FRANCKFORT SEIZED BY THE FRENCH.

The Hanoverian army, commanded by prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, was strengthened by fresh reinforcements from England, augmented with German recruits, regularly paid, and well supplied with every comfort and convenience which foresight could suggest, or money procure; yet, in spite of all the precautions that could be taken, they were cut off from some resources which the French, in the beginning of the year, opened to themselves by a flagrant stroke of perfidy, which even the extreme necessities of a campaign can hardly excuse. On the second day of January, the French regiment of Nassau presented itself before the gates of Franckfort-on-the-Maine, a neutral imperial city; and, demanding a passage, it was introduced, and conducted by a detachment of the garrison through the city as far as the gate of Saxenhausen, where it unexpectedly halted, and immediately disarmed the guards. Before the inhabitants could recover from the consternation into which they were thrown by this outrageous insult, five other French regiments entered the place; and here their general, the prince de Soubise, established his head-quarters. How deeply soever this violation of the laws of the empire might be resented by all honest Germans, who retained affection for the constitution of their country, it was a step from which the French army derived a very manifest and important advantage; for it secured to them the course of the Maine and the Upper Rhine; by which they received, without difficulty or danger, every species of supply from Mentz, Spire, Worms, and even the country of Alsace, while it maintained their communication with the chain formed by the Austrian forces and the army of the empire.