tates of common humanity. Indeed, if the
scene had happened in an enemy's country, or if no other step could
have saved the lives and liberties of himself and his garrison, such a
desperate remedy might have stood excused by the law of nature and of
nations; but on this occasion he occupied a neutral city, over which he
could exercise no other power and authority but that which he derived
from illegal force and violence; nor was he at all reduced to the
necessity of sacrificing the place to his own safety, inasmuch as he
might have retired unmolested, by virtue of an honourable capitulation,
which, however, he did not demand. Whether the peremptory order of
a superior will, _in foro conscientio_, justify an officer who hath
committed an illegal or inhuman action, is a question that an English
reader will scarce leave to the determination of a German casuist with
one hundred and fifty thousand armed men in his retinue. Be this as it
will, Mr. Ponickau, the Saxon minister, immediately after this tragedy
was acted, without waiting for his master's orders, presented a memorial
to the diet of the empire, complaining of it as an action reserved for
the history of the war which the king of Prussia had kindled in Germany,
to be transmitted to future ages. He affirmed that, in execution of
Schmettau's orders, the soldiers had dispersed themselves in the streets
of the Pirna and Witchen suburbs, broke open the houses and shops, set
fire to the combustibles, added fresh fuel, and then shut the doors;
that the violence of the flames was kept up by red-hot balls fired into
the houses, and along the streets; that the wretched inhabitants, who
forsook their burning houses, were slain by the fire of the cannon and
small arms; that those who endeavoured to save their persons and effects
were pushed down and destroyed by the bayonets of the Prussian soldiers
posted in the streets for that purpose: he enumerated particular
instances of inhuman barbarity, and declared that a great number of
people perished, either amidst the flames, or under the ruins of the
houses. The destruction of two hundred and fifty elegant houses, and
the total ruin of the inhabitants, were circumstances in themselves
so deplorable, as to need no aggravation; but the account of the Saxon
minister was shamefully exaggerated, and all the particular instances
of cruelty false in every circumstance. Baron Plotho, the minister
of Brandenburgh, did not fail to answer every