TRANSACTIONS on the CONTINENT of EUROPE.

Having particularized the events of the war which distinguished this year in America, Africa, and Asia—those remote scenes in which the interest of Great Britain was immediately and intimately concerned—it now remains to record the incidents of the military operations in Germany, supported by British subsidies, and enforced by British troops, to favour the abominable designs of an ally, from whose solitary friendship the British nation can never reap any solid benefit; and to defend a foreign elector, in whose behalf she had already lavished an immensity of treasure. Notwithstanding the bloodshed and lavages which had signalized the former campaign, the mutual losses of the belligerent powers, the incredible expense of money, the difficulty of recruiting armies thinned by sword and distemper, the scarcity of forage and provisions, the distresses of Saxony in particular, and the calamities of war, which desolated the greatest part of the empire—no proposition of peace was hinted by either of the parties concerned; but the powers at variance seemed to be exasperated against each other with the most implacable resentment. Jarring interests were harmonized, old prejudices rooted up, inveterate jealousies assuaged, and even inconsistencies reconciled, in connecting the confederacy which was now formed and established against the king of Prussia; and, on the other hand, the king of Great Britain seemed determined to employ the whole power and influence of his crown in supporting this monarch. Yet the members of the grand confederacy were differently actuated by disagreeing motives, which, in the sequel, operated for the preservation of his Prussian majesty, by preventing the full exertion of their united strength. The empress-queen, over and above her desire of retrieving Silesia, which was her primary aim, gave way to the suggestions of personal hatred and revenge, to the gratification of which she may be said to have sacrificed, in some measure, the interests of her family, as well as the repose of the empire, by admitting the natural enemies of her house into the Austrian Netherlands, and inviting them to invade the dominions of her co-states with a formidable army. France, true to her old political maxims, wished to see the house of Austria weakened by the divisions in the empire, which she accordingly fomented: for this reason it could not be her interest to effect the ruin of the house of Brandenburgh; and therefore she had, no doubt, set bounds to the prosecution of her schemes in concert with the court of Vienna. But her designs against Hanover amounted to absolute conquest. In pursuance of these, she sent an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men across the Rhine, instead of four and twenty thousand, which she had engaged to furnish by the original treaty with the empress-queen of Hungary, who is said to have shared in the spoils of the electorate. The czarina, by co-operating with the houses of Bourbon and Austria, gratified her personal disgust towards the Prussian monarch, augmented her finances by considerable subsidies from both, and perhaps amused herself with the hope of obtaining an establishment in the German empire; but whether she waivered in her own sentiments, or her ministry fluctuated between the promises of France and the presents of Great Britain, certain it is, her forces had not acted with vigour in Pomerania; and her general Apraxin, instead of prosecuting his advantage, had retreated immediately after the Prussians miscarried in their attack. He was indeed disgraced, and tried for having thus retired without orders; but in all probability, this trial was no other than a farce, acted to amuse the other confederates while the empress of Russia gained time to deliberate upon the offers that were made, and determine with regard to the advantages or disadvantages that might accrue to her from persevering in the engagements which she had contracted. As for the Swedes, although they had been instigated to hostilities against Prussia by the intrigues of France, and flattered with hopes of retrieving Pomerania, they prosecuted the war in such a dispirited and ineffectual manner, as plainly proved that either the ancient valour of that people was extinct, or that the nation was not heartily engaged in the quarrel.

When the Russian general Apraxin retreated from Pomerania, mareschal Lehwald, who commanded the Prussians in that country, was left at liberty to turn his arms against the Swedes, and accordingly drove them before him almost without opposition. By the beginning of January they had evacuated all Prussian Pomerania, and Lehwald invaded their dominions in his turn. He, in a little time, made himself master of all Swedish Pomerania, except Stralsund and the isle of Rugen, and possessed himself of several magazines which the enemy had erected. The Austrian army, after their defeat at Breslau, had retired into Bohemia, where they were cantoned, the head-quarters being fixed at Koningsgratz. The king of Prussia having cleared all his part of Silesia, except the town of Schweidnitz, which he circumscribed with a blockade, sent detachments from his army cantoned in the neighbourhood of Breslau, to penetrate into the Austrian or southern part of Silesia, where they surprised Troppau and Jaggernsdorf, while he himself remained at Breslau, entertaining his officers with concerts of music. Not that he suffered these amusements to divert his attention from subjects of greater importance. He laid Swedish Pomerania under contribution, and made a fresh demand of five hundred thousand crowns from the electorate of Saxony. Having received intimation that the duke of Mecklenburgh was employed in providing magazines for the French army, he detached a body of troops into that country, who not only secured the magazines, but levied considerable contributions; and the duke retired to Lubeck, attended by the French minister. The states of Saxony having proved a little dilatory in obeying his Prussian majesty’s injunction, received a second intimation, importing that they should levy and deliver, within a certain time, eighteen thousand recruits for his army, pay into the hands of his commissary one year’s revenue of the electorate in advance; and Leipsic was taxed with an extraordinary subsidy of eight hundred thousand crowns, on pain of military execution. The states were immediately convoked at Leipsic in order to deliberate on these demands; and the city being unable to pay such a considerable sum, the Prussian troops began to put their monarch’s threats in execution. He justified these proceedings, by declaring that the enemy had practised the same violence and oppression on the territories of his allies; but how the practice of his declared enemies, in the countries which they had invaded and subdued in common course of war, should justify him in pillaging and oppressing a people with whom neither he nor his allies were at war, it is not easy to conceive. As little can we reconcile this conduct to the character of a prince, assuming the title of protector of the protestant religion, which is the established faith among those very Saxons who were subjected to such grievous impositions; impositions the more grievous and unmerited, as they had never taken any share in the present war, but cautiously avoided every step that might be construed into provocation, since the king of Prussia declared they might depend upon his protection.

GEORGE II. 1727-1760