We found the elector intense upon the strengthening of his army, but
the people in the greatest terror imaginable, every day expecting
Tilly with the German army, who by his cruelty at Magdeburg was become
so dreadful to the Protestants that they expected no mercy wherever he
came.

The emperor's power was made so formidable to all the Protestants,
particularly since the Diet at Ratisbon left them in a worse case
than it found them, that they had not only formed the Conclusions of
Leipsic, which all men looked on as the effect of desperation rather
than any probable means of their deliverance, but had privately
implored the protection and assistance of foreign powers, and
particularly the King of Sweden, from whom they had promises of a
speedy and powerful assistance. And truly if the Swede had not with
a very strong hand rescued them, all their Conclusions at Leipsic had
served but to hasten their ruin. I remember very well when I was in
the Imperial army they discoursed with such contempt of the forces
of the Protestant, that not only the Imperialists but the Protestants
themselves gave them up as lost. The emperor had not less than 200,000
men in several armies on foot, who most of them were on the back of
the Protestants in every corner. If Tilly did but write a threatening
letter to any city or prince of the union, they presently submitted,
renounced the Conclusions of Leipsic, and received Imperial garrisons,
as the cities of Ulm and Memmingen, the duchy of Wirtemberg, and
several others, and almost all Suaben.

Only the Duke of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse upheld the drooping
courage of the Protestants, and refused all terms of peace, slighted
all the threatenings of the Imperial generals, and the Duke of