r Hoff, with considerable slaughter: nevertheless, the
imperial army, though now reduced to ten thousand men, returned to
Bamberg; and as the Prussians approached the frontiers of Saxony, the
Austrian general, Gemmingen, retired into Bohemia. During all these
transactions, the mareschal count Daun remained with the grand Austrian
army at Schurtz, in the circle of Koningsgratz; while the Prussians
commanded by the king in person, continued quietly encamped between
Landshut and Schweidnitz. General Fouquet commanded a large body
of troops in the southern part of Silesia; but these being mostly
withdrawn, in order to oppose the Russians, the Austrian general de
Fille, who hovered on the frontiers of Moravia with a considerable
detachment, took advantage of this circumstance; and advancing
into Silesia, encamped within sight of Neiss. As mutual calumny and
recriminations of all kinds were not spared on either side, during the
progress of this war, the enemies of the Prussian monarch did not fail
to charge him with cruelties committed at Schwerin, the capital of
Mecklenburgh, which his troops had bombarded, plundered of its archives,
cannon, and all its youth fit to carry arms, who were pressed into his
service: he besides taxed the duchy at seven thousand men and a million
of crowns, by way of contribution. He was also accused of barbarity, in
issuing an order for removing all the prisoners from Berlin to Spandau;
but this step he justified in a letter to his ministers at foreign
courts, declaring that he had provided for all the officers that were
his prisoners the best accommodation, and permitted them to reside
in his capital; that some of them had grossly abused the liberty they
enjoyed, by maintaining illicit correspondence, and other practices
equally offensive, which had obliged him to remove them to the town of
Spandau: he desired, however, that the town might not be confounded with
the fortress of that name, from which it was entirely separated, and in
which they would enjoy the same ease they had found at Berlin, though
under more vigilant inspection. His conduct on this occasion, he said,
was sufficiently authorized, not only by the law of nations, but also
by the example of his enemies; inasmuch as the empress-queen had never
suffered any of his officers who had fallen into her hands to reside at
Vienna; and the court of Russia had sent some of them as far as
Casan. He concluded with saying, that, as his enemies h