Church still suffers, it is not yet dead. You cannot
complain that you have gained nothing for the money you have spent and
the dangers you have undergone. You have brought copper out of your
country, but carried silver and gold back to it. Sweden, before this
war, was of wood thatched with straw, now it is of stone, and
splendidly adorned, and that you have obtained from the abducted
vessels of Egypt. This no one would grudge you if you would only thank
God yourselves for it. The Germans have indeed been excited to rise
against their Emperor, but they will take no one who is not of their
race and language. If the house of Austria has done evil, God will
truly search it out. As concerns the French, I know well that God will,
through them, punish Germany; for we have daily imitated in manners,
ceremonies, demeanour, and entertainments, in language and clothing,
together with music, this nation of apish behaviour and dress, and
frivolous manners. How can we expect better than to fall into their
hands? But the Frenchman will not therefore become our Emperor. To him
belongs the Lily, the Eagle to the Germans, the East to the Turks, and
the West to the Spaniards. None among them can reach higher.

"I must hope that it will not be taken amiss of me, that I have so
roundly described these transactions. But frankness suits a German
well. Would to God that any one had in good time thus placed the matter
before you. Now we can indeed complain, but help, none either will or
can give. God alone will and can help us; to Him we must pray that He
may at last have compassion on us, and turn the hearts of the high
potentates to love and long-wished-for peace."

Here ends the flying-sheet. The author, without putting sympathy with
the Imperialists in the foreground, evidently belongs less to the
Swedish party than we do now. Undoubtedly the Swedish soldiers and
officers had become merciless devils, like the Imperialists, and, like
them, they ruined the country and people. But it was not their
exorbitant demands which hindered the peace, but the injustice of the
Emperor, who still continued to raise the execrable pretension to
subdue the life and freedom of the nation to his interest. Had it been
possible for the Hapsburgers to assure freedom of faith, and the
independence of the Imperial tribunals, almost all the German princes
would have succumbed to him to drive away the foreigners. But the
struggle stood thus: either the nation must