Here I was introduced to the young officers, and we all sat down at table; the colonel, civility itself, pressing my host to drink his own wine, and eat his own food and even rating the servants for not being sufficiently alert in their attendance on their own master.
“Well, my dear——, how have you sped with the Prince?”
“Why, colonel,” said my protector, in his calm way, “as well as I expected. I was of some service to him when he was here before, at the time he was taken so very ill, and he has not forgotten it; so I am not included amongst the unfortunate detainees for the payment of the fine. But that is not all; for I am allowed to go tomorrow to my father’s, and here is my passport.”
“Wonders will never cease,” said the colonel; “but who is that boy?”
“He is one of the crew of the English boats which tried to cut off Colonel——the other evening, near Cuxhaven. His life was saved by a very laughable circumstance certainly; merely, by the marshal’s sword, from resting on the stove, having become almost red-hot.” And here he detailed the whole transaction as it took place, which set the party a-laughing most heartily.
I will always bear witness to the extreme amenity with which I was now treated by the French officers. The evening passed over quickly. About eleven we retired to rest, my friend furnishing me with clothes, and warning me, that next morning he would call me at daylight, to proceed to his father’s country-seat, where he intimated that I must remain in the meantime.
Next morning I was roused accordingly, and a long, low, open carriage rattled up to the door, just before day—dawn. Presently the reveille was beaten, and answered by the different posts in the city, and on the ramparts.
We drove on, merely showing our passport to the sentries at the different bridges, until we reached the gate, where we had to pun up until the officer on duty appeared, and had scrupulously compared our personal appearance with the written description. All was found correct, and we drove on.
It surprised me very much, after having repeatedly heard of the great strength of Hamburgh, to look out on the large mound of green turf that constituted its chief defence.
It is all true that there was a deep ditch and glacis beyond; but there was no covered way, and both the scarp and counterscarp were simple earthen embankments; so that, had the ditch been filled up with fascines, there was no wall to face the attacking force after crossing it,—nothing but a green mound, precipitous enough, certainly, and crowned with a low parapet of masonry, and bristling with batteries about half way down, so that the muzzles of the guns were flush with the neighbouring country beyond the ditch. Still there was wanting, to my imagination, the strength of the high perpendicular wall, with its gaping embrasures, and frowning cannon. All this time it never occurred to me, that to breach such a defence as that we looked upon was impossible. You might have plumped your shot into it until you had converted it into an iron mine, but no chasm could have been forced in it by all the artillery in Europe; so battering in a breach was entirely out of the question, and this, in truth, constituted the great strength of the place.