FRENCH AND IMPERIALISTS TAKE GOTHA.

The king of Prussia, after remaining for some time encamped between Bautzen and Goerlitz, removed his head-quarters to Bernstedel; and on the fifteenth of August his army came in sight of the Austrian camp, and within cannon-shot of it: upon which the Austrians struck their tents, and drew up in order of battle before their camp. The king formed his army over against them, and immediately went to reconnoitre the ground between the armies; but, as it was then late, he deferred the more exact examination of that circumstance till the next day. The two armies continued under arms all night. Next morning at break of day, the king found the Austrians encamped with their right at the river Weisle; the rest of their army extended along a rising ground, at the foot of a mountain covered with wood, which protected their left; and before their front, at the bottom of the hill on which they were drawn up, was a small brook, passable only in three places, and for no more than four or five men a-breast. Towards the left of their army was an opening, where three or four battalions might have marched in front; but behind it they had placed three lines of infantry, and on a hill which flanked this opening, within musket-shot, were placed four thousand foot, with forty or fifty pieces of cannon; so that, in reality, this was the strongest part of their camp. The king left nothing undone to bring the Austrians to battle; but finding them absolutely bent on avoiding it, after lying four days before them, he and his army returned to their camp at Bernstedel. They were followed by some of the enemy’s hussars and pan-dours, who, however, had not the satisfaction to take the smallest booty in this retreat. The Austrian army, which thus declined engaging, was, by their own account, an hundred and thirty thousand strong, more than double the number of the king of Prussia, who, the day he returned to Bernstedel, after he had retired about two thousand yards, again drew up his army in line of battle, and remained so upwards of an hour, but not a man stirred from the Austrian camp. The army of the empire, commanded by the prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen, and that of the French under the prince de Soubise, making together about fifty thousand men, half of which were French, had by this time joined, and advanced as far as Erfurth in Saxony; upon which his Prussian majesty, finding that all his endeavours could not bring the Austrians to an engagement, set out from Lusatia, accompanied by mareschal Keith, with sixteen battalions and forty squadrons of his troops, and arrived at Dresden on the twenty-ninth of August, leaving the rest of the army in a strong camp, under the prince of Bevern. With this detachment, which, by the junction of several bodies of troops, amounted to about forty thousand men, he made a quick march, by the way of Leipsic towards Erfurth, to give battle to the united army of the French and the empire. But by the time he arrived at Erfurth, which was on the fourteenth of September, the enemy had retreated towards Gotha; and upon his further approach, they retired to Eyesenach, where they intrenched themselves in a very strong camp. His majesty’s headquarters were at Kirschlaben, near Erfurth. While the two armies were thus situated, major-general Seydelitz, who occupied the town of Gotha, being informed, on the nineteenth, that a large body of the enemy was coming towards him, and that it consisted of two regiments of Austrian hussars, one regiment of French hussars, and a detachment made up of French grenadiers, troops of the army of the empire, and a great number of croats and pandours, retired, and posted himself at some distance. The enemy immediately took possession of the town and castle; but general Seydelitz, having been reinforced, attacked the enemy with such vigour, that he soon obliged them to abandon this new conquest, and to retire with great precipitation; a report having been spread, that the Prussian army was advancing against them, with the king himself in person. The Prussian hussars took a considerable booty on this occasion, and general Seydelitz sent prisoners to the camp, one lieutenant-colonel, three majors, four lieutenants, and sixty-two soldiers of the enemy, who had also about an hundred and thirty killed. After this action his Prussian majesty advanced near Eyesenach, with a design to attack the combined army; but they were so strongly intrenched, that he found it impracticable. His provisions falling short, he was obliged to retire towards Erfurth, and soon after to Naumburgh, on the river Sala; whereupon the combined army inarched, and again took possession of Gotha, Erfurth, and Weiman: which last place, however, they soon after quitted.