he best and worthiest Mother
in this world. I am so struck down with all these blows from within and
without, that I feel myself in a sort of Stupefaction.

"The French have just laid hold of Friesland [seized Embden, July 3d];
are about to pass the Weser: they have instigated the Swedes to declare
War against me; the Swedes are sending 17,000 men [rather more if
anything; but they proved beautifully ineffectual] into Pommern,"--will
be burdensome to Stralsund and the poor country people mainly; having
no Captain over them but a hydra-headed National Palaver at home, and
a Long-pole with Cocked-hat on it here at hand. "The Russians are
besieging Memel [have taken it, ten days ago]: Lehwald has them on his
front and in his rear. The Troops of the Reich," from your Plains
of Furth yonder, "are also about to march. All this will force me to
evacuate Bohemia, so soon as that crowd of Enemies gets into motion.

"I am firmly resolved on the extremest efforts to save my Country. We
shall see (QUITTE A VOIR) if Fortune will take a new thought, or if she
will entirely turn her back upon me. Happy the moment when I took to
training myself in philosophy! There is nothing else that can sustain
the soul in a situation like mine. I spread out to you, dear Sister,
the detail of my sorrows: if these things regarded only myself, I could
stand it with composure; but I am bound Guardian of the safety and
happiness of a People which has been put under my charge. There lies the
sting of it: and I shall have to reproach myself with every fault, if,
by delay or by over-haste, I occasion the smallest accident; all the
more as, at present, any fault may be capital.

"What a business! Here is the liberty of Germany, and that Protestant
Cause for which so much blood has been shed; here are those Two great
Interests again at stake; and the pinch of this huge game is such, that
an unlucky quarter of an hour may establish over Germany the tyrannous
domination of the House of Austria forever! I am in the case of a
traveller who sees himself surrounded and ready to be assassinated by a
troop of cut-throats, who intend to share his spoils. Since the League
of Cambrai [1508-1510, with a Pope in it and a Kaiser and Most Christian
King, iniquitously sworn against poor Venice;--to no purpose, as happily
appears], there is no example of such a Conspiracy as that infamous
Triumvirate [Austria, France, Russia] now forms against me. Was it ever
seen before,