“I now had money to put my designs into execution. The first plan was to undermine the foundation of my prison, and to do this it was necessary that I should be free from chains. Gefhardt conveyed to me a pair of fine files. The cap or staple of the foot-ring was made so wide that I could draw it forward a quarter of an inch; therefore I filed the inside of the iron which passed through it. The more I cut out, the further I could draw the staple, till at last the whole inside iron through which the chain passed was entirely cut through, the cap remaining on the outside entire. Thus my feet were free from the wall and it was impossible, with the most careful examination, to find the cut, as only the outside could be searched. By squeezing my hands every day, I made them more pliant and at last got them through the irons. I then filed round the hinge, made myself a screw-driver with a twelve-inch nail drawn from the floor, and turned the screws as I pleased, so that no marks could be seen when I was visited. The belt round my body did not at all hinder me. I filed a piece out of a link of the chain which fastened the bar to my arms, and the link next to it I filed so small as to be able to get it through the opening. I then rubbed some wet ammunition bread upon the iron to give it the proper colour, stopped the open link with dough, and let it dry over night by the heat of my warm body, then put spittle upon it, to give it the burnish of iron; by this invention, I was sure that without striking upon each with a hammer it would be impossible to find out that which was broken. “It was now in my power to get loose when I chose. The window never was examined; I took out the hooks with which it was fastened in the wall, but I put them properly in again every morning and made all as it should be with some lime. I procured wire from my friend and endeavoured to make a new grating. This I likewise completed; therefore I took the old one from the window and fixed mine in its place; this opened a free communication with the outside, and by this means I obtained light and fire materials. That my light might not be seen, I hung my bed cover before the window, and thus I could work as it was convenient.” Trenck now proceeded to penetrate the floor, which was of oaken planks in three layers, altogether nine inches thick. He used the bar which had fastened his arms and was now removable, and which he had ground on the gravestone till it formed an excellent chisel to serve in digging into the boards. These he patiently cut through and pulled up, reaching the fine sand below the foundation on which the Star Fort was built. The wood splinters were hidden, the sand run over in long narrow linen bags provided by Gefhardt, which could be dragged through the window. By the same friendly help he obtained a number of useful implements; a knife, a bayonet, a brace of pocket pistols, and even powder and shot, all of which he concealed under the floor.