and, finding no enemy in the field able to resist him, he returned to Berlin, and left Schwerin his general to prosecute the conquest. The Prussians in the midst of winter took Olmutz, the capital of Moravia, and laid the whole country under contribution. The cold then hindered them from action, and they only blocked up the fortresses of Brinn and Spielberg. In the spring, the King of Prussia came again than three different courts. To further the first decision, every advocate is enjoined, under severe penalties, not to begin a suit till he has collected all the necessary evidence. If the first court has decided in an unsatisfactory manner, an appeal may be made to the second, and from the second to the third. The process in each appeal is limited to six months. The third court may indeed pass an erroneous judgment; and then the injury is without redress. But this objec-into the field, and undertook the siege of Brinn; tion is without end, and therefore without force. No method can be found of preserving humanity from error; but of contest there must some time be an end; and he, who thinks himself injured for want of an appeal to a fourth court, must consider himself as suffering for the public. "There is a special advocate appointed for the poor. "The attorneys, who had formerly the care of collecting evidence, and of adjusting all the preliminaries of a suit, are now totally dismissed; the whole affair is put into the hands of the advocates, and the office of an attorney is annulled for ever. "If any man is hindered by some lawful impediment from attending his suit, time will be granted him upon the representation of his case. but upon the approach of Prince Charles of Lorrain retired from before it, and quitted Moravia, leaving only a garrison in the capital. The condition of the Queen of Hungary was now changed. She was a few months before without money, without troops, incircled with enemies. The Bavarians had entered Austria, Vienna was threatened with a siege, and the queen left it to the fate of war, and retired into Hungary; where she was received with zeal and affection, not unmingled however with that neglect which must always be borne by greatness in distress. She bore the disrespect of her subjects with the same firmness as the outrages of her enemies; and at last persuaded the English not to despair of her preservation, by not despairing herself. Voltaire in his late history has asserted, that Such is the order according to which civil a large sum was raised for her success, by voljustice is administered through the extensive untary subscriptions of the English ladies. It dominions of the king of Prussia; which, if it is the great failing of a strong imagination to exhibits nothing very subtle or profound, affords catch greedily at wonders. He was misinformone proof more that the right is easily discover-ed, and was perhaps unwilling to learn by a ed, and that men do not so often want ability second inquiry a truth less splendid and amusto find, as willingness to practise it. We now return to the war. The time at which the Queen of Hungary was willing to purchase peace by the resignation of Silesia, though it came at last, was not come yet. She had all the spirit, though not all the power of her ancestors, and could not bear the thought of losing any part of her patrimonial dominions to the enemies which the opinion of her weakness raised everywhere against her. In the beginning of the year 1742 the elector of Bavaria was invested with the imperial dignity, supported by the arms of France, master of the kingdom of Bohemia; and confederated with the elector Palatine, and the elector of Saxony, who claimed Moravia; and with the King of Prussia, who was in possession of Si lesia. Such was the state of the Queen of Hungary, pressed on every side, and on every side preparing for resistance: she yet refused all offers of accommodation, for every prince set peace at a price which she was not yet so far humbled as to pay. The King of Prussia was among the most zealous and forward in the confederacy against her. He promised to secure Bohemia to the emperor, and Moravia to the clector of Saxony; ing. A contribution was by news-writers, upon their own authority, fruitlessly, and, I think, illegally, proposed. It ended in nothing. The parliament voted a supply, and five hundred thousand pounds were remitted to her. It has been always the weakness of the Austrian family to spend in the magnificence of empire those revenues which should be kept for its defence. The court is splendid, but the treasury is empty; and at the beginning of every war, advantages are gained against them, before their armies can be assembled and equipped. The English money was to the Austrians as a shower to a field, where all the vegetative powers are kept unactive by a long continuance of drought. The armies, which had hitherto been hid in mountains and forests, started out of their retreats; and wherever the queen's standard was erected, nations scarcely known by their names, swarmed immediately about it. An army, especially a defensive army, multiplies itself. The contagion of enterprize spreads from one heart to another. Zeal for a native or detestation of a foreign sovereign, hope of sudden greatness or riches, friendship or emulation between particular men, or, what are perhaps