Of prince Charles of Loraine's military abilities, the king fpeaks with respect; but the movements of the French were flow and ill conducted, nor could the marshal de Schmettau, whom Frederick fent for that purpose, infpire them with either fpirit or judgment. The king's campaign against the Auftrians commenced by penetrating, in concert with his allies, into Bohemia, and obliging the emprefs-queen to recal her troops from Alface. It was rendered brilliant by the fiege and conqueft of Prague; but from mifmanagement after that event, a conduct which Frederick imputes to his complaifance and yielding to the opinion of his allies, contrary to his better judgment, little advantage was drawn from it. The Pruffian army was ftraitened in its quarters, diftreffed for provifions, and fometimes infulted in its camp, while the Auftrians, by their ftrong pofitions, prevented every attack which the king meditated. Marshal Traun and prince Charles of Lorraine, by their skilful movements, reduced Frederick almoft to the neceffity of giving up either Prague or Silefia; and at last obliged him to repass the Elbe at Kolin, the only poft, with that of Pardubitz, which kept up the communication with each place. Notwithstanding the king's precautions, prince Charles paffed the Elbe, though he was fuccefsfully oppofed for five hours by a fingle Pruffian battalion, under lieutenant-colonel Wedel, who, by this action, acquired the title of Leonidas. This decided the refolution of Frederick; Prague was abandoned, and his army retreated in good order into Silefia, without effecting any one purpose which was defigned.

No general committed more faults than did the king, during this campaign. The firft, certainly, was that of not providing magazines fufficient to maintain his army fix months in Bohemia. It is well known that, to raise the great fuperftructure of an army, it must be remembered the belly is the foundation. But this was not all: he entered Saxony, although he knew that the Saxons had acceded to the treaty of Worms; therefore, he either fhould have obliged them to change fides, or have crushed them before he had fet foot in Bohemia. He laid fiege to Prague, and fent a feeble detachment to Beraun against Bathiani. Had not the troops enacted prodigies of valour, they must have been loft. Prague being taken, good policy certainly required he should immediately march with the half of his army against Bathiani; ruin him before the arrival of prince Charles, and take the magazine of Pilfen; the lofs of which would have prevented the return of the Auftrians into Bohemia. They would have been obliged again to have amaffed fubfiftence, which requires time: fo that, to them, the campaign would

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have been loft. If fufficient zeal were not fhewn in fupplying the Pruffian magazines, the fault must not be imputed to the king, but to the contractors, who received the money and left the magazines.

But how might the king have the weakness to adopt marfhal de Belleifle's project for the campaign, which led him to Tabor and Budweis, when he himfelf allowed that this projec was neither conformable to prefent circumstances, his own intereft, nor the laws of war? It is erroneous to carry condefcenfion too far. The commiffion of this error drew on numerous others. Was he juftified in putting his army into cantonments, when the enemy was encamped within a march of his quarters? The advantage of the campaign was wholly for the Auftrians. Marshal Traun acted the part of Sertorius, and the king that of Pompey. The conduct of the marshal is a perfect model, which every general who delights in his profeffion ought to ftudy, and if he has the abilities to imitate. The king himself owned that he regarded that campaign as his fchool in the art of war, and Traun as his preceptor. Good fortune is often more fatal to princes than adversity: during the former they are intoxicated with prefumption, the second renders them circumfpect and modest !”

