TREATY OF DRESDEN.—THE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY ELECTED EMPEROR.

After this action, his Prussian majesty returned to Berlin and breathed nothing but peace and moderation. In August he had signed a convention with the king of Great Britain, who became guarantee of his possessions in Silesia, as yielded by the treaty of Breslau; and he promised to vote for the grand duke of Tuscany at the election of an emperor. This was intended as the basis of a more general accommodation. But he now pretended to have received undoubted intelligence that the king of Poland and the queen of Hungary had agreed to invade Brandenburgh with three different armies; and that, for this purpose, his Polish majesty had demanded of the czarina the succours stipulated by treaty between the two crowns. Alarmed, or seemingly alarmed, at this information, he solicited the maritime powers to fulfil their engagements, and interpose their good offices with the court of Petersburgh. Yet, far from waiting for the result of these remonstrances, he made a sudden irruption into Lusatia, took possession of Gorlitz, and obliged prince Charles of Lorraine to retire before him into Bohemia. Then he entered Leipsic, and laid Saxony under contribution. The king of Poland, unable to resist the torrent, quitted his capital and took refuge in Prague. His troops, reinforced by a body of Austrians, were defeated at Pirna on the fifteenth day of December; and his Prussian majesty became master of Dresden without further opposition. The king of Poland, thus deprived of his hereditary dominions, was fain to acquiesce in such terms as the conqueror thought proper to impose; and the treaty of Dresden was concluded under the mediation of his Britannic majesty. By this convention the king of Prussia retained all the contributions he had levied in Saxony; and was entitled to a million of German crowns, to be paid by his Polish majesty at the next fair of Leipsic. He and the elector palatine consented to acknowledge the grand duke as emperor of Germany; and this last confirmed to his Prussian majesty certain privileges de non evocando, which had been granted by the late emperor, with regard to some territories possessed by the king of Prussia, though not belonging to the electorate of Brandenburgh. Immediately after the ratification of this treaty, the Prussian troops evacuated Saxony, and the peace of Germany was restored.