"On the 10th, about three in the morning, General Schmettau set fire to the suburb adjoining the Pirna Gate, and to many of the houses built on the edge of the fosse, apprehensive that they might be occupied by the enemy. I will not describe to your Lordship the horror of this night, nor the terror and confusion it struck into the poor inhabitants, as the whole town seemed to be environed with flames. I mounted into one of the steeples, from which I saw the most melancholy prospect—the poor frightened inhabitants running from the burning suburbs, with the wretched remains of their furniture, towards the Great Garden, and the whole circuit of the town appearing in flames, ruins, and smoke."
Marshal Daun next day remonstrated against this act, as contrary to the laws of war. The Prussian general replied "that the Marshal knew better, and that he must do his duty; but that if the Marshal wished to save the rest of the suburbs, he had only to withdraw his troops." Daun replied "that he would receive no directions how he was to attack." The military repartees passed away, but the people were ruined.
The name of Dresden was familiarised to English ears in the last war by the battles fought round it, and the sufferings of its inhabitants. It is difficult to think of those calamities, and of the calamities to which every Continental city is exposed in the first breaking out of hostilities, without a sense of the superior security of our country, and, it is to be hoped, without a sense of the gratitude due for that security to the Supreme Disposer of the fates of nations. Of war England knows little but by her victories.
The close of the Seven Years' War, in 1763, released the envoy from the more arduous part of his service; and in 1765 he returned to England, and was made a Knight of the Bath, then an honour much more restricted than now—the number being few, and the reward unshared, but by public ministers and military men of the first distinction. His health at this period had been declining, and, retaining his envoyship to the last, and with the same vigour of faculties, he died by a short illness in June 1771. Sir Andrew Mitchell was evidently a man of high spirit, clear understanding, and active intelligence. His Journals are brief, yet interesting; and if, instead of writing a Diary, he had given us a History, no man would have rendered a more important account of one of the most important periods of Europe.
The remaining career of Frederick we pass, as a portion of universal history. His battles, his share in the fatal partition of Poland, the vigorous administration which raised Prussia from a third-rate state to a first, and from a population of five millions to one of three times the number, are matters of high interest to the political philosopher. In the character of Frederick II., there was much that no man of religious principle can applaud; but the habits of France had been rendered infidel by the effects of Popery on a lively and ingenious people. The religion which Voltaire and his followers saw from day to day was not Christianity—the miracles of supposed saints, and the worship of a supposed Queen of Heaven, which revolted the common sense of mankind, extinguished the implicit faith of these keen-witted Frenchmen. The infidel was only a scoffer at a graver infidelity. The wit of the Frenchman made his scoff popular; and the German, destined to be always an imitator, was proud to follow the laugh, without attempting to examine the logic, of Voltaire.
The later history of Prussia has grown in importance with the growing pressure of our time. Prussia is no longer a struggling state; she is a great European power. No longer a dependent on the policy of Europe, she constitutes a prime mover of that policy. The French have trampled her under foot, apparently only to give her the great lesson that the strength of a nation is in the national virtue. The cause, which was lost by the army, was restored by the population. There was no army in Europe which fell into such instant ruin; there was no population of Europe which started on its feet with such invincible vigour. No defeat was so desperate, no victory so memorable. The peasant restored the monarchy.
Prussia has since been scourged in the common insurgency of the Continent; yet even that suffering will be of infinite value, if it shall remind her that the safety of thrones is in the religion of the people. The connexion is evident. Revolution is the natural tempter of man; it offers opulence to the poor, rank to the vain, agitation to the active, and power to the ambitious. To resist these original stimulants of our nature, what is there in the arm of kings, in the frowns of law, or in the morals of philosophy? There must be a protector, not to be found among the dubious impulses or infirm decencies of this world. That only protector is Religion!
Germany is irreligious. Its Protestant population is infidel, its Popish is sunk in the depths of superstition. In neither is it Christian. Individuals may still protest, in the once famous land of Protestantism; but the volumes with which Germany is now inundating the world are hostile to every principle of the Gospel. Germany must return to the Bible before her monarchs can sit safely in their palaces. The offer of Constitutions to their people is only the offer of wine to the intoxicated. It is the abuse of a noble gift, and the conversion of a source of natural vigour into the nutriment of a habitual vice. Prussia has now a great vocation. Whatever share of rational liberty exists in Germany is to be sought for at her hands. She possesses the most enlightened intellect, the most vigorous learning, and the most inquiring spirit of Germany. Every man who wishes well to the progress of the Continent must give his aspirations to the progress of Prussia. But her superior advantages will only insure the keener suffering, unless guided by superior virtue.
Her late interference in the war of the Northern Duchies was suspicious; and the passion for naval power, and the hope of acquiring the protectorate of Northern and Central Germany, may have betrayed her into encroachments on her neighbours. But these dreams seem to be past; and it must depend wholly on herself whether she shall disappoint a noble experiment, or shall establish an imperishable name; whether her emblem shall be the scaffold or the altar; whether she shall be the great magazine of political combustion, or the great armoury of political defence to Europe; whether the shade of the royal tree shall shelter the fugitive principles of rational freedom, or direct the lightnings upon them. There can be no question that we live in times of vast political peril: the pealing of the tempest has scarcely sunk behind our march, when clouds gather on it before. New expedients are required to revive the preservative power of old principles. Religion is on its trial among ourselves; but here it will not meet its catastrophe. The Continent will be the scene of the great conflict; and Prussia, more probably than any other portion of the Continent, will witness the severity of the struggle. It may be decided even within the lapse of a few years, and by the exercise of her own wisdom, whether her throne shall stand forth the barren centre of German revolution, or a magnificent creation of power—a central temple, to which the nations of the Continent shall come for the sacred fire, appointed to administer virtue to the living generation, and illustrate posterity.