If the empress-queen was not gratified to the extent of her wishes in the fortune of the campaign, at least her self-importance was nattered in another point, which could not fail of being interesting to a princess famed for a glowing zeal and inviolable attachment to the religion of Rome. In the month of August the pope conferred upon her the title of apostolical queen of Hungary, conveyed by a brief, in which he extolled her piety, and launched out into retrospective eulogiums of her predecessors, the princes of Hungary, who had been always accustomed to fight and overcome for the catholic faith under his holy banner. This compliment, however, she did not derive from the regard of Prosper Lambertini, who exercised the papal sway under the assumed name of Benedict XIV. That pontiff, universally esteemed for his good sense, moderation, and humanity, had breathed his last in the month of April, in the eighty-fourth year of his age; and in July was succeeded in the papacy by cardinal Charles Bezzonico, bishop of Padua, by birth a Venetian. He was formerly auditor of the Rota; afterwards promoted to the purple by pope Clement XII. at the nomination of the republic of Venice; was distinguished by the title of St. Maria d’Ara Coeli, the principal convent of the Cordeliers, and nominated protector of the Pandours, or Illyrians. When he ascended the papal chair, he assumed the name of Clement XIII. in gratitude to the last of that name, who was his benefactor. Though of a disagreeable person, and even deformed in his body, he enjoyed good health, and a vigorous constitution. As an ecclesiastic, his life was exemplary; his morals were pure and unimpeached; in his character he is said to have been learned, diligent, steady, devout; and, in every respect, worthy to succeed such a predecessor as Benedict.
KING OF PORTUGAL ASSASSINATED.
The king of Spain wisely persisted in reaping the advantages of a neutrality, notwithstanding the intrigues of the French partisans at the court of Madrid, who endeavoured to alarm his jealousy by the conquests which the English had projected in America. The king of Sardina sagaciously kept aloof, resolving, in imitation of his predecessors, to maintain his power on a respectable footing, and be ready to seize all opportunities to extend and promote the interest of his crown, and the advantage of his country. As for the king of Portugal, he had prudently embraced the same system of forbearance; but in the latter end of the season, his attention was engrossed by a domestic incident of a very extraordinary nature. Whether he had, by particular instances of severity, exasperated the minds of certain individuals, and exercised his dominion in such acts of arbitrary power as excited a general spirit of disaffection among his nobility; or, lastly, by the vigorous measures pursued against the encroaching Jesuits in Paraguay, and their correspondents in Portugal, had incurred the resentment of that society, we shall not pretend to determine: perhaps all these motives concurred in giving birth to a conspiracy against his life, which was actually executed at this juncture with the most desperate resolution. On the third day of September, the king, according to custom, going out in a carriage to take the air, accompanied by one domestic, was, in the night, at a solitary place near Belem, attacked by three men on horseback, armed with musquetoons, one of whom fired his piece at the coachman without effect. The man, however, terrified both on his own account and that of his sovereign, drove the mules at full speed; a circumstance which, in some measure, disconcerted the other two conspirators, who pursued him at full gallop, and having no leisure to take aim, discharged their pieces at random through the back of the carriage. The slugs with which they were loaded happened to pass between the king’s right arm and his breast, dilacerating the parts from the shoulder to the elbow, but without damaging the bone, or penetrating into the cavity of the body. Finding himself grievously wounded, and the blood flowing apace, he, with such presence of mind as cannot be sufficiently admired, instead of proceeding to the palace, which was at some distance, ordered the coachman to return to Junqueria, where his principal surgeon resided, and there his wounds were immediately dressed. By this resolution he not only prevented the irreparable mischief that might have arisen from an excessive effusion of blood; but, without all doubt, saved his life from the bands of other assassins, posted on the road to accomplish the regicide, in case he should escape alive from the first attack. This instance of the king’s recollection was magnified into a miracle, on a supposition that it must have been the effect of divine inspiration; and, indeed, among a people addicted to superstition, might well pass for a favourable interposition of Providence. The king being thus disabled in his right arm, issued a decree, investing the queen with the absolute power of government. In the meantime, no person had access to his presence but herself, the first minister, the cardinal de Saldanha, the physicians, and surgeons. An embargo was immediately laid on all the shipping in the port of Lisbon. Rewards were publicly offered, together with the promise of pardon to the accomplices, for detecting any of the assassins; and such other measures used, that in a little time the whole conspiracy was discovered: a conspiracy the more dangerous, as it appeared to have been formed by persons of the first quality and influence. The duke de Weiro, of the family of Mascarenhas; the marquis de Tavora, who had been viceroy of Goa, and now actually enjoyed the commission of general of the horse; the count de Attougui, the marquis de Alloria, together with their wives, children, and whole families, were arrested immediately after the assassination, as principals in the design; and many other accomplices, including some Jesuits, were apprehended in the sequel. The further proceedings on this mysterious affair, with the fate of the conspirators, will be particularized among the transactions of the following year. At present it will be sufficient to observe, that the king’s wounds were attended with no bad consequences; nor did the imprisonment of those noblemen produce any disturbance in the kingdom.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY.
