Fate, rather than reason, certainly blinded the rest of the generals against such arguments as these.  Duke Bernhard and almost all the generals were for fighting, alleging the affront it would be to the Swedish reputation to see their friends in the town lost before their faces.

Gustavus Horn stood stiff to his cautious advice, and was against it, and I thought the Baron D’Offkirk treated him a little indecently; for, being very warm in the matter, he told them, that if Gustavus Adolphus had been governed by such cowardly counsel, he had never been conqueror of half Germany in two years.  “No,” replied old General Horn, very smartly, “but he had been now alive to have testified for me, that I was never taken by him for a coward:  and yet,” says he, “the king was never for a victory with a hazard, when he could have it without.”

I was asked my opinion, which I would have declined, being in no commission; but they pressed me to speak.  I told them I was for staying at least till the Rhinegrave came up, who, at least, might, if expresses were sent to hasten him, be up with us in twenty-four hours.  But Offkirk could not hold his passion, and had not he been overruled he would have almost quarrelled with Marshal Horn.  Upon which the old general, not to foment him, with a great deal of mildness stood up, and spoke thus—­

“Come, Offkirk,” says he, “I’ll submit my opinion to you, and the majority of our fellow-soldiers.  We will fight, but, upon my word, we shall have our hands full.”

The resolution thus taken, they attacked the Imperial army.  I must confess the counsels of this day seemed as confused as the resolutions of the night.

Duke Bernhard was to lead the van of the left wing, and to post himself upon a hill which was on the enemy’s right without their entrenchments, so that, having secured that post, they might level their cannon upon the foot, who stood behind the lines, and relieved the town at pleasure.  He marched accordingly by break of day, and falling with great fury upon eight regiments of foot, which were posted at the foot of the hill, he presently routed them, and made himself master of the post.  Flushed with this success, he never regards his own concerted measures of stopping there and possessing what he had got, but pushes on and falls in with the main body of the enemy’s army.

While this was doing, Gustavus Horn attacks another post on the hill, where the Spaniards had posted and lodged themselves behind some works they had cast up on the side of the hill.  Here they defended themselves with extreme obstinacy for five hours, and at last obliged the Swedes to give it over with loss.  This extraordinary gallantry of the Spaniards was the saving of the Imperial army; for Duke Bernhard having all this while resisted the frequent charges of the Imperialists, and borne the weight of two-thirds of their army, was not able to stand any longer, but sending one messenger on the neck of another to Gustavus