SPIRITED DECLARATION OF PRUSSIA.

The words and stipulation in the above-recited clause, in the seventh article of the treaty of Great Britain with Russia, were looked on as a menace levelled at the king of Prussia, who, having some time found means to procure a copy of this treaty, and seeing it in that light, boldly declared, by his ministers at all the courts of Europe, that he would oppose, with his utmost force, the entrance of any foreign troops into the empire, under any pretence whatever. This declaration was particularly displeasing to the French, who had already marched large bodies of troops towards the frontiers of the empire, and erected several great magazines in Westphalia, with the permission of the elector of Cologn, for which the English minister at his court was, in August, ordered to withdraw from thence without taking leave. However, as soon as this declaration of the king of Prussia was notified to the court of Versailles, they sent an ambassador-extraordinary, the duke de Nivernois, to Berlin, to try to persuade his majesty to retract his declaration, and enter into a new alliance with them. His Prussian majesty received this ambassador in such a manner as seemed to denote a disposition to agree to every thing he had to propose. This awakened in England a jealousy that his declaration alone was not to be relied on, but that it was necessary to bring him under some solemn engagement; especially as the French had by this time a numerous army near the Lower Rhine, with magazines provided for their march all the way to Hanover; and if the king of Prussia suffered them to pass through his dominions, that electorate must be swallowed up before the Russian auxiliaries could possibly be brought thither, or any army be formed for protecting it.* For this reason a negotiation was set on foot by Great Britain at Berlin, but as it was not concluded before the beginning of the next year, we shall defer entering into the particulars of it till we come to that period.

* Perhaps the elector of Hanover was more afraid of the
Prussian monarch than of the most christian king, knowing
with what ease and rapidity this enterprising neighbour
could, in a few days, subdue the whole electorate.