‘It was but a very few years ago that this territory wore the most pleasing appearance; the country was cultivated, the peasants looked cheerful, and the towns abounded with riches and festivity. What an alteration at present from such a charming scene! I am not expert at description, nor can my fancy add any horrors to the picture; but, sure, even conquerors themselves would weep at the hideous prospects now before me. The whole country, my dear country, lies one frightful waste, presenting only objects to excite terror, pity, and despair. The business of the husbandman and the shepherd are quite discontinued. The husbandman and the shepherd are become soldiers themselves, and help to ravage the soil they formerly cultivated. The towns are inhabited only by old men, old women, and children; perhaps here and there a warrior, by wounds or loss of limbs rendered unfit for service, left at his door; his little children hang round him, ask a history of every wound, and grow themselves soldiers before they find strength for the field. But this were nothing, did we not feel the alternate insolence of either army, as it happens to advance or retreat in pursuing the operations of the campaign. It is impossible to express the confusion even those who call themselves our friends create; even those from whom we might expect redress oppress with new calamities. From your justice, therefore, it is we hope relief. To you even women and children may complain, whose humanity stoops to the meanest petition, and whose power is capable of repressing the greatest injustice.’ The very reputation of having written this letter won for its supposed author the crown of a Queen-consort. The members of the privy council, to whom the royal intention was first communicated, thought it almost a misalliance for a King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland to wed with a lady of such poor estate as the younger daughter of a very poor German prince. Had they been ethnologists, they might have augured well of a union between Saxon King and Sclavonic lady. The Sclave blood runs pure in Mecklenburgh.