se my
bodyguard from three hundred to six hundred men during these perilous
times of warfare, did you not refuse to grant this subsidy to your
rightful lord?"

"Your Electoral Highness, that was the result of the extremest affliction
and necessity, because we were really in no condition to pay the money.
For whence shall we procure it if poverty, want, and affliction are the
only things that yet belong to us? Just on that very account, to bring
this matter to the hearing of your Electoral Highness, have we been
deputed as delegates by the corporations of Berlin and Cologne to wait
upon your Electoral Grace, that we might represent our distresses to our
Sovereign, and entreat him to forgive us if we are forced to decline
contributions of money, for we are unable to raise them. Since this
fierce, horrible war has raged in Germany between the Imperialists and
Swedes, between the Catholics and Protestants, the cities of Berlin and
Cologne have suffered pitiably, and have been levied upon and plundered,
sometimes by the Swedes and sometimes by the Imperialists. Before the
peace of Prague the Imperialists visited us quite often with cruel
robberies and levies, but since the peace of Prague,[4] it has been yet
worse, and what we have suffered and endured these past two years is
enough to melt a stone, how much more the heart of a pitiful Sovereign.
Last year first came the Swedish colonel Haderslof into our town, and
levied upon us for sixteen thousand dollars; and hardly had he left when
Field-Marshal Wrangel came and demanded twenty thousand dollars besides.
Since, however, we were not in a position to pay that sum, he contented
himself with a thousand dollars in money, but we had to furnish him in
addition with fifteen thousand yards of cloth, three thousand pairs of
socks, and as many pairs of shoes, and besides that he had all the cattle
driven out of the city. And yet again, a few weeks ago came the Swedish
colonel Haderslof, and demanded of us a contribution of eleven thousand
dollars. It was impossible, however. We could pay no more, since we had no
more gold, and were obliged to receive it almost as a favor that he
promised in the compact to accept silver in payment in lieu of gold, and
to estimate a half ounce of gilded silver at twelve groschen and a half
ounce of white silver at nine groschen. We could do nothing but submit,
and each householder and citizen bore all the silverware he possessed to
the guildhall, whe