to inaccuracies and mistakes, which it would be vain to think of concealing from the judicious Reader by any parade. Such a Reader must be fenfible, that mistakes cannot poffibly be avoided in fuch a work: for he will be confcious that imperfection muft neceffarily be expected from hafte; and that we must reprefent things according to their appearances at the time, though thefe appearances may afterwards be discovered to have been delufive. These are misfortunes to which all are subject, who, without being perfonally concerned in them, write upon public affairs near the time in which they have been tranfacted. But we, who give no account of the business of the year, until the conclufion of each campaign, are lefs liable to be imposed upon, and lefs fubject to contradict our own accounts, than those who confine themselves to fhorter periods. Thefe Annual Histories, imperfect and inaccurate as they evidently must be, are yct of confiderable ufe: they aid the memory; they connect in the mind the scattered events; they fhew their dependencies and relations ; in fhort, they fupply, for a time, the place of a solid and regular history, which is not to be expected in many years after the events. THE Nabing decided in the war. State of the feveral powers concerned. Great Britain and Pruffa propose an accommodation. Difficulties in concluding a peace. The condition and hopes of France. Demands on the king of Pruffia. Treaty faid to be between Ruffia and Auftria. I F all the wars which have haraffed Europe for more than a century had not proved it, the events of the laft campaign muft have fatisfied every thinking man, that victories do not decide the fate of nations. Four moft bloody, and to all appearance moft ruinous defeats which he fuffered in that year, had defpoiled the king of Pralia of no more than a fingle town. After thefe accumulated blows he fill found himself in a condition to make good his winterquarters; to cover his dominions; VOL. III. themselves compelled to fly before their captives; and after having fuffered a confiderable defeat, fhould be pushed back almost on their own territories? On the other hand, it might have been fuppofed that the effect of these advantages under the management of a very great commander, who was befides largely reinforced, could have been fruftrated only by the lofs of fome great battle. But the fact was otherwise. The Hanoverians, without any adverse stroke in that campaign, were obliged to repafs the Rhine and the Lippe; and fince that time, fortune having decided nothing by the events of five years war, has given to Prince Ferdinand the poffeflion of a great part of Weftphalia in the manner of a conquered country; and yet fees him abandoning Heffe, and with difficulty covering the borders of Hanover. In fort, the victory of Crevelt could not enable the duke of Brunfwick to defend the Rhine. The battle of Bergen did not give M. Broglio an entrance in Hanover. The great victory of Minden did not drive the French from the Maine. We have seen armies, after complete victory, obliged to act as if they had been defeated; and after a defeat, taking an offenfive part with fuccefs, and reaping all the fruits of victory, Thefe reflections are ftill more ftrongly enforced by the fortune of the king of Pruffia. Covered with the laurels of Lowofitz, Prague, Rosbach, and Liffa, when he began, after fo many complete triumphs, to pursue his advantages, and to improve fuccefs into conqueft, the fcene was fuddenly altered. As foon as he attempted to penetrate with effect into the enemies coun、 try, without having suffered any. very fignal blow, without any confiderable miftake committed upon his fide, Fortune, who hath as it were attached herself to the defenfive, immediately forfook him. He was not able to take a fingle place. And thofe advantages which at other times and fituations would have laid the foundation of lafting. empire, have in his cafe only protracted a fevere deftiny, which fome think in the end inevitable; but which as many, as great, and as entire victories fince obtained over his forces, have not yet been able to bring upon him. The balance of power, the pride of modern policy, and originally invented to preserve the general peace as well as freedom of Europe, has only preferved its liberty. It has been the original of innumrable and fruitless wars. That political torture by which powers are to be enlarged or abridged, according to a fiandard, perhaps not very accurately imagined, ever has been, and it is to be feared will always continue a cause of infinite conten-" tion and bloodshed. The foreign ambaladors conftantly refiding in all courts, the negociations inceffantly carrying on, fpread both confederacies and quarrels fo wide, that whenever hoftilities commence, the theatre of war is always of a prodigious extent. All parties in thofe diffufive operations have of necesfity their ftrong and weak fides, What they gain in one part is loft in another; and in conclufion, their affairs become fo balanced, that all the powers concerned are certain to lofe a great deal; the moft fortunate acquire little; and what they do acquire is never in any reasonable proportion to charge and lofs, Frequent Frequent experience of this night prove one of the ftrongeft grounds for a lafting peace in Europe. But that fpirit of intrigue, which is the political diftemper of the time, that anxious forefight which forms the character of all the prefent courts, prevent the falutary effects which might refult from this experience. Thefe modern treaties of peace, the fruits not of moderation but neceflity; thofe engagements contracted when all the parties are wearied and none fatisfied; where none can properly be called conquerors or conquered; whete, after having fought in vain to compel, they are content to overreach them in the very moment they are formed, and from the very act of forming