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the permission to return home.”1 On the other hand,
here also proofs were given that personal bravery was
not extinct in the Swedish ranks. Prominent above the
rest was Count Fred Charles Sinclair,1 2 who assisted in
the successful siege of Peenemiinde, in 1758, and was
five times wounded in the skirmish at Lockenitz.
Hamilton’s position was one beset with difficulties.
He was no Fabius Cunctator, but a man of action, and to
see his movements thwarted by home authorities, who
of course knew better, must have been particularly galling
to him. After the Swedes under Ehrensvärd had taken
Peenemiinde, he was for blowing the fortifications up as
they could be of no use to them. But the Government
at home would not admit the necessity of it. The
consequence being that, out of an army already small, a garrison
for the place had to be furnished. And when he was
eager to engage the Prussians, even after they had beaten
the Russians at Zorndorf, especially M since his soldiers
wished for nothing better than to come to blows with
the enemy,” he was again delayed and thwarted by the
miserable condition of the train : of one hundred horses
ninety were useless, the waggons were continually out
of gear, the pontoons had to be left behind because the
wheels and axles were rotten, and the baking
establishment for the army was altogether insufficient. Again
his great plan to join hands with the Austrians in Saxony
was ruined by the great Frederick’s victory over General
Daun, by which he was driven back towards the frontier
of Bohemia. Thus Hamilton found himself and his little
army in a hostile country without the support of allies,
and cut off from his own, especially from Stralsund. For
1 Sveriges Historia, v. 157.
2 He had previously served with distinction in the French army.
Born 1732, died 1776, at Carlskrona.
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