certain conditions,
though the French general would never answer categorically, but waited
always for fresh instructions from Versailles, the nature of that act
was totally changed, and what was at first an agreement between general
and general, was now become a matter of state between the two courts
of London and Versailles: that, however hard the conditions of the
convention appeared to be for the troops of Hanover, his Britannic
majesty would have acquiesced in them, had not the French glaringly
discovered their design of totally ruining his army and his dominions;
and, by the most outrageous conduct, freed his Britannic majesty from
every obligation under which he had been laid by the contention: that,
in the midst of the armistice, the most open hostilities had been
committed; the castle of Schartzfels had been forcibly seized and
pillaged, and the garrison made prisoners of war; the prisoners made by
the French before the convention had not been restored, according to
an express article stipulated between the generals, though it had been
fulfilled on the part of the electorate, by the immediate release of the
French prisoners; the bailies of those districts, from which the French
troops were excluded by mutual agreement, had been summoned, on pain
of military execution, to appear before the French commissary, and
compelled to deliver into his hands the public revenue: the French had
appropriated to themselves part of those magazines, which, by express
agreement, were destined for the use of the electoral troops; and they
had seized the houses, revenue, and corn, belonging to the king of
England in the city of Bremen, in violation of their engagement to
consider that city as a place absolutely free and neutral. Pie took
notice, that they had proceeded to menaces unheard of among civilized
people, of burning, sacking, and destroying every thing that fell
in their way, should the least hesitation be made in executing the
convention according to their interpretation."--Such were the professed
considerations that determined his Britannic majesty to renounce the
agreement which they had violated, and have recourse to arms for
the relief of his subjects and allies. It was in consequence of this
determination that he conferred the command of his electoral army on
prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, brother to the duke of that name, who
had distinguished himself in the Prussian army by his great military
talents, and was, by blo