The sack of Magdeburg was an event of uncommon atrocity, and abhorred as such even in that age. But from the sort of clemency experienced by this clergyman, who was plundered of his goods after having nearly lost his life, and yet seems to feel much gratitude to his protector, we may imagine the treatment which the peasantry and citizens received from the rude soldiery of that time. These men, both officers and soldiers, were in a great degree mercenaries, who resorted to the wars expressly to mend their fortunes, and were not likely to exercise the presumed rights of the victor with much moderation. Few of their generals had much sympathy with the sufferings of non–combatants, of peaceable countrymen, and wealthy burghers; and those who might have been inclined to enforce discipline and soften the evils of war, were shackled by the deficiency of financial resources, and the consequent irregularity in issuing pay and other requisites to their armies. “There are things, my lord, in the service of that great prince (Gustavus Adolphus) that cannot but go against the stomach of any cavalier of honour. In especial, albeit the pay be none of the most superabundant, being only about sixty rix–dollars a month to a captain; yet the invincible Gustavus never paid above one–third of that sum, which was distributed monthly by way of loan, although when justly considered it was in fact a borrowing by that great monarch of the additional two–thirds, which were due to the soldier.” “But were not these arrears,” said Lord Monteith, “paid to the soldiery at some stated period?” “My lord,” said Dalgetty, “I take it upon my conscience that at no period, and by no possible process, could one creutzer of them ever be recovered. I myself never saw twenty dollars of my own all the time I served the invincible Gustavus, unless it was from the chance of a storm or victory, or the fetching in of some town or doorp, when a cavalier of fortune who knows the usage of wars, seldom faileth to make some small profit.” “I begin rather to wonder, sir,” said Lord Monteith, “that you should have continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you should have ultimately withdrawn from it.”