assuming next the character of a mediator, after having concluded a secret treaty of alliance with the coalesced powers and obtained the promise of a subsidy from England; and lastly pretending to negotiate for the neutrality of Hanover, while meditating with unexampled perfidy to appropriate that country to herself. We are now to behold her, enraged at the disappointment of her ambitious projects, impatient of the contempt with which she is treated, and goaded on by the universal indignation of her subjects, seeking to retrieve her honour and character by resistance to France, but without wisdom or foresight in her plans, and constant to the last in her dissimulation.

It is probable, that Bonaparte never thoroughly forgave the court of Berlin, for the danger to which he was exposed, by the vacillation and momentary change of its political system after the affair of Anspach; but while he stood in awe of its power, and had reason to fear the consequences of its hostility, he continued to be lavish of assurances of friendship, and flattered and amused its ministers with protesta. tions of regard and professions of moderation. The journey which Hangwitz took to Paris, opened the eyes even of that minister to the sincerity and value of these declarations; but the first public act of the cabinet of St. Cloud, which gave serious offence and alarm to the court of Berlin, was the investiture of Murat with the dutchies of Berg and Cleves. Berg had belonged to the king of Bavaria, as count Pala. tine of the Rhine, and been ceded to France in exchange for the Prussian

provinces of Anspach and Bay reuth in Franconia. Cleves, which had been already dismembered by the extension of the French empire to the banks of the Rhine, was one. of the three provinces given up by Prussia for Hanover. Various speculations had been formed with regard to the destination of these provinces, when they fell into the hands of France, but the general sentiment in Germany was that of surprize and indignation, when they were given to Murat, a foreigner, a soldier of fortune, and the brother. in-law of Bonaparte. There seemed to be no end to the encroachments of France, nor reliance on her most solemn and reiterated declarations, that the Rhine should be the boundary of her empire. To Prussia, in particular the establishment of Murat in the midst of her Westphalian provinces, was far from being acceptable; and very soon she began to experience the inconvenience of such a neighbour. Possession was taken in his name of the abbeys of Werden, Essen and Elten, on pretence that they belonged to the dutchy of Cleves, without respect. ing the prior occupation or claims of Prussia; and Wesel, though on the German side of the Rhine, was annexed to a French department, and strongly fortified.

But a deeper and more sensible injury awaited the Prussian government. While Laforest, the French resident at Berlin, was urging its ministers to persist in the measures they had adopted for retaining Hanover, Lucchesini discovered at Paris, that the French government had offered to the king of Great Britain, the complete restitution of

his electoral dominions. Thus, after the sacrifice of her honour and reputation, Prussia saw herself, on the eve of a general peace, about to be deprived of the reward, for which she had consented to act a part, so mean, treacherous and unworthy, without an opportunity of retrieving her character or of bettering her condition by resistance. Fortunately, as she then thought, the negotiation for peace between France and Russia, after preliminarics had been signed at Paris, was broken off by the refusal of the court of St. Petersburg, to ratify the treaty concluded by its negotiator. But this event, while it opened to Prussia the prospect of assistance, in case she should be driven to a war with France, disclosed to her farther proofs of the secret enmity of the cabinet of St. Cloud, and of its readiness to abandon her interests. She was was informed by Russia, that during the negotiation at Paris, distinct hints had been given to the Russian negotiator, that if his court was desirous of annexing any part of Polish Prussia to its dominions, no opposition would be made to such a project on the part of France.

Two other causes contributed materially to the determination of Prussia to commence hostilities against France; the one, by its effect on the public mind; the other, on account of the injury done to herself.

The occupation of Cattaro by the Russians had served as a pretext to the French emperor, not only for retaining possession of Braunau in the hereditary states of Austria after the term stipulated for its surrender by the peace of Presburg,

but for keeping on foot an immense army in Germany, which he maintained at the expence of the free towns and states of Suabia and Franconia. The presence of so large an army on its frontiers excited the jealousy and awakened the fears of the Prussian government. To overawe Prussia rather than to recover Cattaro seemed to be the object of assembling so great a force in that quarter, and when troops were collected in Westphalia, that suspicion was converted into certainty. Complaints were addressed from every quarter to Berlin, of the severity of the French contributions, and of the insufferable burthen of supporting their armies. The barbarous murder of Palm, a bookseller of Nuremberg, who was arrested in that imperial city by order of the French government, hurried to Braunau and there tried and executed under authority of a court marshal, for an alleged libel on the French emperor, excited universal indignation, and roused every pen in Germany to call down vengeance on such atrocious, unwarrantable acts. All eyes were turned to Prussia, imploring assistance and relief, while the bitterest reproaches were uttered against that selfish, temporizing policy, which had subjected Germany to such calamities and disgrace. The popular feeling at Berlin, in the court, in the army, among the burghers, was loudly and unequivocally ex pressed against the base, unprincipled, truckling policy of the government, since it had been directed by Haugwitz, Lombard, and other partizans of France. The surprize and indignation, which the scandalous

