteem.

Such is the reward of the upright; such too are the proofs that this
nation knows the just value of fortitude and virtue. Have I not reason
to publish my gratitude, and to recommend my children to those who, when
I am no more, shall dare uprightly to determine concerning the rights
which have unjustly been snatched from me in Hungary?

Not a man in Hungary but will proclaim I have been unjustly dealt by; yet
I have good reason to suspect I never shall find redress. Sentence had
been already given; judges, more honest, cannot, without difficulty,
reverse old decrees; and the present possessors of my estates are too
powerful, too intimate with the governors of the earth, for me to hope I
shall hereafter be more happy. God knows my heart; I wish the present
possessors may render services to the state equal to those rendered by
the family of the Trencks.

There is little probability I shall ever behold my noble friends in
Hungary more. Here I bid them adieu, promising them to pass the
remainder of any life so as still to merit the approbation of a people
with whose ashes I would most willingly have mingled