The persecutions in Germany having subsided many years, again broke out in 1630, on account of the war between the emperor and the king of Sweden, for the latter was a protestant prince, and consequently the protestants of Germany espoused his cause, which greatly exasperated the emperor against them. The imperialists having laid siege to the town of Passewalk, (which was defended by the Swedes) took it by storm, and committed the most horrid cruelties on the occasion. They pulled down the churches, burnt the houses, pillaged the properties, massacred the ministers, put the garrison to the sword, hanged the townsmen, ravished the women, smothered the children, &c. &c. A most bloody tragedy was transacted at Magdeburg, in the year 1631. The generals Tilly and Pappenheim, having taken that protestant city by storm, upwards of 20,000 persons, without distinction of rank, sex, or age, were slain during the carnage, and 6,000 were drowned in attempting to escape over the river Elbe. After this fury had subsided, the remaining inhabitants were stripped naked, severely scourged, had their ears cropped, and being yoked together like oxen were turned adrift. The town of Hoxter was taken by the popish army, and all the inhabitants as well as the garrison, were put to the sword; when the houses being set on fire, the bodies were consumed in the flames. At Griphenburg, when the imperial forces prevailed, they shut up the senators in the senate-chamber, and surrounding it by lighted straw suffocated them. Franhendal surrendered upon articles of capitulation, yet the inhabitants were as cruelly used as at other places, and at Heidelburg, many were shut up in prison and starved. The cruelties used by the imperial troops, under count Tilly in Saxony, are thus enumerated.