emy, who cannonaded him as he advanced; but mareschal
Keith coming up, ordered them to be attacked in the rear, and they fled
into a wood with precipitation, with the loss of six officers and three
hundred men, who were taken prisoners. While' the mareschal was thus
employed, the king proceeded from Leutomyssel to Koningsgratz, where
general Buccow, who had got the start of him, was posted with seven
thousand men behind the Elbe, and in the intrenchments which they had
thrown up all around the city. The Prussian troops as they arrived
passed over the little river Adler, and as the enemy had broken down
the bridges over the Elbe, the king ordered them to be repaired with all
expedition, being determined to attack the Austrian intrenchments;
but general Buccow did not wait for his approach: he abandoned his
intrenchments, and retired with his troops to Clumetz; so that the
king took possession of the most important post of Koningsgratz without
further opposition. An Austrian corps having taken post between him and
Hollitz, in order to obstruct the march of the artillery, he advanced
against them in person, and having driven them from the place, all
his cannon, military stores, provisions, with fifteen hundred sick and
wounded men, arrived in safety at Koningsgratz, where the whole army
encamped. His intention was to transfer the seat of war from Moravia to
Bohemia, where he should be able to maintain a more easy communication
with his own dominions; but a more powerful motive soon obliged him to
change his resolution.

PROGRESS OF THE RUSSIANS.

After the Russian troops under Apraxin had retreated from Pomerania in
the course of the preceding year, and the czarina seemed ready to
change her system, the courts of Vienna and Versailles had, by dint
of subsidies, promises, presents, and intrigues, attached her, in all
appearance, more firmly than ever to the confederacy, and even induced
her to augment the number of troops destined to act against the Prussian
monarch. She not only signed her accession in form to the quadruple
alliance with the empress-queen and the kings of France and Sweden; but,
in order to manifest her zeal to the common cause, she disgraced her
chancellor, count Bestuchef, who was supposed averse to the war: she
divided her forces into separate bodies, under the command of the
generals Fermer and Browne, and ordered them to put their troops in
motion in the middle of winter. Fermer accordingly beg