old freedom for people and fatherland. They desire for themselves neither power nor possessions. If their undertaking succeed, they will, on its completion, again withdraw themselves to their own quiet life, and let others reap that which they have sown. Thus the three engaged to each other; and into this compact they invited associates whom they regarded as like-minded with themselves. In order to carry this out, and to arrange their plans of action, they established nocturnal meetings at Grutli—a solitary, green meadow on the banks of the lake, between Unterwalden and Uri.
There, under the free vault of heaven, surrounded by forests and night, they could converse in freedom; there they mentioned to each other the new friends whom they had found for the general design; thither they conducted the new allies, and took counsel together for the accomplishment of their plan.
One starry night, at the beginning of November, 1307, thirty men from the Forest Cantons of Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwytz, assembled here, under the guidance of Walter Fürst, Werner Stauffacher, and Arnold of Melchthal. Here, after they had firmly resolved, each man took his friend's hand, and, at the moment when the beams of the morning sun first tinged the summits of the primeval mountains, the three leaders, and with them the thirty men, raised their hands and swore, “By God who created all men for the same freedom, and by all the saints,” this oath:
“That all would hold together, and in friendship live and die, whilst by their united power they would
- Vol. I.—9
