e neighborhood;--shoot
far ahead into Prussian territory: Platen, Hordt with his Free-Corps,
are beautifully sharp upon them; but many beatings avail little. 'They
burn the town of Driesen [Hordt having been hard upon them there]; town
of Ratzebuhr, and nineteen villages around;'--burn poor old women and
men, one poor old clergyman especially, wind him well in straw-roping,
then set fire, and leave him;--and are worse than fiends or hyenas. Not
to be checked by Platen's best diligence; not, in the end, by Platen and
Dohna together. Dohna (18th June) has risen from Stralsund in check
of them,--leaving the unfortunate Swedes to come out [shrunk to about
7,000, so unsalutary their stockfish diet there],--these hyena-Cossacks
being the far more pressing thing. Dohna is diligent, gives them many
slaps and checks; Dohna cannot cut the tap-root of them in two; that is
to say, fight Fermor and beat him: other effectual check there can be
none. [_Helden-Geschichte,_ v. 149 et seq.; Tempelhof, ii. 135 &c.]

"TSCHOPAU (in Saxony), 21st JUNE. Prince Henri has quitted Bamberg
Country; and is home again, carefully posted, at Tschopau and up and
down, on the southern side of Saxony; with his eye well on the Passes
of the Metal Mountains,--where now, in the turn things at Olmutz have
taken, his clear fate is to be invaded, NOT to invade. The Reichs Army,
fairly afoot in the Circle of Saatz, counts itself 35,000; add 15,000
Austrians of a solid quality, there is a Reichs Army of 50,000 in all,
this Year. And will certainly invade Saxony,--though it is in no hurry;
does not stir till August come, and will find Prince Henri elaborately
on his guard, and little to be made of him, though he is as one to two.

"CREFELD (Rhine Country), 23d JUNE. Duke Ferdinand, after skilful
shoving and advancing, some forty or fifty miles, on his new or French
side of the Rhine, finds the French drawn up at Crefeld (June
23d); 47,000 of them VERSUS 33,000: in altogether intricate ground;
canal-ditches, osier-thickets, farm-villages, peat-bogs. Ground
defensible against the world, had the 47,000 had a Captain; but
reasonably safe to attack, with nothing but a Clermont acting that
character. Ferdinand, I can perceive, knew his Clermont; and took
liberties with him. Divided himself into three attacks: one in front;
one on Clermont's right flank, both of which cannonaded, as if in
earnest, but did not prevent Clermont going to dinner. One attack on
front, one