more general and powerful, desire of novelty and impatience of inactivity, fill a camp with adventurers, add rank to rank, and squadron to Austrians forced their way to the camp, wher squadron. the wild troops, who had fought with so much vigour and constancy, at the sight of plunder forgot their obedience, nor had any man the least thought but how to load himself with the richest spoils. The queen had still enemies on every part, but she now on every part had armies ready to oppose them. Austria was immediately recovered; the plains of Bohemia were filled with her troops, though the fortresses were garrisoned by the French. The Bavarians were recalled to the defence of their own country, now wasted by the incursions of troops that were called Barbarians, greedy enough of plunder, and daring perhaps beyond the rules of war, but otherwise not more cruel than those whom they attacked. Prince Lobkowitz with one army observed the motions of Broglio, the French general, in Bohemia; and Prince Charles with another put a stop to the advances of the King of Prussia. It was now the turn of the Prussians to retire. They abandoned Olmutz, and left behind them part of their cannon and their magazines. And the king, finding that Broglio could not long oppose Prince Lobkowitz, hastened into Bohemia to his assistance; and having received a reinforcement of twenty-three thousand men, and taken the castle of Glatz, which, being built upon a rock scarcely accessible, would have defied all his power, had the garrison been furnished with provisions, he purposed to join his allies, and prosecute his conquests. Prince Charles, seeing Moravia thus evacuated by the Prussians, determined to garrison the towns which he had just recovered, and pursue the enemy, who, by the assistance of the French, would have been too powerful for Prince Lobkowitz. Success had now given confidence to the Austrians, and had proportionably abated the spirit of their enemies. The Saxons, who had co-operated with the King of Prussia in the conquest of Moravia, of which they expected the perpetual possession, seeing all hopes of sudden acquisition defeated, and the province left again to its former masters, grew weary of following a prince, whom they considered as no longer acting the part of their confederate; and when they approached the confines of Bohemia took a different road, and left the Prussians to their own fortune. The king continued his march, and Charles his pursuit. At Czaslaw the two armies came in sight of one another, and the Austrians resolved on a decisive day. On the 6th of May, about seven in the morning, the Austrians began the attack: their impetuosity was matched by the firmness of the Prussians. The animosity of the two armies was much inflamed: the Austrians were fighting for their country, and the Prussians were in a place where defeat must inevitably end in death or captivity. The fury of the battle continued four hours: the Prussian horse were at length broken, and the While the right wing of the Austrians was thus employed, the main body was left naked: the Prussians recovered from their confusion, and regained the day. Charles was at last forced to retire, and carried with him the standards of his enemies, the proofs of a victory, which, though so nearly gained, he had not been able to keep. The victory however was dearly bought; the Prussian army was much weakened, and the cavalry almost totally destroyed. Peace is easily made when it is necessary to both parties; and the King of Prussia had now reason to believe that the Austrians were not his only enemies. When he found Charles advancing, he sent to Broglio for assistance, and was answered that "he must have orders from Versailles." Such a desertion of his most powerful ally disconcerted him, but the battle was unavoidable. When the Prussians were returned to the camp, he king, hearing that an Austrian offi cer was brought in mortally wounded, had the condescension to visit him. The officer, struck with this act of humanity, said, after a short conversation, “I should die, Sir, contentedly after this honour, if I might first show my gratitude to your majesty by informing you with what allies you are now united, allies that have no intention but to deceive you." The king appearing to suspect this intelligence; "Sir," said the Austrian, "if you will permit me to send a messenger to Vienna, I believe the queen will not refuse to transmit an intercepted letter now in her hands, which will put my report beyond all doubt." The messenger was sent, and the letter transmitted, which contained the order sent to Broglio, who was, first, forbidden to mix his troops on any occasion with the Prussians. Secondly, he was ordered to act always at a distance from the king. Thirdly, to keep always a body of twenty thousand men to observe the Prussian army. Fourthly, to observe very closely the motions of the king, for important reasons. Fifthly, to hazard nothing; but to pretend want of reinforcements, or the absence of Bellisle. The king now with great reason considered himself as disengaged from the confederacy, being diserted by the Saxons, and betrayed by the French; he therefore accepted the mediation of King George, and in three weeks after the battle of Czaslaw made peace with the Queen of Hungary, who granted to him the whole province