have demanded, and in fact
received large sums of money from many Diets; I say nothing of what you
have extorted from your enemies in their own countries. How has this
money been spent? In superfluous pomp and luxury which is hateful to
every one. We have observed this silently, and made a virtue of
necessity. The children of Israel, when they had intercourse with the
daughters of their enemies, and afterwards boasted of their victory,
and tormented their brethren of Judah with the hardest yoke of bondage,
were both times severely punished by God. And shall it fare better with
you who have exercised more than Turkish cruelty in many evangelical
places? The corn from the monastery of Magdeburg, the Dukedom of
Brunswick and other places, has been thrashed out and carried off in
heaps from the country, sold at a very high price, and the money spent
for your own use, nothing given to the poor soldiers; the country
people, harassed to death, are dying of hunger; and many fortresses,
from avarice, either not supplied with provisions, or not amply
provided with powder and shot, and, in short, general mismanagement.
Now we see ourselves everywhere abandoned by fortune, so that at last
we discover there is no money in hand, and no people to be got, as
those who were available have run away, and the remainder will no
longer be restrained by martial law. Dear friends, think you of the
saying of Boccalini: 'When the prince leads the life of Lucifer, what
wonder that the subjects become devils!'

"Our politicians know well that the Electors hold kingly rank in the
Empire. But who has exalted himself above them with kingly
magnificence, a great retinue and boundless expense, is it not your
chief (Oxenstiern)? Do you think that this has not been complained of
at every court? His Kingly Majesty of Christian memory never did the
like. From these and countless other reasons the Princes, states, and
cities have become first secretly, and then publicly offended with you;
to this may be added a conduct towards the established inhabitants
which they cannot well bear, when foreigners place themselves higher
than their native princes.

"You say that electoral Saxony should have made peace by force of arms.
Let us leave that uncertain. It is known to every one that certain
persons have helped to shove the cart into the mud, and afterwards left
it there. If electoral Saxony has been wrong, you with your procedures
are not less guilty. In short