with him his most precious effects, took refuge in Cologne, and abandoned his capital and territories to the rapacity of a tyrannical garrison.  But these preparations, which bespoke less of true courage than of weak and overweening confidence, did not prevent the Swedes from marching against Mentz and making serious preparations for an attack upon the city.  While one body of their troops poured into the Rheingau, routed the Spaniards who remained there, and levied contributions on the inhabitants, another laid the Roman Catholic towns in Westerwald and Wetterau under similar contributions.  The main army had encamped at Cassel, opposite Mentz; and Bernhard, Duke of Weimar, made himself master of the Maeusethurm and the Castle of Ehrenfels, on the other side of the Rhine.  Gustavus was now actively preparing to cross the river and to blockade the town on the land side, when the movements of Tilly in Franconia suddenly called him from the siege, and obtained for the Elector a short repose.

The danger of Nuremberg, which, during the absence of Gustavus Adolphus on the Rhine, Tilly had made a show of besieging, and, in the event of resistance, threatened with the cruel fate of Magdeburg, occasioned the king suddenly to retire from before Mentz.  Lest he should expose himself a second time to the reproaches of Germany, and the disgrace of abandoning a confederate city to a ferocious enemy, he hastened to its relief by forced marches.  On his arrival at Frankfort, however, he heard of its spirited resistance, and of the retreat of Tilly, and lost not a moment in prosecuting his designs against Mentz.  Failing in an attempt to cross the Rhine at Cassel, under the cannon of the besieged, he directed his march toward the Bergstrasse, with a view of approaching the town from an opposite quarter.  Here he quickly made himself master of all the places of importance, and at Stockstadt, between Gernsheim and Oppenheim, appeared a second time upon the banks of the Rhine.  The whole of the Bergstrasse was abandoned by the Spaniards, who endeavored obstinately to defend the other bank of the river.  For this purpose, they had burned or sunk all the vessels in the neighborhood, and arranged a formidable force on the banks, in case the king should attempt the passage at that place.

On this occasion, the king’s impetuosity exposed him to great danger of falling into the hands of the enemy.  In order to reconnoitre the opposite bank, he crossed the river in a small boat; he had scarcely landed when he was attacked by a party of Spanish horse, from whose hands he saved himself only by a precipitate retreat.  Having at last, with the assistance of the neighboring fishermen, succeeded in procuring a few transport, he dispatched two of them across the river, bearing Count Brahe and 300 Swedes.  Scarcely had this officer time to intrench himself on the opposite bank, when he was attacked by 14 squadrons of Spanish dragoons and cuirassiers.  Superior as the enemy