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
STATE of the ARMIES on the CONTINENT.
Before we proceed to enumerate the events of the campaign, it may be necessary to inform the reader, that the forces brought into the field by the empress-queen of Hungary, and the states of the empire, the czarina, the kings of France and Sweden, fell very little short of three hundred thousand men; and all these were destined to act against the king of Prussia and the elector of Hanover. In opposition to this formidable confederacy, his Prussian majesty was, by tha subsidy from England, the spoils of Saxony, and the revenues of Brandenbourg, enabled to maintain an army of one hundred and forty thousand men: while the elector of Hanover assembled a body of sixty thousand men, composed of his own electoral troops, with the auxiliary mercenaries of Hesse-Cassel, Buckebourg, Saxe-Gotha, and Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, all of them maintained by the pay of Great Britain. At this juncture, indeed, there was no other fund for their subsistence, as the countries of Hanover and Hesse were possessed by the enemy, and in the former the government was entirely changed.
THE FRENCH KING CHANGES THE ADMINISTRATION OF HANOVER.
In the month of December in the preceding year, a fanner of the revenues from Paris arrived at Hanover, where he established his office, in order to act by virtue of powers from one John Faidy, to whom the French king granted the direction, receipt, and administration of all the duties and revenues of the electorate. This director was, by a decree of the council of state, empowered to receive the reveiraes, not only of Hanover, but also of all other countries that should be subjected to his most christian majesty in the course of the campaign; to remove the receivers who had been employed in any part of the direction, receipt, and administration of the duties and revenues of Hanover, and appoint others in their room. The French king, by the same decree, ordained, that all persons who had been intrusted under the preceding government, with titles, papers, accounts, registers, or estimates, relating to the administration of the revenues, should communicate them to John Faidy, or his attorneys; that the magistrates of the towns, districts, and commonalties, as well as those who directed the administration of particular states and provinces, should deliver to the said John Faidy, or his attorneys, the produce of six years of the duties and revenues belonging to the said towns, districts, and provinces, reckoning from the first of January in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one, together with an authentic account of the sums they had paid during that term to the preceding sovereign, and of the charges necessarily incurred. It appears from the nature of this decree, which was dated on the eighteenth day of October, that immediately after the conventions of Closter-Seven and Bremenworden,* the court of Versailles had determined to change the government and system of the electorate, contrary to an express article of the capitulation granted to the city of Hanover, when it surrendered on the ninth day of August; and that the crown of France intended to take advantage of the cessation of arms, in seizing places and provinces which were not yet subdued; for, by the decree above-mentioned, the administration of John Faidy extended to the countries which might hereafter be conquered.
* Six days after the convention was signed at Closter-Seven, another act of accommodation was concluded at Bremenworden, between the generals Sporcken and Villemur, relating to the release of prisoners, and some other points omitted in the convention.
With what regard to justice, then, could the French government charge the elector of Hanover with the infraction of articles? or what respect to good faith and humanity did the duke de Richelieu observe, in the order issued from Zell, towards the end of the year, importing, that as the treaty made with the country of Hanover had been rendered void by the violation of the articles signed at Closter-Seven, all the effects belonging to the officers, or others, employed in the Hanoverian army, should be confiscated for the use of his most christian majesty?