llery-houses; in a word, the old and new towns, the suburbs, and all
the bridges, were reduced to ashes; nay, after the ashes were destroyed,
the piles and sterlings were burned to the water's edge. The writings
of all the colleges, together with the archives of the country, were
totally consumed, together with a prodigious magazine of corn and flour,
valued at four millions of crowns. The cannon in the arsenal were all
melted; and the loaded bombs and cartridges, with a large quantity of
gunpowder, went off at once with a most horrid explosion. A great number
of the inhabitants are missing, supposed to have perished in the flames,
or under the ruins of the houses, or to have been suffocated in the
subterraneous vaults and caverns, to which they had fled for safety.

Nothing could be more inhuman, or contrary to the practice of a generous
enemy, than such vengeance wreaked upon the innocent inhabitants; for
the Russians did not begin to batter the fortifications until all the
rest of the place was destroyed. In the course of this campaign, the
Russian cossacks are said to have plundered and burned fourteen
large towns and two hundred villages, and wantonly butchered above two
thousand defenceless women and children. Such monsters of barbarity
ought to be excluded from all the privileges of human nature, and hunted
down as wild beasts without pity or cessation. What infamy ought these
powers to incur, who employ and encourage such ruthless barbarians?]

[Footnote 468: Note 3 Q, p. 468. As very little notice was taken, in the
detail published by authority, of any part which this great man acted in
the battle of Hochkirchen, and a report was industriously circulated
in this kingdom, that he was surprised in his tent, naked, and half
asleep,--we think it the duty of a candid historian to vindicate his
memory and reputation from the foul aspersion thrown by the perfidious
and illiberal hand of envious malice, or else contrived to screen some
other character from the imputation of misconduct. The task we are
enabled to perform by a gentleman of candour and undoubted credit,
who learned the following particulars at Berlin from a person that was
eye-witness of the whole transaction. Field-mareschal Keith, who arrived
in the camp the very day that preceded the battle, disapproved of the
situation of the Prussian army, and remonstrated to the king on that
subject. In consequence of his advice, a certain general was sent with a