SUBURBS OF DRESDEN BURNT.

The field-mareschal count Daun appearing on the sixth day of November within sight of Dresden, at the head of sixty thousand men, encamped next day at Lockowitz, and on the eighth his advanced troops attacked the Prussian hussars and independent battalions, which were posted at Striessen and Gruenewiese. Count Schmettau, who commanded the garrison, amounting to ten thousand men, apprehensive that, in the course of skirmishing, the Austrian troops might enter the suburbs pell-mell, posted colonel Itzenplitz, with seven hundred men, in the redoubts that surrounded the suburbs, that in case of emergency they might support the irregulars; at the same time, as the houses that constituted the suburbs were generally so high as to overlook the ramparts and command the city, he prepared combustibles, and gave notice to the magistrates that they would be set on fire as soon as an Austrian should appear within the place. This must have been a dreadful declaration to the inhabitants of these suburbs, which compose one of the most elegant towns in Europe. In these houses, which were generally lofty and magnificent, the fashionable and wealthy class of people resided, and here a number of artists carried on a variety of curious manufactures. In vain the magistrates implored the mercy and forbearance of the Prussian governor, and represented, in the most submissive strain, that as they were unconcerned in the war, they hoped they should be exempted from the horrors of devastation. In vain the royal family, who remained at Dresden, conjured him to spare that last refuge of distressed royalty, and allow them at least a secure residence, since they were deprived of every other comfort. He continued inflexible, or rather determined to execute the orders of his master, which indeed he could not disobey with any regard to his own safety. On the ninth day of November, about noon, the Austrian vanguard attacked the advanced post of the garrison, repelled the hussars, drove the independent battalions into the suburbs, and forced three of the redoubts, while their cannon played upon the town. The governor, expecting a vigorous attack next day, recalled his troops within the city after they had set fire to the suburbs. At three in the morning the signal was made for this terrible conflagration, which in a little time reduced to ashes the beautiful suburbs of Pirna, which had so lately flourished as the seat of gaity, pleasure, and the ingenious arts. Every bosom warmed with benevolence must be affected at the recital of such calamities. It excites not only our compassion for the unhappy sufferers, but also our resentment against the perpetrators of such enormity. Next day mareschal Daun sent an officer to count Schmettau, with a message, expressing his surprise at the destruction of the suburbs in a royal residence, an act of inhumanity unheard of among christians. He desired to know if it was by the governor’s order this measure was taken; and assured him, that he should be responsible in his person for whatever outrages had been or might be committed against a place in which a royal family resided. Schmettau gave him to understand, that he had orders to defend the town to the last extremity, and that the preservation of what remained depended entirely on the conduct of his excellency; for, should he think proper to attack the place, he (the governor) would defend himself from house to house, and from street to street, and even make his last effort in the royal palace, rather than abandon the city. He excused the destruction of the suburbs as a necessary measure, authorized by the practice of war; but he would have found it a difficult task to reconcile this step to the laws of eternal justice, and far less to the dictates of common humanity. Indeed, if the scene had happened in an enemy’s country, or if no other step could have saved the lives and liberties of himself and his garrison, such a desperate remedy might have stood excused by the law of nature and of nations; but on this occasion he occupied a neutral city, over which he could exercise no other power and authority but that which he derived from illegal force and violence; nor was he at all reduced to the necessity of sacrificing the place to his own safety, inasmuch as he might have retired unmolested, by virtue of an honourable capitulation, which, however, he did not demand. Whether the peremptory order of a superior will, in foro conscientio, justify an officer who hath committed an illegal or inhuman action, is a question that an English reader will scarce leave to the determination of a German casuist with one hundred and fifty thousand armed men in his retinue. Be this as it will, Mr. Ponickau, the Saxon minister, immediately after this tragedy was acted, without waiting for his master’s orders, presented a memorial to the diet of the empire, complaining of it as an action reserved for the history of the war which the king of Prussia had kindled in Germany, to be transmitted to future ages. He affirmed that, in execution of Schmettau’s orders, the soldiers had dispersed themselves in the streets of the Pirna and Witchen suburbs, broke open the houses and shops, set fire to the combustibles, added fresh fuel, and then shut the doors; that the violence of the flames was kept up by red-hot balls fired into the houses, and along the streets; that the wretched inhabitants, who forsook their burning houses, were slain by the fire of the cannon and small arms; that those who endeavoured to save their persons and effects were pushed down and destroyed by the bayonets of the Prussian soldiers posted in the streets for that purpose: he enumerated particular instances of inhuman barbarity, and declared that a great number of people perished, either amidst the flames, or under the ruins of the houses. The destruction of two hundred and fifty elegant houses, and the total ruin of the inhabitants, were circumstances in themselves so deplorable, as to need no aggravation; but the account of the Saxon minister was shamefully exaggerated, and all the particular instances of cruelty false in every circumstance. Baron Plotho, the minister of Brandenburgh, did not fail to answer every article of the Saxon memorial, and refute the particulars therein alleged, in a fair detail, authenticated by certificates under the hands of the magistrates, judges, and principal inhabitants of Dresden. The most extraordinary part of this defence or vindication was the conclusion, in which the baron solemnly assured the diet, that the king of Prussia, from his great love to mankind, always felt the greatest emotion of soul, and the most exquisite concern, at the effusion of blood, the devastation of cities and countries, and the horrors of war, by which so many thousand fellow-creatures were overwhelmed; and that if his sincere and honest inclination to procure peace to Germany, his dear country, had met with the least regard, the present war, attended with such bloodshed and desolation, would have been prevented and avoided. He, therefore, declared that those who excited the present troubles, who, instead of extinguishing, threw oil upon the flames, must answer to God for the seas of blood that had been and would be shed, for the devastation of so many countries, and the entire ruin of so many innocent individuals. Such declarations cost nothing to those hardened politicians, who, feeling no internal check, are determined to sacrifice every consideration to the motives of rapacity and ambition. It would be happy, however, for mankind, were princes taught to believe that there is really an omnipotent and all-judging power, that will exact a severe account of their conduct, and punish them for their guilt, with out any respect to their persons; that pillaging a whole people is more cruel than robbing a single person; and that the massacre of thousands is, at least, as criminal as a private murder.