one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, we shall now return to Europe,
and endeavour to explain the beginning of a bloody war in Germany, which
then seemed to have become the chief object of the British councils. On
the eve of a rupture between France and England, it was natural for his
Britannic majesty to provide for the safety of his electoral dominions,
the only quarter by which he was at all accessible to the efforts of the
enemy, who he foresaw would not fail to annoy him through that avenue.
He, at that time, stood upon indifferent terms with the king of Prussia,
who was considered as a partisan and ally of France; and he knew that
the house of Austria alone would not be sufficient to support him
against two such powerful antagonists. In this emergency, he had
recourse to the empress of Russia, who, in consequence of a large
subsidy granted by England, engaged to furnish a strong body of forces
for the defence of Hanover. His Prussian majesty, startled at the
conditions of this treaty, took an opportunity to declare that he would
not suffer foreign forces of any nation to enter the empire, either as
principals or auxiliaries; a declaration which probably flowed from a
jealousy and aversion he had conceived to the court of Petersburgh, as
well as from a resolution he had formed of striking some great stroke in
Germany, without any risk of being restricted or controlled. He knew
he should give umbrage to the French king, who had already made
preparations for penetrating into Westphalia; but he took it for
granted he should be able to exchange his connexions with France for the
alliance with Great Britain, which would be much less troublesome, and
much more productive of advantage: indeed, such an alliance was the
necessary consequence of his declaration. Had his Britannic majesty
made a requisition of the Russian auxiliaries, he must have exposed
himself to the resentment of a warlike monarch, who hovered on the
skirts of his electorate at the head of one hundred and forty thousand
men, and could have subdued the whole country in one week; and if he
forbore to avail himself of the treaty with the czarina, he did not know
how soon the king of Prussia might be reconciled to his most christian
majesty's design of invasion. As for the empress-queen, her attention
was engrossed by schemes for her interest or preservation; and her hands
so full, that she either could not, or would not, fulfil the engagements
she had cont