at
my return. I told him the reason of my stay at Leipsic, and how I had
left that place and my comrade, before he was cured of his wounds, to
wait on him according to his letters. He told me the king had spoken
some things very obliging about me, and he believed would offer me
some command in the army, if I thought well to accept of it. I told
him I had promised my father not to take service in an army without
his leave, and yet if his Majesty should offer it, I neither knew
how to resist it, nor had I an inclination to anything more than the
service, and such a leader, though I had much rather have served as a
volunteer at my own charge (which, as he knew, was the custom of our
English gentlemen) than in any command. He replied, "Do as you think
fit; but some gentlemen would give 20,000 crowns to stand so fair for
advancement as you do."

The town of Koningshoven capitulated that day, and Sir John was
ordered to treat with the citizens, so I had no further discourse with
him then; and the town being taken, the army immediately advanced down
the river Maine, for the king had his eye upon Frankfort and Mentz,
two great cities, both which he soon became master of, chiefly by
the prodigious expedition of his march; for within a month after the
battle, he was in the lower parts of the empire, and had passed from
the Elbe to the Rhine, an incredible conquest, had taken all the
strong cities, the bishoprics of Bamberg, of Wurtzburg, and almost all
the circle of Franconia, with part of Schawberland--a conquest large
enough to be seven years a-making by the common course of arms.

Business going on thus, the king had not leisure to think of small
matters, and I being not thoroughly resolved in my mind, did not press
Sir John to introduce me. I had wrote to my father with an account
of my reception in the army, the civilities of Sir John Hepburn, the
particulars of the battle, and had indeed pressed him to give me
leave to serve the King of Sweden, to which particular I waited for
an answer, but the following occasion determined me before an answer
could possibly reach me.

The king was before the strong castle of Marienburg, which commands
the city of Wurtzburg. He had taken the city, but the garrison and
richer part of the burghers were retired into the castle, and trusting
to the strength of the place, which was thought impregnable, they bade
the Swedes do their worst; 'twas well provided with all things, and a
strong g