of Silesia, a country of such extent and opulence that he is said to receive from it one-third part of his revenues. By one of the articles of this treaty it is stipulated, "that neither should assist the enemies of the other." The Queen of Hungary thus disentangled on one side, and set free from the most formidable of her enemies, soon persuaded the Saxons to peace; took possession of Bavaria; drove the emperor, after all his imaginary conquests, to the shelter of a neutral town, where he was treated as a fugitive; and besieged the French in Prague, in the city which they had taken from her. Having thus obtained Silesia, the King of Prussia returned to his own capital, where he reformed his laws, forbid the torture of criminals, concluded a defensive alliance with England, and applied himself to the augmentation of his army. mischiefs done to the city as falling ultimately upon themselves, and therefore were willing to gain it by time rather than by force. It was apparent that, how long soever Prague might be defended, it must be yielded at last, and therefore all arts were tried to obtain an honourable capitulation. The messengers from the city were sent back sometimes unheard, but always with this answer, "That no terms would be allowed, but that they should yield themselves prisoners of war." The condition of the garrison was in the eyes of all Europe desperate; but the French, to whom the praise of spirit and activity cannot be denied, resolved to make an effort for the honour of their arms. Maillebois was at that time encamped with his army in Westphalia. Orders were sent him to relieve Prague. The enterprize was considered as romantic. Maillebois This treaty of peace with the Queen of Hun- was a march of forty days distant from Bohe gary was one of the first proofs given by the mia, the passes were narrow, and the ways King of Prussia, of the secrecy of his counsels. foul; and it was likely that Prague would be Bellisle, the French general, was with him in taken before he could reach it. The march was, the camp, as a friend and coadjutor in appear- however, begun the army, being joined by ance, but in truth a spy, and a writer of intelli- that of Count Saxe, consisted of fifty thousand gence. Men who have great confidence in their men, who, notwithstanding all the difficulties own penetration are often by that confidence which two Austrian armies could put in their deceived; they imagine that they can pierce way, at last entered Bohemia. The siege of through all the involutions of intrigue without Prague, though not raised, was remitted, and a the diligence necessary to weaker minds, and communication was now opened to it with the therefore sit idle and secure; they believe that country. But the Austrians, by perpetual innone can hope to deceive them, and therefore tervention, hindered the garrison from joining that none will try. Bellisle, with all his repu- their friends. The officers of Maillebois incited tation of sagacity, though he was in the Prus-him to a battle, because the army was hourly sian camp, gave every day fresh assurances of lessening by the want of provisions; but, instead the king's adherence to his allies; while Broglio, of pressing on to Prague, he retired into Ba who commanded the army at a distance, discov-varia, and completed the ruin of the emperor's ered sufficient reason to suspect his desertion. territories. Broglio was slighted, and Bellisle believed, till on the 11th of June the treaty was signed, and the king declared his resolution to keep a neutrality. This is one of the great performances of polity which mankind seem agreed to celebrate and admire; yet to all this nothing was necessary but the determination of a very few men to be silent. From this time the Queen of Hungary proceeded with an uninterrupted torrent of success. The French, driven from station to station, and deprived of fortress after fortress, were at last enclosed with their two generals, Bellisle and Broglio, in the walls of Prague, which they had stored with all provisions necessary to a town besieged, and where they defended themselves three months before any prospect appeared of relief. The Austrians, having been engaged chiefly in the field, and in sudden and tumultuary excursions rather than a regular war, had no great degree of skill in attacking or defending towns. They likewise would naturally consider all the The court of France, disappointed and offended, conferred the chief command upon Broglio, who escaped from the besiegers with very little difficulty, and kept the Austrians employed till Bellisle by a sudden sally quitted Prague, and without any great loss joined the main army. Broglio then retired over the Rhine into the French dominions, wasting in his retreat the country which he had undertaken to protect, and burning towns, and destroying magazines of corn, with such wantonness, as gave reason to believe that he expected commendation from his court for any mischiefs done, by whatever means. The Austrians pursued their advantages, recovered all their strong places, in some of which French garrisons had been left, and made them. selves masters of Bavaria, by taking not only Munich the capital but Ingolstadt, the strongest fortification in the elector's dominions, where they found a great number of cannon and a quantity of ammunition