out 40,000 men, sailed from Carthagena, and reached
Algiers the 1st inst., (July 1775.) On the night of the 7th, the
infantry, and two detachments of about 8000 men each, landed. The first
detachment advanced too eagerly, could not be supported to any purpose,
and, after thirteen hours' engagement, all that could regained the
ships. But the loss of killed and wounded, first estimated at 3000,
certainly exceeded five or six. The transports with the army are
returned to Carthagena and Alicante. I leave you to judge how deep an
impression this severe failure makes here. The Marquis de la Romana is
killed--all the generals, except Buck, are wounded. Among the wounded
are twenty-eight officers of the Spanish guards, and twelve out of
seventeen engineers."

The court of Frederick would form a singular contrast to what is called
the British Household, composed of the great officers of state. "You are
not ignorant," says Harris, writing to William Eden, "that the great
officers of the court are merely titular, and never allowed to have any
authority annexed to their office. This is given to some menial
servants, who are constantly about the king's person, and his treasurer
was a Russian named Deiss, in whom his Majesty placed more confidence
than he appears to have deserved; since for maladministration, or some
equally notorious fault, his majesty a few days ago, dismissed him from
his high post, and ordered him to be employed as a drummer in a marching
regiment. Deiss affected to submit patiently to his sentence, and, on
being arrested, begged leave of the officer only to go into his room,
adjoining the king's writing-closet, to fetch his hat. This being
granted, he immediately locked the door, took a pistol from his pocket,
and shot himself through the head. The king heard and was alarmed by the
report of a pistol so near him, and being told what had happened, he
pitied Deiss, said that he was out of his senses, and ordered all that
he died worth to be distributed equally among his children. Deiss had
charged the pistol with small-shot and crooked nails, and put the muzzle
of it into his mouth."

A striking anecdote is given of General Seidlitz, the officer who formed
the Prussian cavalry. When only a lieutenant, he happened to be near the
king on a bridge which crossed the Oder. The king asked him, "if both
the avenues of the bridge were possessed by the enemy, what he would do
to disengage himself." Seidlitz, without makin