Count Ferdinand Ernst Joseph Gabriel von Waldstein und Wartenberg (24 March 1762 – 26 May 1823) was a German nobleman and patron of the arts. A member of the Bohemian House of Waldstein and an early patron of Ludwig van Beethoven, his political and military roles included the office of a Geheimrat in Bonn, commander (Komtur) of the Teutonic Order, and (briefly) colonel of a light infantry regiment that he had raised. Life Waldstein was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Count Emanuel Philibert von Waldstein-Wartenberg (1731–1775) and his wife, Princess Maria Anna Theresa of Liechtenstein (1738-1814). He was the younger brother of Franz de Paula Adam von Waldstein. In 1787 he joined the Teutonic Knights and became a novice in Ellingen. Living in Bonn from early 1788 onwards, Waldstein received, on 17 June that year, the knighthood of the Order by its Grand Master Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria, the Elector of Cologne. He was admitted to electoral court in Bonn and one year later became Geheimrat ("privy councillor") of the Order and a member of its Staatskonferenz . Two years later, he acquired a knightly estate in Godesberg and thus became a member of the Cologne Landstandschaft. From 1788 to 1792, Ferdinand was sent on various diplomatic missions. In 1792, he received the Komtur office of the Order at Virnsberg Castle in Franconia. By early 1794, he was in the entourage of Elector Maximilian Francis, who had fled to Vienna from the invading French forces during the War of the First Coalition. He became obsessed with the idea of defeating the French, broke up with the Elector and squandered all his money raising an army. On 3 June 1795, Ferdinand sealed a contract with Britain on creating a "Mergentheim Regiment". Recruited mainly in the principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont, his regiment arrived in the Isle of Wight, England in 1796. "Waldstein's Light Infantry" was well below its target strength of 1,200 men. While Adjutant Schmitt returned to Germany to continue recruiting, about 800 were sent to the West Indies in 1797. Many died of fever, and at the end of the year or early in 1798 the remaining enlisted men were drafted into the British 60th Regiment of Foot. Many of the officers were offered and accepted British Army commissions. Waldstein was not among them, and it appears that his brief military career ended when his unit