increasing distress broke up all discipline and order in the Swedish
camp; and the German regiments, in particular, distinguished
themselves for the ravages they practised indiscriminately on friend
and foe. The weak hand of a single individual could not check
excesses, encouraged by the silence, if not the actual example, of the
inferior officers. These shameful breaches of discipline, on the
maintenance of which he had hitherto justly prided himself, severely
pained the king; and the vehemence with which he reproached the German
officers for their negligence, bespoke the liveliness of his emotion.
"It is you yourselves, Germans," said he, "that rob your native
country, and ruin your own confederates in the faith. As God is my
judge, I abhor you, I loathe you; my heart sinks within me whenever I
look upon you. Ye break my orders; ye are the cause that the world
curses me, that the tears of poverty follow me, that complaints ring
in my ear--'The King, our friend, does us more harm than even our
worst enemies.' On your account I have stripped my own kingdom of its
treasures, and spent upon you more than 40 tons of gold;[61] while
from your German empire I have not received the least aid. I gave you
a share of all that God had given to me; and had ye regarded my orders
I would have gladly shared with you all my future acquisitions. Your
want of discipline convinces me of your evil intentions, whatever
cause I might otherwise have to applaud your bravery."

Nuremberg had exerted itself, almost beyond its power, to subsist for
eleven weeks the vast crowd which was compressed within its
boundaries; but its means were at length exhausted, and the king's
more numerous party was obliged to determine on a retreat. By the
casualties of war and sickness, Nuremberg had lost more than 10,000 of
its inhabitants, and Gustavus Adolphus nearly 20,000 of his soldiers.
The fields around the city were trampled down, the villages were in
ashes, the plundered peasantry lay faint and dying on the highways;
foul odors infected the air, and bad food, the exhalations from so
dense a population, and so many putrifying carcasses, together with
the heat of the dog-days, produced a desolating pestilence which raged
among men and beasts, and long after the retreat of both armies,
continued to load the country with misery and distress. Affected by
the general distress, and despairing of conquering the steady
determination of the Duke of Friedland, th