Orders were speedily given for a levy of troops, both in infantry and cavalry, to be called Hanseatic volunteers.  A man named Hanft, who had formerly been a butcher, raised at his own expense a company of foot and one of lancers, of which he took the command.  This undertaking, which cost him 130,000 francs, may afford some idea of the attachment of the people of Hamburg to the French Government!  But money, as well as men, was wanting, and a heavy contribution was imposed to defray the expense of enrolling a number of workmen out of employment and idlers, of various kinds.  Voluntary donations were solicited, and enthusiasm was so general that even servant-maids gave their rings.  The sums thus collected were paid into the chest of Tettenborn’s staff, and became a prey to dishonest appropriation.  With respect to this money a Sieur Oswald was accused of not having acted with the scrupulous delicacy which Madame de Stael attributes to his namesake in her romance of Corinne.

Between 8000 and 10,000 men were levied in the Hanse Towns and their environs, the population of which had been so greatly reduced within two years.  These undisciplined troops, who had been for the most part levied from the lowest classes of society, committed so many outrages that they soon obtained the surname of the Cossacks of the Elbe; and certainly they well deserved it.

Such was the hatred which the French Government had inspired in Hamburg that the occupation of Tettenborn was looked upon as a deliverance.  On the colonel’s departure the Senate, anxious to give high a testimonial of gratitude, presented him with the freedom of the city, accompanied by 5000 gold fredericks (105,000 francs), with which he was doubtless much more gratified than with the honour of the citizenship.

The restored Senate of Hamburg did not long survive.  The people of the Hanse Towns learned, with no small alarm, that the Emperor was making immense preparations to fall upon Germany, where his lieutenants could not fail to take cruel revenge on those who had disavowed his authority.  Before he quitted Paris on the 15th of April Napoleon had recalled under the banners of the army 180,000 men, exclusive of the guards of honour, and it was evident that with such a force he might venture on a great game, and probably win it.  Yet the month of April passed away without the occurrence of any event important to the Hanse Towns, the inhabitants of which vacillated between hope and fear.  Attacks daily took place between parties of Russian and French troops on the territory between Lunenburg and Bremen.  In one of these encounters General Morand was mortally wounded, and was conveyed to Lunenburg.  His brother having been taken prisoner in the same engagement, Tettenborn, into whose hands he had fallen, gave him leave on parole to visit the General; but he arrived in Lunenburg only in time to see him die.