The domestic occurrences of France were tissued with a continuation of the disputes between the parliaments and clergy, touching the bull Unigenitus. In vain the king had interposed his authority: first proposing an accommodation; then commanding the parliament to forbear taking cognizance of a religious contest, which did not fall under their jurisdiction; and, thirdly, banishing their persons, and abrogating their power. He afterwards found it necessary to the peace of his dominions to recall and reinstate those venerable patriots; and being convinced of the intolerable insolence and turbulent spirit of the archbishop of Paris, had exiled that prelate in his turn. He was no sooner re-admitted to his function, than he resumed his former conduct, touching the denial of the sacraments to those who refused to acknowledge the bull Unigenitus: he even acted with redoubled zeal; intrigued with the other prelates; caballed among the inferior clergy; and not only revived, but augmented, the troubles throughout the whole kingdom. Bishops, curates, and monks, presumed to withhold spiritual consolation from persons in extremity, and were punished by the civil power. Other parliaments of the kingdom followed the example exhibited by that of Paris, in asserting their authority and privileges. The king commanded them to desist, on pain of incurring his indignation; they remonstrated, and persevered; while the archbishop repeated his injunctions and censures, and continued to inflame the dispute to such a dangerous degree, that he was given to understand he should be again obliged to quit the capital, if he did not proceed with more moderation. But the chief care of the French ministry was employed in regulating the finances, and establishing funds of credit for raising money to pay subsidies, and maintain the war in Europe and America. In the course of this year they had not only considerably reinforced their armies in Germany, but made surprising efforts to supply the colony of Canada with troops, artillery, stores, and ammunition, for its defence against the operations of the British forces, which greatly outnumbered the French upon the continent. The court of Versailles practised every stratagem to elude the vigilance of the English cruisers. The ships destined for America they detached, both single and in convoys, sometimes from the Mediterranean, sometimes from their harbours in the channel. They assembled transports in one port, in order to withdraw the attention of their enemies from another, where their convoys lay ready for sailing; and in boisterous weather, when the English could no longer block up their harbours, their store-ships came forth, and hazarded the voyage for the relief of their American settlements. Those that had the good fortune to arrive on the coast of that continent, were obliged to have recourse to different expedients for escaping the British squadrons stationed at Halifax, or cruising in the bay of St. Laurence. They either ventured to navigate the river before it was clear of the ice, so early in the spring, that the enemy had not yet quitted the harbour of Nova-Scotia; or they waited on the coast of Newfoundland for such thick fogs as might screen them from the notice of the English cruisers, in sailing up the gulf; lastly, they penetrated through the straits of Belleisle, a dangerous passage, which, however, led them directly into the river St. Laurence, at a considerable distance above the station of the British squadron. Though the French navy was by this time so reduced, that it could neither face the English at sea nor furnish proper convoys for commerce, her ministry nevertheless attempted to alarm the subjects of Great Britain with the project of an invasion. Flat-bottomed boats were built, transports collected, large ships of the line equipped, and troops ordered to assemble on the coast for embarkation; but this was no more than a feint to arouse the apprehension of the English, disconcert the administration, prejudice the national credit, and deter the government from sending forces to keep alive the war in Germany. A much more effectual method they took to distress the trade of England, by laying up their useless ships of war, and encouraging the equipment of stout privateers, which did considerable damage to the commerce of Great Britain and Ireland, by cruising in the seas of Europe and America. Some of them lay close in the harbours of the channel, fronting the coast of England, and darted out occasionally on the trading ships of this nation, as they received intelligence from boats employed for that purpose. Some chose their station in the North sea, where a great number of captures were made upon the coast of Scotland; others cruised in the chops of the channel, and even to the westward of Ireland; but the far greater number scoured the seas in the neighbourhood of the Leeward Islands in the West Indies, where they took a prodigious number of British ships, sailing to and from the sugar colonies, and conveyed them to their own settlements in Martinique, Guadeloupe, or St. Domingo.
