om persevering in the
engagements which she had contracted. As for the Swedes, although they
had been instigated to hostilities against Prussia by the intrigues
of France, and flattered with hopes of retrieving Pomerania, they
prosecuted the war in such a dispirited and ineffectual manner, as
plainly proved that either the ancient valour of that people was
extinct, or that the nation was not heartily engaged in the quarrel.

When the Russian general Apraxin retreated from Pomerania, mareschal
Lehwald, who commanded the Prussians in that country, was left at
liberty to turn his arms against the Swedes, and accordingly drove them
before him almost without opposition. By the beginning of January
they had evacuated all Prussian Pomerania, and Lehwald invaded their
dominions in his turn. He, in a little time, made himself master of all
Swedish Pomerania, except Stralsund and the isle of Rugen, and possessed
himself of several magazines which the enemy had erected. The Austrian
army, after their defeat at Breslau, had retired into Bohemia, where
they were cantoned, the head-quarters being fixed at Koningsgratz. The
king of Prussia having cleared all his part of Silesia, except the town
of Schweidnitz, which he circumscribed with a blockade, sent detachments
from his army cantoned in the neighbourhood of Breslau, to penetrate
into the Austrian or southern part of Silesia, where they surprised
Troppau and Jaggernsdorf, while he himself remained at Breslau,
entertaining his officers with concerts of music. Not that he suffered
these amusements to divert his attention from subjects of greater
importance. He laid Swedish Pomerania under contribution, and made a
fresh demand of five hundred thousand crowns from the electorate of
Saxony. Having received intimation that the duke of Mecklenburgh was
employed in providing magazines for the French army, he detached a body
of troops into that country, who not only secured the magazines, but
levied considerable contributions; and the duke retired to Lubeck,
attended by the French minister. The states of Saxony having proved a
little dilatory in obeying his Prussian majesty's injunction, received a
second intimation, importing that they should levy and deliver, within
a certain time, eighteen thousand recruits for his army, pay into the
hands of his commissary one year's revenue of the electorate in advance;
and Leipsic was taxed with an extraordinary subsidy of eight hundred
thousand crow