Page:Life and surprising adventures of Frederick Baron Trenck.pdf/24

 of Fate, and had suffered more than human Nature is, in general, thought capable of bearingFor the rest, we make no doubt but Trenck evidenced the same heroic fortitude in his last moments which characterized the whole tenor of his life.

We shall finish the present biographical sketch with quoting the Baron's address to his readers with which he concludes the fourth and last volume of his life. It is strikingly pathetic, and might add ominous; for it would almost tempt  to conjecture, that Trenck, at the time of writing this address, hid a presentiment of the fate that awaited him. He writes as follows:

"God, who hitherto has enabled me, amidst thousand perils to act the part of an honest man and of a real martyr to the cause of Truth, will trust protect and strengthen me in the last sense of my tragedy, nor suffer my fortitude to fail me when I meet with obstacles insurmountable!

"Mean while, to you, ye friends of human kin who have not read my history without emotion, commend my children, when I shall be stretched on the field, and mouldering in the dust. In grave I shall be deaf to the voice of Fame;  shall my weary limbs at length find rest. My head is already grey; and I have had reason to imprecate each rising sun, that sheds its beams on  many tyrants and knaves. O! were this the  day of my beholding them! Long has my  eye been weary of viewing mankind. The hapless victim, who, like me, has been  sixty-eight years, exposed to the persecuting furl of relentless Fate, must wish for repose in the  shades of Death!"