orms still
raging,--Marechal de Saxe, regardless of Domestic Hunger, took the
field, stronger than ever. Manoeuvred about; bewildering the mind of
Royal Highness and the Stadtholder ("Will he besiege Breda? Will he do
this, will he do that?")--poor Highness and poor Stadtholder; who "did
not agree well together," and had not the half of their forces come in,
not to speak of handling them when come! Bewilderment of these two once
completed, Marechal de Saxe made "a beautiful march upon Maestricht;"
and, April 15th, opened trenches, a very Vesuvius of artillery, before
that place; Royal Highness gazing into it, in a doleful manner, from the
adjacent steeple-tops. Royal Highness, valor's self, has to admit: "Such
an outlook; not half of us got together! The 60,000 Austrians are but
30,000; the--In fact, you will have to make Peace, what else?" [His
Letters, in Coxe's--Pelham--("March 29th-April 2d, 1748"), i. 405-410.]
Nothing else, as has been evident to practical Official People
(especially to frugal Pelham, Chesterfield and other leading heads) for
these two months last past.

In a word, those 35,000 Russians are still far away under the horizon,
when thoughts of a new Congress, "Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle," are
busying the public mind: "Mere moonshine again?" "Something real this
time?"--And on and from March 17th (Lord Sandwich first on the ground,
and Robinson from Vienna coming to help), the actual Congress begins
assembling there. April 24th, the Congress gets actually to business;
very intent on doing it; at least the three main parties, France,
England, Holland, are supremely so. Who, finding, for five diligent
days, nothing but haggle and objection on the part of the others, did
by themselves meet under cloud of night, "night of April 29th-30th;"
and--bring the Preliminaries to perfection. And have them signed before
daybreak; which is, in effect, signing, or at least fixing as certain,
the Treaty itself; so that Armistice can ensue straightway, and the War
essentially end.

A fixed thing; the Purseholders having signed. On the safe rear of
which, your recipient Subsidiary Parties can argue and protest (as the
Empress-Queen and her Kaunitz vehemently did, to great lengths), and
gradually come in and finish. Which, in the course of the next six
months, they all did, Empress-Queen and Excellency Kaunitz not excepted.
And so, October 18th, 1748, all details being, in the interim, either
got settled, or got flung