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250
The Poles supported by
the emperor.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
Armistice and negotiations
for peace.
[1612—
Many of his chief officers were wounded or slain,
three standards taken, and had it not been evening,
we would have driven the enemy out of his camp.
The day after we presented ourselves with horse
and foot before the enemy’s camp, and caused our
guns to play upon it, so that he seemed to be
making all ready for flight ;
but so it pleased not
God, since in tiie very outset, at a pass whither we
wished to drive the enemy’s musketeers, we were
stricken by a musket shot in the right shoulder at
the neck, whereby our design was broken off and
the victory prevented. Yet we thank God who
liath so disposed this hurt, that we hope soon again
to be set to rights. It seemeth as if the emperor’s
victories in Germany inspirit our foes but too
much »." The latter remark is confii-med by Axel
Oxenstierna. " The enemy," he writes to the coun-
cil,
" hath already received a reinforcement from
the emperor, who hath sent the duke of Holsteiu
with his regiment to aid the king of Poland. Con-
sequently scarce any thing has been done in the
treaty, although the Dutch commissioners busy
themselves in it. With the elector of Branden-
burg matters are ripening 2, yet I hope for the
best. The king is now so far recovered that he
can sit on liorseback. The Polish commissaries
will make no other proposals than that the king-
dom of Sweden should be restored to their king
and his posterity, Livonia and Prussia given back,
and all the charges of the war be defrayed. Of
these we will not hear. King Sigismund and prince
Uladislaus are now come to the Polish camp ^."
During the king’s stay at Dii’schau, where he re-
mained until the 26th September, an English am-
bassador delivered to him the order of the garter.
On the lOlh October, he took Wormditt, after a
short investment*. Guttstadt also fell into the
hands of the Swedes. After this, the king departed
for Sweden, leaving the command in Prussia to the
cliancellor, who was thus obliged to resume an
office still more onerous in a financial than a mili-
tary respect ^. Stiernskold, who had been appointed
’
To the palsgrave, Dirschau, Aug. 14, 1627. Reg. Adler
Salvius writes two days afterwards to tiie council, "The
bullet wherewith his majesty, God mend it, was wounded,
entered just above the breast-bone, two inches from the
throat towards the right shoulder, and lodgeth now in the
back about the spine, just at the upper corner of the right
shoulder-blade. For there appears a little tumour, as if the
quarter of a bullet were lying under the skin. So because it
presseth there upon the nerve, by which the animal power
giveth the right arm all its motion and sense, therefore the
two smalles-t fingers of his majesty’s right hand are some-
what benumbed. His majesty can write a fine style; but as
the name Gustavus Adolphus must be written with a bend
of the whole arm, he cannot do this, by reason of the bullet,
without great pain. Else is his majesty, thanks be to God,
hale and sound. We hope that the ball may be extracted,
through putrefaction or otherwise. Thanks be to the Lord
God, who hath not allowed his majesty to take harm of his
life. God send his majesty resolution to keep far from such
small occasions, since this happened when his majesty was
sitting on horseback, and recognoscing one of the enemy’s
passes with a perspective glass."
2 Lit.
" It stands aboil." T.
s The high chancellor to Gabriel Oxenstierna and the
council; Dirschau, Aug. l.’i and 28, 1627. Reg. In the
former letter he thus describes the position :
" Between
the two leaguers was about half a mile of plain ground,
without wood or ditches, though somewhat sloping, on the
one side high kuoUs, on the other the Dantzic level, and a
after the liigh-admiral Gyllenhielm to the com-
mand of the fleet, and was charged to conduct it
home, was hotly attacked on the 18th November,
by ten ships, Dantzickers and Poles. One of his
captains, to avoid a surrender, blew up his vessel ;
Stiernskold intended to do the same, when he was
struck by a shot. His ship and body fell into the
enemy’s hands. On the side of Livonia there had
been mostly cessation of arms, with or without a
formal convention. A truce was also made durmg
the winter in Prussia.
The interval was marked as usual by no less un-
resting activity than the campaign. In Gustavus
Adolphus this feature is at all times and in all
directions alike wonderful ’",
and would be still
more conspicuous in him personally, had we not
treated the internal government separately for
method’s sake. We add here but one remark,
which a perusal of the records of this time im-
presses. The king is the centre and vital force of
the government to such a degree, that compara-
tive inactivity ensues when he is not himself
present, especially when he cannot leave it to his
indefatigable chancellor to fill his place. We
should not be apt to imagine that during a time of
exertions so great, the business of the adminis-
tration at home was so small that, as the protocols
show, the council was often occupied with nothing
else than the reading of the Dutch Gazettes ^. If
this went too far, a letter from the king sounding
the alarm in the ears of the slumberers aroused
them from their repose.
In the negotiations with Poland, still continued,
the elector of Brandenburg had ofl’ered his me-
diation. " This we cannot well suffer," the king
declares to the chaucelloi",
"
although willing he
may have the honour in ceremonials. He pro-
poses that he should get all Prussia from Poland,
refunding us the expenses of the war with the
town of Dantzic ;
whereto the high-flying Poles
will hardly consent’." These relations became
water-course or ravine ran under the Polish camp, so that no
one could go out or in without filing through the pass."
’^
On this occasion the first trial was made of the leather
cannon, which Wurmbrandt, a German free-baron in the
service of Gustavus Adolphus, is said to have invented.
They consisted of a thin copper barrel, strongly bound with
rope and covered with leather, could be carried conve-
niently between two horsemen, and could be fired several
times before they required cleansing.
5 In the following spring the king wrote to the chancellor,
" We have made (and send you herewith) a calculation
of the sum which we can furnish to you monthly at highest,
and you must as far as possible regulate your outlay accord-
ingly. Where it will not sutTice, we must pay in one place,
and contract debts in the other." March 31, 1628. Reg.
By a letter of July 10, 1628, the king summons Louis de
Geer to Prussia, to assist him in his financial management.
s It extended even to the religious afliairs of his Russian
subjects. By a letter to the lieutenant of Kexholm, Henry
Magnuson, in February, 1627, the king orders that the in-
habitants should choose among themselves two men, whom
he would send to Constantinople, that the one might be con-
secrated bishop by the patriarch, in order to be able after-
wards to ordain priests. April 7, 1628, a Russian deacon is
pardoned on condition of publishing a printed Russian
Catechism.
’
Such, namely, as existed in that day, consisting partly
of manuscript relations, partly of loose printed leaves which
now and then appeared. Hallenberg, v. 365.
" To the chancellor, Feb. 6, 1628. Reg.
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