The eleventh chapter contains mifcellaneous tranfactions of the first part of the year 1745. Early in January, the Auftrians invaded Upper Silefia, while the fuppofed panic of the Pruffians lafted; but they were defeated with difgrace, and returned to winter-quarters. The negociations with France, the death of the emperor Charles VII. and the intrigues which the profpect of an election excited, next follow. The candidates were the grand-duke of Tuscany and the king of Poland (Auguftus, elector of Saxony). The latter had infulted and oppofed the king in every attempt; but no oppofition was made, because the king knew that the crown of Poland was a perpetual barrier to his attempt. The king of France, who favoured Auguftus, was therefore complimented with Frederick's apparent acquiefcence; but the negociations relating to the enfuing campaign were not very pleafing to the king, who faw clearly that France only employed the allies to favour her views in Flanders. He attempted to negociate for peace with England; but the treaty of Warsaw, as he was informed by lord Chesterfield, the greatest genius and the most eloquent man in England,' fhackelled the opinions of the Pelham party, then in administration; and the fixed inveteracy of the king counteracted every attempt. About this time too the young elector of Bavaria, by the arti fices, the impofitions, and, as is infinuated, by the forgeries of Seckendorf, concluded a feparate peace at Fuffen with the queen

queen of Hungary: fo that with half Europe leagued against it, Ruffia only inactive by the force of its gold, with a ray of the returning favour of England, the fame and fortunes of Prufla were taked on the event of the enfuing campaign.

The twelfth chapter relates to the campaign in Italy and Flanders, and to what paffed on the Rhine previous to the operation of the Pruffian troops in Silefia. In Italy, the Bourbons were fuccessful; in Flanders they gained the battle of Fontenoy, and the city of Tournay. In this battle the allies were, at first, evidently victorious; and the change of fortune was feemingly owing to the fpirit and good conduct of count Saxe, who charged the victorious troops with the French guards and the Irish brigade, while he played on them, at the fame time, from fome batteries haftily formed: the king has obferved, that the generals of the allies did not know how to make a proper use of the advantage which they had gained. Louis afterwards reinforced his army in Flanders, by a detachment from that on the Rhine, feduced, as Frederick tells us, by the artifices of count Bruhl, who perfuaded the French ambaffador, that the only means of obtaining an advantageous. peace from the queen of Hungary was not to oppose the election of the grand-duke; and, in order to fhow this dispofition, the army on the Rhine was to be rendered inactive :-a mode of conduct which is not only unreasonable in itself, but of which the motive appears to be unlikely. Gand, (Ghent) Biuges, Oudenarde, Nieuport, Dendermonde, Oftend, and Ath furrendered in fucceffion, and marshal Saxe put his troops into winter-quarters, covered with laurels. The king's object in the campaign was not to follow prince Charles into Lorraine; but to keep close to the defiles and attack him the moment he left them to pafs into Upper Silefia; at the fame time foraging along the frontiers of Silefia: the fkirmishing, which was a prelude to the war, particularly the action of Jægandorf, which the king owns is reprefented as more important than it really was, to give fpirit and confidence to the Pruffian cavalry, who there were firft diftinguished, conclude the chapter.

The battle of Friedberg was the confequence of the king's plan; and it was completely and decifively fuccefsful, from the iratagem of alluring prince Charles to attack what he thought a defenceless enemy, and from the steady valour of the Pruffians.

This was the third, but not the last battle, fought to decide to whom Silefia appertained. When fovereigns play for pro vinces, the lives of men are but as counters, Stratagem prepared,

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valour fought, the battle. Had not prince Charles been de ceived by his fpies, who were themselves deceived, he never could fo ftupidly have fallen into the fnare that had been fpread. This confirms the maxim, that thofe principles fhould never be departed from, which the art of war prefcribes; and that cir cumfpection fhoul invariably be attended to, which obliges all commanders never to fwerve from rules which their own fafety, and the execution of their projects, exact; even when every thing favour fuch meditated projects, the furest way is, never to fo tar defp:fe the enemy as to fuppofe him incapable of refiftance. Chance never refigns its rights. In this very action, a mistake had nearly become fatal to the Pruffians. At the beginning of the battle, the king drew ten battalions from the fecond line, under the command of lieutenant-general Kalckftein, to reinforce the corps of du Moulin, and fent one of his aid du camps to order the margrave, Charles, to take the command of the fecond line of infantry, during the absence of Kalckstein. The blundering aid du camp told the margrave to reinforce the fecond line, with his brigade, which was at the extremity of the left. The king perceived the mistake in time, and rectified it with promptitude. Had prince Charles profited by this falfe motion, he might have taken the left of the Pruffians in flank, which was not yet fupported by the rivulet of Striegau. On trifles like thefe do the deftiny of kingdoms and the renown of generals depend, good or ill fortune is decided in an instant. Yet must it be confeffed, the bravery of the troops who fought at Friedberg confidered, the state ran no risk. Not a fingle corps was repulfed. Of fixty-four battalions, twenty-feven only were in action, and carried the victory. The world reft not more fecurely on the fhoulders of Atlas than Pruffia on fuch an army.'

