“Notwithstanding all this I had no intention of letting things go as they might. I strove to create an army, but the money was not to be had, as I have said. The acquisition of Prussia and the Cleves Rhineland imposed tremendous burdens, and besides this, the country was burdened with a load of debt. In a period of undisturbed peace the country might pay its obligations in twenty or thirty years, but in a time of the greatest exhaustion the greatest sacrifices had to be made. The provinces were so hard to please and so penurious and reluctant to make grants of money, that any chance of energetic action in my time was nipped in the bud. The country continually grew poorer from year to year. Perhaps another, standing in my relations to the provinces at the time when there was possible hope of relief, might have acted more resolutely than I did and have accomplished some results. I can believe it, and yet I could not do otherwise while I, as a follower of the Reformed religion, had almost the entire population against me. “But suppose the Protestant cause at the very beginning of the war had not induced the Emperor to renounce me? I sometimes ask myself this question, my son, and surely it should often occur to you. Think about it. The war began in Bohemia, then under the rule of my poor cousin Frederick. He belonged to the Reformed Church. What sympathy did we show for him? His overthrow was desired by the Lutherans and by nearly all the people of the country. Not a finger could be raised in his behalf without it being the signal for an uproar. “Then came our cousin Christian of Denmark with a strong army. My son, I knew him. I will not inveigh against him, far from it. But could I rely upon him? I could not and dared not. ‘If everything prospers,’ I said to myself, ‘our nearest inheritance, the dukedom of Pomerania, will be in danger of being swallowed up by Denmark. If everything goes badly, then Denmark will make a good peace and will be the bitter enemy of its own allies.’ Has not Denmark treated another country in that manner? The Dukes of Mecklenburg could sing you a song about broken faith. “Next appears Gustavus Adolphus. He was then fighting the Poles. You know about our rights in Prussia. We had obtained it as a fief from Poland. Great was our danger of losing it. When Gustavus Adolphus made peace with the Poles our circumstances were more favorable. But when he came to Germany at the head of an army as the Emperor’s enemy, I hesitated about joining him and had many serious scruples. His army, when he landed on the coast of Pomerania, numbered scarcely fifteen thousand men. I said to myself, ‘If my brother-in-law fails, then he must retreat, and the experiences of his brother-in-law Frederick and the Dukes of Mecklenburg will be repeated. The Emperor will outlaw him and divide up the country among his favorites.’