CONDUCT OF THE KING OF DENMARK.
With respect to the war that raged in Germany, the king of Denmark wisely pursued that course, which happily preserved him from being involved in those troubles by which great part of Europe was agitated, and terminated in that point of national advantage which a king ought ever to have in view for the benefit of his people. By observing a scrupulous neutrality, he enhanced his importance among his neighbours: he saw himself courted by all the belligerent powers: he saved the blood and treasure of his subjects: he received large subsidies, in consideration of his forbearance; and enjoyed, unmolested, a much more considerable share of commerce than he could expect to carry on, even in times of universal tranquillity. He could not perceive that the protestant religion had anything to apprehend from the confederacy which was formed against the Prussian monarch; nor was he misled into all the expense, the perils, and disquiets of a sanguinary war, by that ignis fatuus which hath seduced and impoverished other opulent nations, under the specious title of the balance of power in Germany. Howsoever he might be swayed by private inclination, he did not think it was a point of consequence to his kingdom, whether Pomeranians possessed by Sweden or Prussia; whether the French army was driven back beyond the Rhine, or penetrated once more into the electorate of Hanover: whether the empress-queen was stripped of her remaining possessions in Silesia, or the king of Prussia circumscribed within the original bounds of his dominion. He took it for granted that France, for her own sake, would prevent the ruin of that enterprising monarch; and that the house of Austria would not be so impolitic and blind to its own interest, as to permit the empress of Russia to make and retain conquests in the empire; but even if these powers should be weak enough to sacrifice all the maxims of sound policy to caprice or resentment, he did not think himself so deeply concerned in the event, as for the distant, prospect of what might possibly happen, to plunge headlong into a war that must be attended with certain and immediate disadvantages. True it is, he had no hereditary electorate in Germany that was threatened with invasion; nor, if he had, is it to be supposed that a prince of his sagacity and patriotism would have impoverished his kingdom of Denmark, for the precarious defence of a distant territory. It was reserved for another nation to adopt the pernicious absurdity of wasting its blood and treasure, exhausting its revenues, loading its own back with the most grievous impositions, incurring an enormous debt, big with bankruptcy and ruin; in a word, of expending above an hundred and fifty millions sterling in fruitless efforts to defend a distant country, the entire property of which was never valued at one twentieth part of that sum; a country with which it had no natural connexion, but a common alliance arising from accident. The king of Denmark, though himself a prince of the empire, and possessed of dominions in Germany almost contiguous to the scenes of the present war, did not yet think himself so nearly concerned in the issue, as to declare himself either principal or auxiliary in the quarrel; yet he took care to maintain his forces by sea and land upon a respectable footing; and by this conduct, he not only provided for the security of his own country, but overawed the belligerent powers, who considered him as a prince capable of making either scale preponderate, just as he might choose to trim the balance. Thus he preserved his wealth, commerce, and consequence undiminished; and instead of being harassed as a party, was honoured as an umpire.