lifhed. It is granted, also, that the three men who were brought to trial in Edinburgh, by the lord advocate, for attempting to seduce the soldiery, were found guilty by the jury; but these men had proceeded to ouvert acts of sedition. In general, however, it is thought, that in matters of smaller consequence it may be more becoming the magnanimity of government to overlook, than to take notice of them. I am yours, &c. NERVA *.

SLIGHT SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF COUNT HERTSBERG, LATE MINISTER OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, KING OF PRUSSIA, AND OF FREDERICK WILLIAM, HIS SUCCESSOR.

For the Bee.

COUNT HERTSBERG began his political carreer with various diplomatic commifsions in the year 1745,

* There is one inconvenience to which the laws respecting libels may give rise, which our ingenious correspondent has overlooked, and which is yet deserving of serious attention, viz. the trouble and expence to which individuals may be subjected in case of ill founded prosecutions, under pretext of libels. In England, where greater efforts have been made to secure the liberty of the subject, than in any other country, this evil has been guarded against by the law, which ordains that no prosecution of this nature can be commenced until it fhall be authorised by the GRAND JURY of the county where the offence has been committed. In Scotland this awful power of commencing prosecutions on libel is vested solely in the breast of ONE man; a power, that, as it doubtlefs may, from ignorance or caprice, bé exercised greatly to the detriment of individuals, who have no very obvious means of obtaining red refs where they shall happen thus to suffer unjustly, seems to border too much on the arbitrary system of former ages, to be altogether compatible with the more mo derate principles of the present times. A reformation in this respect is therefore devoutly to be wished; for though this power should not be

and the following years, until the peace of Aix la Chapelle; all of which he executed with singular addrefs and fidelity; corresponding with the king himself only, who had the singular honour of being his own minister, and yet without detriment to the welfare of his people.

In the beginning of the seven years war, he was entrusted with the department, of secretary for foreign affairs; and he executed this office with great ability, success, and honour, (until he was deprived of his situation by the present king, on the change of his political principles of alliance,) after having concluded, during his long administration, eight solemn and glorious treaties of peace, and superintended all those manifestoes, and other public papers, which have rendered illustrious the reign of Frederick II. and in the beginning of that of his successor; contributing by his prudence and talents to ensure his sovereign the general applause of all Europe, by the ifsue of the seven years war, and by the noble stand made against the aspiring ambition of Joseph II. in the businefs of the Bavarian pact and succefsion, to save Germany and its league from destruction.

He laid the foundation, during the reign of the late king, for the defeat of the Louvestion faction in Holland; which he afterwards was the instrument of finally accomplishing, by the full establishment of abused, still the dread of it must produce a bad effect upon the minds of the people of this country in more respects than one. Limed power we now know, is that alone which has a chance of being permanent, and uniformly exerted in preserving good order and tranquilli y in the Edit.

state.

the Stadtholdman interest in Holland, in the beginning of the reign of the present sovereign.

He moved the alliance with England, and brought to pass its new continental system, so advantageous to Prufsia, by making Britain a party in the quarrels of Germany, to the benefit of his master's kingdom, and obtaining for him, thereby, the only thing he wanted, a great power at sea, without any trouble

or expence.

He was highly instrumental in afsisting this great monarch, not only to re-establish, and nearly double the population and resources of his ancient hereditary states; but notwithstanding the long and bloody wars which were to be encountered, to triple that of his dominions by provinces newly acquired.

It was by the encouragement of agriculture, that these noble designs were principally accomplished; but great expence in public walks, leading to internal and external commerce, was not spared under the councils of the generous count Hertfberg.

For a long time, in the new establishments that were formed by the advice of the minister, all taxes and military enrolments were excused, particularly on the Nertze and Wartha, from Driesen to Kustrin ; by which means 120,000 acres of good land were brought into cultivation, and 3000 families established upon the Oder, from Kustrin to Oderberg, on the Havel, and the Elbe; on the great lake of Madua in Pomerania; on the swamps of the Fiener, in the province of Magdebourg; and in many other places.

Besides this, count Hertfberg promoted and su perintended the draining of the bogs of Dromling, by which 120,000 more acres were restored to cultivation, or to useful pasture.

Five hundred and thirty-nine new villages or hamlets were built at the expence of the state, and planted with four thousand six hundred and ninetynine new families; and not satisfied with this noble conduct, more than a million sterling was gratuitously given by the state, in a course of years, for the establishment of the new colonists, and the improvement of the lands.

He advised the king to give upwards of three hundred farms in his majesty's own desmesnes, in hereditary lease, to all kinds of cultivators, separating them from all fiscal jurisdiction; by which a spirited and exemplary mode of agriculture was immediately introduced by the new creation of that glorious tribe of cultivators called yoemen in England!

Besides the immense sums above mentioned, the immortal Frederick 11. distributed, under the ministry of count Hertfberg, prizes and donations to the farmers and manufacturers; and otherwise expended for the improvement of his people and his country, from the year 1763 to 1784, nearly twentytwo millions of German crowns; and of these great, useful, and beneficent actions, the worthy count Hertsberg rendered a full and descriptive account, in his essay on population, read by him to the Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles Letters at Berlin, on the 27th of January 1785, being the 74th and last anniversary of the birth of his glorious friend and sovereign, who had two days before performed that

207 memorable and truly sentimental ceremony of causing old general Ziethen, who had gathered so many laurels for him, to sit at his levee, in the king's presence; the king and his heir, his brother, his nephew the duke of Brunswick, and all his surviving old generals of the seven years war, standing around him, while the grateful tears of Ziethen were flowing on his venerable countenance; and the king's was illuminated with unextinguished fire, while it was softened by the most beautiful exprefsion of heroic mildness, and manly tenderness.

After all this noble carreer of Hertfberg, he was forced to retire without any other recompence than the consciousness of his virtue and honour.

Since that event, he has dedicated himself to the superintendance of the Academy of Sciences, and to the composition of the annals of Frederick II. which according to his plan, will be one of the noblest works of the kind that the prefs has ever produced. He has also undertaken, (with the academy,) to execute the glorious plan proposed by the great Leibnitz, for the improvement of the German language, for which he could not obtain the patronage of his great master, who was partial to the French language, as tending more to the diffusion of that enlightened philosophy, which, under the auspices of the hero, has made such progrefs on the continent.

Besides these dignified occupations of count Hertsberg, he attends to an experimental farm at his residence in the country, improves the flocks of the Prufsian dominions, by the introduction of Spanish and other fine woolled fheep, and promotes the cultivation of silk. Of these, and other improvements