them, with the feeds of new diffenfions, more implacable animofities, and more cruel wars. For if to forward the work of peace any member in these alliances fhould acquire a ceffion of any importance in its favour, this afterwards becomes a ground for another alliance, and for new intrigues to deprive them of their acquifition. To fettle the peace of Germany, Silefia was yielded in 1745 to the king of Pruffia, and that ceffion gave occafion for the war in 1756. The kings of Great Britain and Pruffia chofe the moment of fuccefs, to propose an accommodation; and they defired that the oppofite powers thould concur with them in nominating fome place for a congrefs. Some fpoke of Leipfic, as a means of indemnification to that unfortunate city; the States-General would have given a town of theirs; king Staniflaus offered Nancy, his capital: but the time of peace was not yet come. The two kings made a difplay of moderation: and they had reason to think, that if their propofals fhould be accepted (which probably they did not then expect), they muft naturally take the lead in that negotiation, and muft give the whole a turn to their advantage. But the adverse alliance unanimously rejected their offers, and the refufal of fome of its members was couched in terms fufficiently haughty. To fpeak impartially, they could not at that time have accepted propofitions for peace. France had fuffered in every quarter: in her prefent condition the could scarcely look for very favourable terms. As they had now abandoned in defpair all attempts by fea, and confequently all efforts in North America, and both the Indies, all their hopes were centered in Germany. Hitherto their fortune in that country had not been very encouraging. But ftill, in that country lay their beft, and indeed their only profpect. The ftrength and perfeverance of the two empreites, the wafted condition of the K. of Pruffia, the enormous expence of the German war to England, which muft gradually exhaust the refources of her credit, and with them the patience of an inconftant people, had infpired with no fmall hope. All their confiderations confirmed their refolution of hearkening to no terms, until by acquiring fuperiority, or at leaft an equality, they might be affured of procuring fuch as were not very disadvantageous or humiliating. The emprefs-queen upon her part had a moral certainty, that she could not procure, by a treaty propofed at fuch a juncture, thofe objects for which he had begun, and with fuch steadiness in every fortune had carried on the war. la reality, her circumftances then were, and they ftill continue, very intricate and embarralled. It was neceffary that the should have allies of great power; but if they have done her great fervices, they have formed high pretenfions; indeed fo high, that if the and her allies cannot abfolutely prefcribe the terms of peace, it is impoflible that they fhould all be in any degree fatisfied. « Her fituation in this refpect has pufhed, ad intern cionem, the war between her and the king of Pruffia. Even the ceflion of all Silefia in her favour cannot procure a peace for that monarch. The Ruffians will never let loose their hold of the ducal Pruffia; a country conquered by their own arms, a poffeffion which rendered the king moft formidable to them, and which is their fole indemnification for what they have expended in a war entered into for other views than thofe of glory, or even of revenge. It has been confidently afferted, that the emprefs-queen of Hungary has actually guaranteed the poffeffion of that country to its conquerors. This is indeed a very extraordinary step, and the fact is not fufficiently authenticated, But the report is not altogether improbable. We may be fure that if fuch a guarantee has been made, it has been entered into upon fome reciprocal engagement of equal force, and for an object equally important. Nothing but the latt defperate neceflity, nothing in thort but being conquered in the most abfoluté fenfe, will ever induce the king of Prulia to fubmit to both thefe ceftions. By fuch a fubmiflion, befides being defpoiled of that conqueft, which is the great glory of his reign, and conflitutes the firmeft fupport of his revenue, he will fee his hereditary dominions curtailed of another province from whence he derives his royal title, and, what makes it of infinitely.greater importance in his eyes, the best commercial part of his territories, and that only part of his territories, by which he could have hoped to become in any degree a maritime power. But tho' it were poffible that his Pruflian majefty could be brought to fubmit to thefe humiliating terms, a great deal ftill remains to be adjusted. There are other demands, which, tho' not fo high in their nature, nor fo ftrongly enforced, are notwithstanding confiderable, and cannot with any decency be totally neglected. What is the nature of the bargain between the emprefs and the fenate of Sweden. has not yet been made public. Be it what it will, this is probably the leaft perplexing part of the whole. But fome indemnification for the king of Poland, on whofe dominions the greatett calamities of the war have fallen, feems abfolutely neceffary; and on what principle can Auftria ever expect an ally, if the fhould fecure all the benefits of the pacification to herself, and leave to her confederates nothing but the fufferings of a war in which they were involved purely in her quarrel? This variety of demands, all to be fati,fied out of the dominions of a single prince, muft neceffarily perplex the work of peace with almost infurmountable difficulties. It ought not indeed to be concealed, that there are circumftances which feem to lead to fome folution of this embarraflment. But if they are attentively confidered, they will, I believe, be rather found to increase it. Great Britain bas had remarkable fuccefs against France at fea, in Ame |