Though the king's language breathes intoxication, he did not quit his former plan. He eat up' the frontiers of Bohemia, to which he had purfued prince Charles, and was contented. He might perhaps have done more, for the Saxons, over-awed by a Pruffian army near Halle, recalled the greater part of the troops; and the reinforcéments which prince Charles received were inadequate. At this period, the convention of Hanover was figned; and a description of the intrigues which preceded the diet and influenced the election in favour of the grand duke, follows.

Various circumstances prevented the emprefs-queen and the king of Poland from acceding to the convention of Hanover; and the war was again carried on with vigour. The Auftrians, with the affittance of the eager impetuous prince Lobkowitz, who, with the duke of Aremberg, had been fent to urge on prince Charles, were turbulent and vexatious: but another battle, that of Sorr, in which Frederick was again

fuccefs

fuccefsful, changed the fortune of the campaign. The king, as ufual, plays the after-game, and expatiates on his own errors, as well as thofe of his antagonists. He kept, however, fteadily to his firft plan, and did not entangle his army in the woods and defiles of Bohemia, where they might have been ftarved or cut off, in detail, by the irregular Pandours. At the battle of Sorr, the king had only 18,000 men opposed to 40,000 he, however, wintered in Silefia, to which he retreated, not without moleftation, after he had confumed all the forage on the frontiers.

The rebellion in Scotland fixed the attention of France and England. The emprefs queen now faw, in her own opinion, the king without an ally, and thought him an eafy conqueft, It was even defigned to fend the army, under prince Charles, to Saxony, and to fall on Berlin in the winter, in concert with the Saxon troops. The Swedish ambassador at Dresden difcovered the fecret, which count Bruhl incautiously betrayed; and, from the connexion in confequence of the marriage between the heir-elective of Sweden with the king's filter, was induced to give a timely information. Frederick, by a forced winter's campaign, crushed the venom in its egg; but he ftill held out the fame moderate overtures of peace. He was unwilling to demand any ceffion from Saxony, as common injuries would have united Poland more clofely with Auftria, and his object was to feparate them. At the fame time, he gave a proof of moderation to all Europe, if poffible to leffen the bad impreffions which his conduct refpecting Silefia had occafioned. The old prince of Anhalt perplexed Frederick by his caution and delay; but made full amends by his glorious victory at Keffeldorf, a victory that terminated a war which caused only an useless effusion of blood; except it be suppofed, that repeated victories confirmed the poffeffion of Silefia.

The first cares of the king of Pruffia all tended to the reestablishment of his army. He chiefly recruited it by the Auftrian and Saxon prifoners; of whom he had his choice. Thus were his troops completed at the expence of foreigners; and it did not coft the country more than feven thousand men, to repair the loffes that fo many bloody battles had occafioned. Since the art of war has been fo well understood in Europe, and policy has established a certain balance of power between fovereigns, grand enterprizes but rarely produce fuch effects as might be expected. An equality of forces, alternate lofs and fuccefs, occafion the opponents, at the end of the most defperate war, to find themselves much in the fame state of reciprocal ftrength as at the commencement. Exhausted treasures at length are productive of peace; which ought to be the work of humanity,