the last campaign, the king of Prussia, having gained
a petty advantage over the Imperialists under the command of mareschal
Brown, and incorporated into his own troops a great part of the Saxon
army taken prisoners at Pima, as was observed before, retired into
winter-quarters, until the season should permit him to improve these
advantages. His majesty and mareschal Keith wintered in Saxony, having
their cantonments between Pirna and the frontier along the Elbe; and
mareschal Schwerin, returning into Silesia, took up his quarters in the
country of Glatz. In the meantime, the empress-queen, finding the force
which she had sent out against the king of Prussia, was not sufficient
to prevent his designs, made the necessary requisitions to her allies,
for the auxiliaries they had engaged to furnish. In consequence of these
requisitions, the czarina, true to her engagements, despatched above an
hundred thousand of her troops, who began their march in the month
of November, and proceeded to the borders of Lithuania, with design
particularly to invade Ducal Prussia, whilst a strong fleet was equipped
in the Baltic, to aid the operations of this numerous army. The Austrian
army, assembled in Bohemia, amounted to upwards of fourscore thousand
men, commanded by prince Charles of Lorraine and mareschal Brown. The
Swedes had not yet openly declared themselves; but it was well known,
that though their king was allied in blood and inclination to
his Prussian majesty, yet the jealousy which the senate of Sweden
entertained of their sovereign, and the hope of recovering their ancient
possessions in Pomerania, by means of the present troubles, together
with their old attachment to France, newly cemented by intrigues and
subsidies, would certainly induce them to join the general confederacy.
The duke of Mecklenburgh took the same party, and agreed to join the
Swedish army, when it should be assembled, with six thousand men.
Besides all these preparations against the king of Prussia, he was, in
his quality of elector of Brandenburgh, put under the ban of the empire
by the Aulic council; declared deprived of all his rights, privileges,
and prerogatives; his fiefs were escheated into the exchequer of
the empire; and all the circles accordingly ordered to furnish their
respective contingencies for putting this sentence in execution.

In this dangerous situation, thus menaced on all sides, and seemingly on
the very brink of inevitable destruct