guidance of them was wonderful. 'They had no
field-commissariat,' says one Observer, 'no field-bakery, no magazines,
no pontoons, no light troops; and,' among the Higher Officers, 'no
subordination.' [Archenholtz, i. 158.] Were, in short, commanded by
nobody in particular. Commanded by Senator Committee-men in Stockholm;
and, on the field, by Generals anxious to avoid responsibility; who,
instead of acting, held continual Councils of War. The history of their
Campaigns, year after year, is, in summary, this:--

"Late in the season (always late, War-Offices at home, and Captaincies
here, being in such a state), they emerged from Stralsund, an
impregnable place of their own,--where the men, I observe, have had
to live on dried fishy substances, instead of natural boiled oatmeal;
[Montalembert, i. 32-37, 335. 394, &c. (that of the demand for Neise
PORRIDGE, which interested me, I cannot find again).] and have died
extensively in consequence:--they march from Stralsund, a forty or
thirty miles, till they reach the Swedish-Pommern boundary, Peene River;
a muddy sullen stream, flowing through quagmire meadows, which are miles
broad, on each shore. River unfordable everywhere; only to be crossed
in four or five places, where paved causeways are. The Swedes, with
deliberation, cross Peene; after some time, capture the bits of
Redoubts, and the one or two poor Prussian Towns upon it; Anklam
Redoubt, PEENE-MUNDE (Peene-mouth) Redoubt; and rove forward into
Prussian Pommern, or over into the Uckermark, for fifty, for a hundred
miles; exacting contributions; foraging what they can; making the poor
country-people very miserable, and themselves not happy,--their soldiers
'growing yearly more plunderous,' says Archenholtz, 'till at length they
got, though much shyer of murder, to resemble Cossacks,' in regard to
other pleas of the crown.

"There is generally some fractional regiment or two of Prussian force,
left under some select General Manteuffel, Colonel Belling; who hangs
diligently on the skirts of them, exploding by all opportunities. There
have been Country Militias voluntarily got on foot, for the occasion;
five or six small regiments of them; officered by Prussian Veterans of
the Squirearchy in those parts; who do excellent service. The Governor
of Stettin, Bevern, our old Silesian friend, strikes out now and then,
always vigilant, prompt and effective, on a chance offering. This,
through Summer, is what opposition can be m