intended in the dreams of projected greatness for the siege of Vienna, all the archives of the state, the plate and oina ments of the electoral palace, and what had been considered as most worthy of preservation. Nothing but the warlike stores were taken away. An oath of allegiance to the queen was required of the Bavarians, but without any explanation whether temporary or perpetual. The emperor lived at Francfort in the security that was allowed to neutral places, but without much respect from the German princes, except that, upon some objections made by the queen to the validity of his election, the King of Prussia declared himself determined to support him in the imperial dignity with all his power. This may be considered as a token of no great affection to the Queen of Hungary, but it seems not to have raised much alarm. The German princes were afraid of new broils. To contest the election of an emperor once invested and acknowledged, would be to overthrow the whole Germanic constitution. Perhaps no election by plurality of suffrages was ever made among human beings, to which it might not be objected that voices were procured by illicit influ ence. Some suspicions, however, were raised by the king's declaration, which he endeavoured to obviate by ordering his ministers to declare at London and at Vienna, that he was resolved not to violate the treaty of Breslaw. This declaration was sufficiently ambiguous, and could not satisfy those whom it might silence. But this was not a time for nice disquisitions; to distrust the king of Prussia might have provoked him, and it was most convenient to consider him as a friend, till he appeared openly as an enemy. About the middle of the year 1744, he raised new alarms by collecting his troops and putting them in motion. The earl of Hindford about this time demanded the troops stipulated for the protection of Hanover, not perhaps because they were thought necessary, but that the king's designs might be guessed from his answer, which was, that troops were not granted for the defence of any country till that country was in danger, and that he could not believe the Elector of Hanover to be in much dread of an invasion, since he had withdrawn the native troops, and put them into the pay of England. He had, undoubtedly, now formed designs which made it necessary that his troops should be kept together, and the time soon came when the scene was to be opened. Prince Charles of Lorrain, having chased the French out of Bavaria, lay for some months encamped on the Rhine, endeavouring to gain a passage into Alsace. His attempts had long been evaded by the skill and vigilance of the French general, till at last, June 21, 1744, he executed his design, and lodged his army in the French dominions, to the surprise and joy of a great part of Europe. It was now expected that the territories of France would in their turn feel the mise ries of war: and the nation, which so long kept the world in alarm, be taught at last the value of peace. The King of Prussia now saw the Austrian troops at a great distance from him, engaged in a foreign country against the most powerful of all their enemies. Now, therefore, was the time to discover that he had lately made a treaty at Francfort with the emperor, by which he had engaged, "that as the court of Vienna and its allies appeared backward to re-establish the tranquillity of the empire, and more cogent methods appeared necessary; he, being animated with a desire of co-operating towards the pacification of Germany, should make an expedition for the conquest of Bohemia, and to put it into the possession of the emperor, his heirs and successors, for ever; in gratitude for which the emperor should resign to him and his successors a certain number of lordships, which are now part of the kingdom of Bohemia. His Imperial Majesty likewise guarantees to the King of Prussia the perpetual possession of Upper Silesia; and the king guarantees to the emperor the perpetual possession of Upper Austria, as soon as he shall have occupied it by conquest." It is easy to discover that the king began the war upon other motives than zeal for peace; and that, whatever respect he was willing to show to the emperor, he did not purpose to assist him without reward. In prosecution of this treaty he put his troops in motion; and, according to his promise, while the Austrians were invading France, he invaded Bohemia. Princes have this remaining of humanity, that they think themselves obliged not to make war without a reason. Their reasons are indeed not always very satisfactory. Lewis the Fourteenth seemed to think his own glory a sufficient motive for the invasion of Holland. The Czar attacked Charles of Sweden, because he had not been treated with sufficient respect when he made a journey in disguise. The King of Prussia, having an opportunity of attacking his neighbour, was not long without his reasons. On July 30th, he published his declaration, in which he declares: That he can no longer stand an idle spectator of the troubles in Germany, but finds himself obliged to make use of force to restore the power of the laws, and the authority of the emperor. That the Queen of Hungary has treated the emperor's hereditary dominions with inexpressible cruelty. That Germany has been overrun with foreign troops which have marched