zollern-Siegmaringen, Salm-Salm, and Salm-Kyrburg, Isenburg, Birchstein and Lichtenstein, the duke of Aremburg, and the count of Leyen*. By their articles of confederacy, these princes separated themselves from the Germanic empire, and renounced all connection with it; appointed a diet to meet at Frankfort, to manage their public concerns, and settle their differences; chose the emperor of the French for their protector; established among themselves a federal alliance, by which, if one of them engaged in a continental war, all the others were bound to take part in it; and fixed the contingent which cach should in that case furnish, as follows: France, 200,000; Bavaria, 30,000; Wirtemberg, 12,000; Baden, 3,000; Berg, 5,000; Darmstadt, 4,000; Nassau, Hohenzol lern, and others, 4,000; total, 258,000 men. It was settled, that none of the members of this confederacy should be dependent on any foreign power, Dor enter into any service but that of the states of the confederation and their allies. No prince belonging to the confederacy could alienate the whole or any part of his dominions, but in favour of the confederates. Other German princes and states might be admitted into the confederacy, whenever it was found consistent with the general interest. In the mean time a vast number of petty princes and counts were deprived of the rights of sovereignty, which they held under the Germanic constitution, and these, without equi

valent or indemnity, were transferred to members of the confede ration. The imperial city of Nuremberg was given to the king of Bavaria, and that of Frankfort on the Maine to the archbishop of Ratisbon, formerly elector and archchancellor of the empire, now prince primate of "the confederated states of the empire," or confederation of the Rhine.

By these great and important innovations, the Germanic empire was virtually dissolved, and many of its states were annexed, under the name of allies, to the rising empire of the French. Bonaparte was not content, however, while the name of the Germanic empire subsisted. No sooner were the preliminaries of peace signed between France and Russia+, than a message was conveyed from him to the cmperor of Germany, to signify to the latter, that he must prepare to lay aside the title of emperor of Germany, and yield the precedence to France; and, farther, that he must be ready to give his assent to the new arrangements to be proposed in a few days at Ratisbon. To this mandate the emperor of Germany, since he could not resist the order, wisely submitted without remon strance, and by a formal deed, resigned his office and title of emperor of Germany, and annexed his German provinces and states to the empire of Austria ‡. On the 1st of August the confederates announced to the diet at Ratisbon, their separation from the empire; and on the same day a note was presented to

† July 20.

# August 6.

the

the diet, in the name of the French emperor, declaring that he no longer acknowledged the existence of the Germanic constitution.

When these arrangements were communicated to Prussia, her acquiescence was purchased by the delusive hope held out to her by France, of being permitted to form a confederation of states in the north of Germany under the protection of Prussia, as the confederation of the Rhine was under the protection of France. But no sooner had Austria submitted to the loss of her ancient, imperial dignity; and deposited the sceptre of the Othos at the foot of the modern Charlemagne; than Prussia, whose meanness was despised, and assistance no longer wanted by Bonaparte, found herself condemned to another disappointment, aggravated by the reflection, that she was indebted for this mortification to the want of wisdom and probity in her councils. She was told, that from deference to England, Bonaparte could not permit her to include the Hanseatic towns in her confederacy, and that he was determined to take them under his own protection. He was not averse to ber plan of a northern confederation; but his regard to justice and respect for the law of nations, would not allow him to see any compulsion used to make independent princes belong to it against their

Prussian Manifesto, Oct. 9th.

will. The wise prince, she was told, who governed Saxony, seemed not inclined to contract the new obligations which Prussia wished to impose upon him; and France could not see him enslaved, or forced to act against the interests of his people.‡ The elector of Hesse, another member of the proposed northern confederation, was reminded by the French minister at Cassel, of the inability of Prussia to do any thing for her allies. He was then invited to join the confederacy of the Rhine, and as an inducement to comply, the remaining possessions of the prince of Orange, brother-in-law of the king of Prussia, were of fered to be transferred to him.— And, when he refused these tempting proposals, the Rhenish confederation passed a resolution, by which he was cut off from access to part of his own states. ||

In the midst of these injuries and mortifications, Prussia discovered, that France, which had been con tinually urging her to the invasion of Swedish Pomerania, had engaged to Russia, to prevent her from depriving the king of Sweden of his German territories; and that after guaranteeing to her the possession of Hanover, her faithless ally had negotiated with England on the basis of the restoration of that electorate. I

To which of these grounds of complaint we are to attribute the

tion of the Rhine, Sept. 18.

Prussian Manifesto.

M 4

final