nt
soldiers. This it was impossible to perform among a bloodthirsty people
without being guilty himself of cruel acts. The necessity of the
excesses he committed, when the army was in want of forage, was so
evident that he received permission of Prince Charles, though for this he
was afterwards prosecuted; while the plunders of Brenklau, Mentzel, and
the whole army, were never once questioned. That Trenck advanced more
than 100,000 florins to his regiment, I clearly proved, in 1750. This
proof came too late. He was dead. The evidence I brought occasioned a
quartermaster, Frederici, to be imprisoned. He confessed the
embezzlement of this money, yet found so many friends among the enemies
of Trenck that he refunded nothing, but was released in the year 1754,
when I was thrown into the dungeon of Magdeburg.

My cousin, who had lived like a miser, did not, at his death, leave half
of the property he had inherited from his father, and which legally
descended to me; it was torn from me by violence.

In 1744 he obliged the French to retire beyond the Rhine, seized on a
fort near Phillipsburg, swam across the river with 70 pandours, attacked
the fortifications, slew the Marquis de Crevecoeur, with his own hand
manned the post, traversed the other arm of the Rhine, surprised two
Bavarian regiments of cavalry, and by this daring manoeuvre, secured the
passage of the Rhine to the whole army, which, but for him, would not
have been effected. Wherever he came, he laid the country under
contribution, and, at this moment of triumph for the Austrian arms,
opened himself a passage to enter the territories of France. In
September, 1744, war having broken out between Austria and Prussia, the
imperial army was obliged to return, abandon Alsatia, and hasten to the
succour of the Austrian states. Trenck succeeded in covering its
retreat. The history of Maria Theresa declares the damages he did the
enemy, during this campaign. He gave proof of his capacity at Tabor and
Budweis. With 300 men he attacked one of these towns, which was defended
by the two Prussian regiments of Walrabe and Kreutz. He found the water
in the moats was deeper than his spies had declared, and the scaling
ladders too short: most of those led to the attack were killed, or
drowned in the water, and the small number that crossed the moats were
made prisoners. The garrison of Tabor, of Budweis, and of the castle of
Frauenburg, were, nevertheless, induced to