During this summer a rupture happened between the Turks and the Russians, which last reduced the city of Azoph on the Black Sea, and overrun the greatest part of Crim Tartary. The czarina declared war against the Ottoman Porte, because the Tartars of the Crimea had made incursions upon her frontiers; and, when she complained of these disorders to the vizier, she received no satisfaction; besides, a large body of Tartars had, by order of that minister, marched through the Russian provinces in despite of the empress, and committed terrible havoc in their route. The emperor was obliged to engage as a party in this war, by a treaty offensive and defensive, which he had many years before concluded with the czarina. Yet, before he declared himself, he joined the maritime powers in offering his mediation to the sultan, who was very well disposed to peace; but the czarina insisted upon her retaining Azoph, which her forces had reduced; and this preliminary article being rejected, as dishonourable to the Ottoman empire, the court of Vienna began to make preparations for war. By this time all the belligerent powers in Italy had agreed to the preliminaries of peace concluded between the emperor and France. The duke of Lorraine had espoused the emperor’s eldest daughter, the archduchess Maria Theresa, and ceded Lorraine to France, even before he succeeded to Tuscany. Don Carlos was crowned king of Sicily; Stanislaus abdicated the crown of Poland; and Augustus was universally acknowledged sovereign of that kingdom. The preliminaries were approved and accepted by the diet of the empire; the king of Spain sent orders for his troops to evacuate Tuscany; and the provinces in Italy yielded to the house of Austria. Prince Eugene, who had managed the interest of the emperor on this occasion, did not live to see the happy fruits of this negotiation. He died at Vienna, in April, at the age of seventy-three, leaving behind him the character of an invincible hero and consummate politician. He was not long survived by count Staremberg, another Imperial general who ranked next to the prince in military reputation. About the same time Great Britain sustained a national loss in the death of lord chancellor Talbot, who, by his worth, probity, and acquired accomplishments, had dignified the great office to which he had been raised. He died universally lamented, in the month of February, at the age of fifty-two, and was succeeded on the bench by lord Hardwicke.