_ignis
fatuus_ which hath seduced and impoverished other opulent nations, under
the specious title of the balance of power in Germany. Howsoever he
might be swayed by private inclination, he did not think it was a point
of consequence to his kingdom, whether Pomeranians possessed by Sweden
or Prussia; whether the French army was driven back beyond the Rhine,
or penetrated once more into the electorate of Hanover: whether the
empress-queen was stripped of her remaining possessions in Silesia,
or the king of Prussia circumscribed within the original
bounds of his dominion. He took it for granted that France, for her own
sake, would prevent the ruin of that enterprising monarch; and that
the house of Austria would not be so impolitic and blind to its
own interest, as to permit the empress of Russia to make and retain
conquests in the empire; but even if these powers should be weak enough
to sacrifice all the maxims of sound policy to caprice or resentment,
he did not think himself so deeply concerned in the event, as for the
distant, prospect of what might possibly happen, to plunge headlong into
a war that must be attended with certain and immediate disadvantages.
True it is, he had no hereditary electorate in Germany that was
threatened with invasion; nor, if he had, is it to be supposed that
a prince of his sagacity and patriotism would have impoverished his
kingdom of Denmark, for the precarious defence of a distant territory.
It was reserved for another nation to adopt the pernicious absurdity of
wasting its blood and treasure, exhausting its revenues, loading its own
back with the most grievous impositions, incurring an enormous debt, big
with bankruptcy and ruin; in a word, of expending above an hundred
and fifty millions sterling in fruitless efforts to defend a distant
country, the entire property of which was never valued at one twentieth
part of that sum; a country with which it had no natural connexion, but
a common alliance arising from accident. The king of Denmark, though
himself a prince of the empire, and possessed of dominions in Germany
almost contiguous to the scenes of the present war, did not yet think
himself so nearly concerned in the issue, as to declare himself either
principal or auxiliary in the quarrel; yet he took care to maintain his
forces by sea and land upon a respectable footing; and by this conduct,
he not only provided for the security of his own country, but overawed
the belligerent pow