e, nor suffer from his ambition,
expected the more from the magnanimity of their powerful ally, who
enriched them with the spoils of their enemies and protected them
against the oppression of their stronger neighbors. His strength
covered their weakness, and, inconsiderable in themselves, they
acquired weight and influence from their union with the Swedish hero.
This was the case with most of the free cities, and particularly with
the weaker Protestant states. It was these that introduced the king
into the heart of Germany; these covered his rear, supplied his troops
with necessaries, received them into their fortresses, while they
exposed their own lives in his battles. His prudent regard to their
national pride, his popular deportment, some brilliant acts of
justice, and his respect for the laws, were so many ties by which he
bound the German Protestants to his cause; while the crying atrocities
of the Imperialists, the Spaniards, and the troops of Lorraine,
powerfully contributed to set his own conduct and that of his army in
a favorable light.

If Gustavus Adolphus owed his success chiefly to his own genius, at
the same time, it must be owned, he was greatly favored by fortune and
by circumstances. Two great advantages gave him a decided superiority
over the enemy. While he removed the scene of war into the lands of
the League, drew their youth as recruits, enriched himself with booty,
and used the revenues of their fugitive princes as his own, he at once
took from the enemy the means of effectual resistance and maintained
an expensive war with little cost to himself. And, moreover, while his
opponents, the princes of the League, divided among themselves, and
governed by different and often conflicting interests, acted without
unanimity, and therefore without energy; while their generals were
deficient in authority, their troops in obedience, the operations of
their scattered armies without concert; while the general was
separated from the lawgiver and the statesman--these several functions
were united in Gustavus Adolphus, the only source from which authority
flowed, the sole object to which the eye of the warrior turned, the
soul of his party, the inventor as well as the executor of his plans.
In him, therefore, the Protestants had a centre of unity and harmony,
which was altogether wanting to their opponents. No wonder, then, if
favored by such advantages, at the head of such an army, with such a
genius to direc