d
to ravage his dominions; inferring, that if the crown of France was free
to pillage the estates of the duke of Brunswick and the landgrave
of Hesse-Cassel, because they had supplied the king of England with
auxiliaries; if the empress-queen had a right to appropriate to herself
half of the contributions raised by the French king in these countries;
surely his Britannic majesty had an equal right to make those feel
the burden of the war who had favoured the unjust enterprises of
his enemies. He expressed his hope, that the diet, after having duly
considered these circumstances, would, by way of advice, propose to his
imperial majesty that he should annul his most inconsistent mandates,
and not only take effectual measures to protect the electorate and its
allies, but also give orders for commencing against the empress-queen,
as archduchess of Austria, the elector Palatine, and the duke of
Wirtemberg, such proceedings as she wanted to enforce against his
Britannic majesty, elector of Brunswick-Lunenbourg. For this purpose
the minister now requested their excellencies to ask immediately the
necessary instructions for their principals. The rest of this long
memorial contained a justification of his Britannic majesty's conduct in
deviating from the capitulation of Closter-Seven; with a refutation
of the arguments adduced, and a retortion of the reproaches levelled
against the king of England, in the paper or manifesto composed and
published under the direction of the French ministry, and intituled, "A
parallel of the conduct of the king of France with that of the king of
England, relative to the breach of the capitulation of Closter-Seven by
the Hanoverians." But to this invective a more circumstantial answer
was published; in which, among other curious particulars, the letter of
expostulation, said to have been written by the Prussian monarch to
the king of Great Britain after the defeat of Kolin is treated as an
infamous piece of forgery, produced by some venal pen employed to impose
upon the public. The author also, in his endeavours to demonstrate his
Britannic majesty's aversion to a continental war, very justly observes,
that "none but such as are unacquainted with the maritime force of
England, can believe, that, without a diversion on the continent, to
employ part of the enemy's force, she is not in a condition to hope for
success, and maintain her superiority at sea. England, therefore, had no
interest to foment qu