determined to employ the whole power and
influence of his crown in supporting this monarch. Yet the members of
the grand confederacy were differently actuated by disagreeing motives,
which, in the sequel, operated for the preservation of his Prussian
majesty, by preventing the full exertion of their united strength. The
empress-queen, over and above her desire of retrieving Silesia, which
was her primary aim, gave way to the suggestions of personal hatred
and revenge, to the gratification of which she may be said to have
sacrificed, in some measure, the interests of her family, as well as the
repose of the empire, by admitting the natural enemies of her house into
the Austrian Netherlands, and inviting them to invade the dominions of
her co-states with a formidable army. France, true to her old political
maxims, wished to see the house of Austria weakened by the divisions in
the empire, which she accordingly fomented: for this reason it could
not be her interest to effect the ruin of the house of Brandenburgh;
and therefore she had, no doubt, set bounds to the prosecution of her
schemes in concert with the court of Vienna. But her designs against
Hanover amounted to absolute conquest. In pursuance of these, she sent
an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men across the Rhine, instead
of four and twenty thousand, which she had engaged to furnish by the
original treaty with the empress-queen of Hungary, who is said to have
shared in the spoils of the electorate. The czarina, by co-operating
with the houses of Bourbon and Austria, gratified her personal disgust
towards the Prussian monarch, augmented her finances by considerable
subsidies from both, and perhaps amused herself with the hope of
obtaining an establishment in the German empire; but whether she
waivered in her own sentiments, or her ministry fluctuated between the
promises of France and the presents of Great Britain, certain it is, her
forces had not acted with vigour in Pomerania; and her general Apraxin,
instead of prosecuting his advantage, had retreated immediately after
the Prussians miscarried in their attack. He was indeed disgraced, and
tried for having thus retired without orders; but in all probability,
this trial was no other than a farce, acted to amuse the other
confederates while the empress of Russia gained time to deliberate upon
the offers that were made, and determine with regard to the advantages
or disadvantages that might accrue to her fr