. 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;
--[A ton of gold in Sweden amounts to 100,000 rix dollars.]--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 lay in ashes, the plundered
peasantry lay faint and dying on the highways; foul odours 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, the king broke up his camp on the 8th September, leaving in
Nuremberg a sufficient garrison. He advanced in full order of battle
before the enemy, who remained motionless, and did not attempt in the
least to harass his retreat. His route lay by the Aisch and Windsheim
towards Neustadt, where he halted five days to refresh his troops, and
also to be near to Nuremberg, in case the enemy should make an attempt
upon the town. But Wallenstein, as exhausted as himself, had only
awaited the retreat of the Swedes to commence his own. Five days
afterwards, he broke up his camp at Zirndorf, and set it on fire. A
hundred columns of smoke, rising from all the burning villages in the
neighbourhood, announced his retreat, and showed the city the fate it
had escaped. His