neighbour of Prussia, it cannot be supposed but he would have been
pleased to contribute to the humiliation of a prince, who had once
before, without the least provocation, driven him from his dominions,
taken possession of his capital, routed his troops, and obliged him
to pay a million of crowns, to indemnify him for the expense of this
expedition; but he carefully avoided taking such a step as might expose
him to another invasion, and even refused to accede to the treaty of
Petersburgh, though it was expressly defensive; the _casus faederus_
being, his Prussian majesty's attacking either of the contracting
parties. It appears, however, that count de Bruhl, prime minister and
favourite of the king of Poland, had, in conjunction with some of the
Austrian ministers, carried on certain scandalous intrigues, in order to
embroil the king of Prussia with the empress of Russia, between whom a
misunderstanding had long subsisted.

THE KING OF PRUSSIA DEMANDS AN EXPLANATION.

His Prussian majesty, perceiving the military preparations of the court
of Vienna, and having obtained intelligence of their secret negotiations
with different powers of Europe, ordered M. de Klingraafe, his minister
at the imperial court, to demand whether all those preparations of war,
on the frontiers of Silesia, were designed against him, and what were
the intentions of her imperial majesty? To this demand the empress
replied, that in the present juncture she had found it necessary to make
armaments, as well for her own defence as for that of her allies; but
that they did not tend to the prejudice of any person or state whatever.
The king, far from being satisfied with this general answer, sent fresh
orders to Klingraafe, to represent, that after the king had dissembled,
as long as he thought consistent with his safety and honour, the bad
designs imputed to the empress would not suffer him longer to disguise
his sentiments: that he was acquainted with the offensive projects which
the two courts had formed at Petersburgh; that he knew they had engaged
to attack him suddenly with an army of two hundred thousand men; a
design which would have been executed in the spring of the year, had not
the Russian forces wanted recruits, their fleet mariners, and Livonia a
sufficient quantity of corn for their support; that he constituted the
empress arbiter of peace or war: if she desired the former, he required
a clear and formal declaration, or positive ass