y the impoverished people to
despatch to Frederick, to aid him in his necessities.

A far greater assistance was the English subsidy of 670,000 pounds,
which was paid punctually for four years, and was of supreme
service to him. It was spent thriftily, and of all the enormous
sums expended by this country in subsidizing foreign powers, none
was ever laid out to a tenth of the advantage of the 2,680,000
pounds given to Frederick.

In the north the campaign also opened early. Ferdinand of Brunswick
bestirred himself, defeated the French signally at Krefeld, and
drove them headlong across the Rhine. Frederick, too, took the
field early, and on the 15th of March moved from Breslau upon
Schweidnitz. The siege began on the 1st of April, and on the 16th
the place surrendered. Four thousand nine hundred prisoners of war
were taken, with fifty-one guns and 7000 pounds in money.

Three days later Frederick, with forty thousand men, was off;
deceived Daun as to his intentions, entered Moravia, and besieged
Olmuetz. Keith was with him again, and Fergus had returned to his
staff. The march was conducted with the marvellous precision and
accuracy that characterized all Frederick's movements, but Olmuetz
was a strong place and stoutly defended.

The Prussian engineers, who did not shine at siege work, opened
their trenches eight hundred yards too far away. The magazines were
too far off, and Daun, who as usual carefully abstained from giving
battle, so cut up the convoys that, after five weeks of vain
endeavours, the king was obliged to raise the siege; partly owing
to the loss of the convoy that would have enabled him to take the
town, which was now at its last extremity; and partly that he knew
that the Russians were marching against Brandenburg.

He made a masterly retreat, struck a heavy blow at Daun by
capturing and destroying his principal magazine, and then took up a
very strong position near Koeniggraetz. Here he could have
maintained himself against all Daun's assaults, for his position
was one that Daun had himself held and strongly fortified; but the
news from the north was of so terrible a nature that he was forced
to hurry thither.

The Cossacks, as the Russian army advanced, were committing most
horrible atrocities; burning towns and villages, tossing men and
women into the fire, plundering and murdering everywhere; and the
very small Prussian force that was watching them was powerless to
check the swarming mara