through neutral countries without the customary requisitions. That the emperor's troops have been attacked under neutral fortresses, and obliged to abandon the empire, of which their master is the head. A a That the imperial dignity has been treated | dom of Germany, and a few petty districts in with indecency by the Hungarian troops. Bohemia. The queen declaring the election of the emperor void, and the diet of Francfort illegal, had not only violated the imperial dignity, but injured all the princes who have the right of election. That he had no particular quarrel with the Queen of Hungary; and that he desires nothing for himself, and only enters as an auxiliary into a war for the liberties of Germany. That the emperor had offered to quit his pretension to the dominions of Austria, on condition that his hereditary countries be restored to him. That this proposal had been made to the King of England at Hanau, and rejected in such a manner as showed that the King of England had no intention to restore peace, but rather to make his advantage of the troubles. That the mediation of the Dutch had been desired; but that they declined to interpose, knowing the inflexibility of the English and Austrian courts. The same terms were again offered at Vienna, and again rejected that therefore the queen must impute it to her own counsels that her enemies find new allies. That he is not fighting for any interest of his own, that he demands nothing for himself; but is determined to exert all his powers in defence of the emperor, in vindication of the right of election, and in support of the liberties of Germany, which the Queen of Hungary would enslave. When this declaration was sent to the Prussian minister in England, it was accompanied with a remonstrance to the king, in which many of the foregoing positions were repeated; the emperor's candour and disinterestedness were magnified: the dangerous designs of the Austrians were displayed; it was imputed to them as the most flagrant violation of the Germanic constitution, that they had driven the emperor's troops out of the empire; the public spirit and generosity of His Prussian Majesty were again heartily declared; and it was said, that this quarrel having no connection with English interests, the English ought not to interpose. The French, who, from ravaging the empire at discretion, and wasting whatever they found either among enemies or friends, were now driven into their own dominions, and in their own dominions were insulted and pursued, were on a sudden by this new auxiliary restored to their former superiority, at least were disburdened of their invaders, and delivered from their terrors. And all the enemies of the house of Bourbon saw with indignation and amazement the recovery of that power which they had with so much cost and bloodshed brought low, and which their animosity and elation had disposed them to imagine yet lower than it was. The Queen of Hungary still retained her firmness. The Prussian declaration was not long without an answer, which was transmitted to the European princes with some observations on the Prussian minister's remonstance to the court of Vienna, which he was ordered by his master to read to the Austrian council, but not to deliver. The same caution was practised before when the Prussians, after the emperor's death, invaded Silesia. This artifice of political debate may, perhaps, be numbered by the admirers of greatness among the refinements of conduct; but, as it is a method of proceeding not very difficult to be contrived or practised, as it can be of very rare use to honesty or wisdom. and as it has been long known to that class of men whose safety depends upon secrecy, though hitherto applied chiefly in petty cheats and slight transactions; I do not see that it can much advance the reputation of regal understanding, or indeed that it can add more to the safety, than it takes away from the honour of him that shall adopt it. The queen in her answer, after charging the King of Prussia with breach of the treaty of Breslaw, and observing how much her enemies will exult to see the peace now the third time broken by him, declares: That she had no intention to injure the rights of the electors, and that she calls in question not the event but the manner of the election. That she had spared the emperor's troops with great tenderness, and that they were driven out of the empire only because they were in the service of France. That she is so far from disturbing the peace of the empire, that the only commotions now raised in it are the effect of the armaments of the King of Prussia. Austria and all her allies were put into amazement by this declaration, which at once dismounted them from the summit of success, and obliged them to fight through the war a second time. What succours, or what promises, Prussia received from France was never publicly known; but it is not to be doubted that a prince so watchful of opportunity sold assistance, when it was so much wanted, at the high-time or place lose their power to interest the est rate; nor can it be supposed that he exposed himself to so much hazard only for the free Nothing is more tedious than public records, when they relate to affairs which by distance of reader. Every thing grows little as it grows remote; and of things thus diminished, it is |