out with all the honours of war, after having engaged not to serve
against the empress, or any of her allies, for the space of one year.

His Prussian majesty, justly foreseeing the great enormities that were
to be expected from these savage enemies, who were unaccustomed to make
war, except upon nations as barbarous as themselves, who looked upon war
only as an opportunity for plunder, and every country through which
they happened to march as theirs by right of conquest, published the
following declaration: "It is sufficiently known, that the king of
Prussia, after the example of his glorious predecessors, has, ever
since his accession to the crown, laid it down as a maxim to seek the
friendship of the imperial court of Russia, and cultivate it by every
method. His Prussian majesty hath had the satisfaction to live, for
several successive years, in the strictest harmony with the reigning
empress: and this happy union would be still subsisting, if evil-minded
potentates had not broke it by their secret machinations, and carried
things to such a height, that the ministers on both sides have been
recalled, and the correspondence broken off. However melancholy these
circumstances might be for the king, his majesty was nevertheless most
attentive to prevent any thing that might increase the alienation of
the Russian court. He hath been particularly careful, during the
disturbances of the war that now unhappily rages, to avoid whatever
might involve him in a difference with that court, notwithstanding the
great grievances he hath to allege against it; and that it was publicly
known the court of Vienna had at last drawn that of Russia into its
destructive views, and made it serve as an instrument for favouring the
schemes of Austria. His majesty hath given the whole world incontestible
proofs, that he was under an indispensable necessity of having recourse
to the measures he hath taken against the courts of Vienna and Saxony,
who forced him by their conduct to take up arms for his defence. Yet,
even since things have been brought to this extremity, the king hath
offered to lay down his arms, if proper securities should be granted to
him. His majesty hath not neglected to expose the artifices by which the
imperial court of Russia hath been drawn into measures so opposite to
the empress's sentiments, and which would excite the utmost indignation
of that great princess, if the truth could be placed before her without
disguise.