of men, made himself master of
Hirschberg, Waldenberg, Gottesberg, Frankenstein, and Landshut. They
were, indeed, but open places; and he was repulsed in an attempt upon
Strigau. On the side of Franconia the army of the empire was assembling
with all speed, under the prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen; the French were
marching a second army from their interior provinces into Alsace, in
order to join the Imperialists: the first division of their troops
had already entered the empire, and were advanced as far as Hanau.
The Swedes were now preparing, with the utmost expedition, to send a
numerous army into Pomerania; and the Russians, who since the taking
of Memel had not done the king of Prussia much damage, besides that of
obliging him to keep an army in Prussia to oppose them, and interrupting
the trade of Konigsberg by their squadrons, were again advancing
with hasty strides towards Prussia, marking their steps with horrid
desolation. Field-mareschal Lehwald, who had been left in Prussia with
an army of thirty thousand men, to guard that kingdom during the absence
of his master, was encamped near Velau, when the Russians, to the number
of eighty thousand, after taking Memel, advanced against the territories
of the Prussian king, whose situation now drew upon him the attention
of all Europe. In the night between the seventh and eighth of August,
colonel Malachowsti, one of mareschal Lehwald's officers, marched to
reconnoitre the position of the enemy, when a skirmish happened,
which lasted near two hours, between his advanced ranks and a Russian
detachment three times stronger than the Prussians. The Russians were
repulsed, and fled into the woods, after having fifty men killed and a
great number wounded. The Prussians lost but one man, and had fourteen
wounded.

MARESCHAL LEHWALD ATTACKS THE RUSSIANS NEAR NORKITTEN.

Several other little skirmishes happened between straggling parties
of the two armies; and the Russians went on pillaging and laying waste
every thing before them, till at length the two armies having approached
one another in Brandenburgh-Prussia, mareschal Lehwald, finding it
impossible to spare detachments from so small a number as his was,
compared to that of the enemy, to cover the wretched inhabitants from
the outrages committed on them by the Russian cossacks, and other
barbarians belonging to them, judged it absolutely necessary to attack
their main army; and accordingly, notwithstanding his gre