cement to the army of the besiegers. In the
meantime, having received intelligence that the army of prince Henry in
Saxony was considerably weakened, he himself marched thither, in hopes
of expelling the prince from that country, and reducing the capital in
the king's absence. Indeed, his designs were still more extensive, for
he proposed to reduce Dresden, Leipsic, and Torgau, at the same time;
the first with the main body under his own direction, the second by the
army of the empire under the prince de Deuxponts, and the third by a
corps under general Haddick, while the forces directed by Laudohn should
exclude the king from Lusatia. In execution of this plan he marched
directly to the Elbe, which he passed at Pima, and advanced to Dresden,
which he hoped would surrender without putting him to the trouble of
a formal siege. The army of prince Henry had already retired to the
westward of this capital before the prince de Deuxponts, who had found
means to cut off his communication with Leipsic, and even invested that
city. During these transactions general Haddick advanced against Torgau.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

SUBURBS OF DRESDEN BURNT.

The field-mareschal count Daun appearing on the sixth day of November
within sight of Dresden, at the head of sixty thousand men, encamped
next day at Lockowitz, and on the eighth his advanced troops attacked
the Prussian hussars and independent battalions, which were posted at
Striessen and Gruenewiese. Count Schmettau, who commanded the garrison,
amounting to ten thousand men, apprehensive that, in the course of
skirmishing, the Austrian troops might enter the suburbs pell-mell,
posted colonel Itzenplitz, with seven hundred men, in the redoubts that
surrounded the suburbs, that in case of emergency they might support the
irregulars; at the same time, as the houses that constituted the suburbs
were generally so high as to overlook the ramparts and command the city,
he prepared combustibles, and gave notice to the magistrates that they
would be set on fire as soon as an Austrian should appear within the
place. This must have been a dreadful declaration to the inhabitants of
these suburbs, which compose one of the most elegant towns in Europe.
In these houses, which were generally lofty and magnificent, the
fashionable and wealthy class of people resided, and here a number
of artists carried on a variety of curious manufactures. In vain the
magistrates implored the mercy and fo