IMPROVEMENT OF POMERANIA.
How much soever the king of Prussia may be the subject of censure on this occasion, it must be allowed that, with regard to his own subjects, he acted as a wise legislator, and the father of his country. He peopled the deserts of Pomerania, by encouraging, with royal bounties, a great number of industrious emigrants to settle in that province; the face of which in a very few years underwent the most agreeable alteration. Above sixty new villages arose amidst a barren waste, and every part of the country exhibited marks of successful cultivation. Those solitary and desolate plains, where no human footsteps had for many ages been seen, were now converted into fields of corn. The farms were regularly parcelled out; the houses multiplied, and teemed with population; the happy peasants, sheltered in a peculiar manner under their king’s protection, sowed their grounds in peace, and reaped their harvests in security. The same care and indulgence were extended to the unpeopled parts of other provinces within the Prussian dominions, and extraordinary encouragement was granted to all French protestants who should come and settle under the government of this political sage.
TREATY WITH THE ELECTOR PALATINE.
The courts of Vienna and Hanover still employed their chief attention upon the scheme of electing a king of the Romans; and the elector of Mentz, influenced by the majority of the college, had convoked an electoral diet for that purpose; but strong protests against this convocation were entered by the electors of Cologn and Palatine, insomuch that it was thought expedient to conciliate this last, by taking some steps in his favour, with respect to the satisfaction he demanded from the empress-queen and his Britannic majesty. His claim upon the court of Vienna amounted to three millions of florins, by way of indemnification for the losses he had sustained during the war. He demanded of the king of England twenty thousand pounds sterling, for provisions and forage furnished to the British troops while they acted on the Maine; and the like sum for the like purposes from the states-general of the United Provinces. The empress-queen could not help remonstrating against this demand as exorbitant in itself, and the more unreasonable, as the elector palatine, at the death of her father, had openly declared against the pragmatic sanction, which he had guaranteed in the most solemn manner; she therefore observed, that the damage he had sustained in consequence of that declaration, ought to be considered as the common fate of war. These reasons, though conclusive and irrefragable in the usual way of arguing, made no impression upon the palatine, who perfectly well understood his own importance, and was determined to seize this opportunity of turning it to the best advantage. The court of Vienna, and the maritime powers, finding him thus obstinately attached to his own interest, resolved to bring him over to their views at any rate, and commenced a negotiation with him, which produced a formal treaty. By this convention his demands in money were fixed at twelve hundred thousand Dutch florins, to be paid at three instalments: five hundred thousand by the empress-queen, and the remaining seven hundred thousand by the king of Great Britain and the states-general, according to the proportion established in former treaties. The privilege of Non appellendo for the duchy of Deux-ponts was confirmed to his electoral highness, together with some other rights and pretensions, in consideration of his concurring with the other electors in the choice of a king of the Romans, to be elected according to the customs prescribed by the laws and constitutions of the empire. He likewise engaged to join them in settling the articles of the capitulation with the king of the Romans, emperor in futuro. Yet, even after the concurrence of this prince was secured, the purposed election proved abortive, from the strong objections that were started, and the strenuous opposition which was made by his Prussian majesty, who perhaps aspired in secret at the imperial dignity, which the empress-queen took all this pains to perpetuate in her own family.
1753
SESSION OPENED.
The king of Great Britain returning from the continent, opened the session of parliament on the eleventh day of January, with a speech, implying that all his views and negotiations had been calculated and directed to preserve and secure the duration of the general peace, so agreeable and necessary to the welfare of all Europe; that he had the satisfaction to be assured of a good disposition in all the powers that were his allies, to adhere to the same salutary object. He exhorted them to continue their attention to the reduction of the national debt, the augmentation of the sinking fund, and the improvement of the public revenue. He recommended to their serious consideration what further laws and regulations might be necessary for suppressing those crimes and disorders, of which the public had so justly complained; and concluded with an assurance, that his hearty concurrence and endeavours should never be wanting in any measure that might promote their welfare and prosperity. The addresses in answer to this speech were couched in the usual form of implicit approbation; but that of the commons did not pass without question. The earl of Egmont took exceptions to one paragraph, in which they acknowledged his majesty’s wisdom, as well as goodness, in pursuing such measures as must contribute to maintain and render permanent the general tranquillity of Europe; and declared their satisfaction at the assurances his majesty had received from his allies, that they were all attached to the same salutary object. His lordship expatiated on the absurdity of these compliments at such a juncture, when the peace of Europe was so precarious, and the English nation had so much cause of complaint and dissatisfaction. He was seconded by some other individuals, who declaimed with great vivacity against continental connexions; and endeavoured to expose the weakness and folly of the whole system of foreign measures which our ministry had lately pursued. It must be owned, indeed, that they might have chosen a better opportunity to compliment their sovereign on the permanency of the peace than at this juncture, when they must have seen themselves on the very brink of a new rupture with the most formidable power in Europe. But the truth is, these addresses to the throne had been long considered as compliments of course, implying no more than a respectful attachment to their sovereign; accordingly, both houses agreed to their respective addresses without division. The two grand committees of supply and of ways and means, being established, the business of the house was transacted without much altercation; and the people had great reason to be satisfied with their moderate proceedings. Ten thousand seamen, and the usual number of land forces, were retained for the service of the ensuing year. They provided for the maintenance of the new colony of Nova Scotia, the civil establishment of Georgia, the support of the castles on the coast of Guinea, and the erection of a new fort at Anarnabo, where the French had attempted to make a settlement; and they enabled his majesty to fulfil his engagements with the king of Poland and the elector of Bavaria.