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within his kingdom, if directed u in Muscovitos tantum ”
(25th November 1614).1 The winter in Livland and
Finland caused much suffering. Sad news reach the king
from the camp before Mitau, where death and disease had
been busy: Captain J. Craffert shot by the enemies,
Captain Seton wounded, Captain Robert Lamb sick,
Lieut. Rutherfurd sick. These three officers, the report
adds, have not received any pay during the last year
(30th July 1622). In July 1624 Gustavus Adolphus
enumerates only eight Scottish regiments complete and
ready to be shipped to Germany; one other regiment is
to go to Riga as garrison, but only u if the Scots have
sufficiently warm clothes to stand the cold.”2 Colonel J.
Duvall’s (Macdougal) regiments, which mustered 2351
strong in 1625, only numbered 1216 in 1626; 1052 had
died, 83 were sick.
In the meantime the resolution to come to the aid of
the Protestant princes of Germany gradually fixed itself
in the mind of Gustavus Adolphus. It is the fashion
nowadays to search for underlying motives and not to
rest satisfied with those that offer themselves naturally.
If our greatest heroes can be made less heroic by that
process, the discovery is immediately hailed as worthy of
an historian of the new school:—“ The world loves to
blacken what is bright and to drag into the dust what is
sublime,” in the words of the great German poet.
Fortunately we have not to decide here whether Gustavus
ultimately swerved aside from the straight course, or how
far he got entangled in the meshes of an ever-busy and
unscrupulous diplomacy. We can only say that a man
who gave the most solemn assurances as to his reasons for
1 Ramsay is called the brother of the “ vicecomes ” of Haddington.
Spens recommends him in a letter dated 25th November 1614.
2 Letter to Colonel Ramsay of 28th December 1625.
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