of her father; the sister's unhappiness at being homeless when about to become a mother; all these circumstances combined to sadden the personal recollections of a time of almost unsurpassed national calamity. After the loss of the battle at Hastenbeck, the Recollections thus conclude this period.
"Nothing but distressing reports came from our army, and we were almost immediately in the power of the French troops,[1] each house being crammed with men. In that in which we were obliged to bewail in silence our cruel fate, no less than 16 privates were quartered, besides some officers who occupied the best apartments, and this lasted for about two years [a note of later date says "not so long"] before the town was liberated."
A gap occurs here, between the years 1757 and 1760, several pages having been torn out in both the original "Recollections" and the unfinished memoir commenced in 1840. In the former, a sentence beginning "the next time I saw him [Jacob] was when he came running to my mother with a letter, the
- ↑ "While the King of Prussia was warring in the south of Germany, an army of 60,000 Frenchmen under Marshal d'Estrées was directed upon Hanover, and occupied in the first place the Prussian dominions lying upon the Rhine. . . . . . d'Estrées had been to a certain degree successful in an action at Hastenbeck, on the Weser, and had forced Cumberland to retreat. That commander continued to yield ground incessantly, leaving Hanover and Magdeburg unprotected. . . . . He concluded with Richelieu the convention of Closter Severn, by which he engaged that. . . . the Hanoverian troops should continue inactive in their quarters near Stade. Hostilities were to be suspended, and no stipulation was made respecting the Electorate of Hanover. That country was accordingly plundered without mercy, and subjected to enormous contributions."—Annals of France, Encyclopædia Metropolitana.
