men.

1757. Dec.

His successor in the command retreated to Glogau. On the twenty-fourth, Breslau was basely given up, and nearly all its garrison entered the Austrian service. Silesia seemed restored to Maria Theresa. "Does hope expire," said Frederic," the strong man must stand distinguished." Not till the second day of December did the drooping army from Glogau join the king. Every power was exerted to revive their confidence. By degrees, they catch something of his cheerful resoluteness; they share the spirit and the daring of the victors of Rossbach; they burn to efface their own ignominy. Yet the Austrian army of sixty thousand men, under Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Daun, veteran troops and more than double in number to the Prussians, were advancing, as if to crush them and end the war. "The Marquis of Brandenburg," said Voltaire, "will lose his hereditary states, as well as those which he has won by conquest.'

Assembling his principal officers beneath a beech-tree, between Neumarkt and Leuthen, Frederic addressed them with a gush of eloquence: "While I was restraining the French and imperialists, Charles of Lorraine has succeeded in conquering Schweidnitz, repulsing Prince Bevern, mastering Breslau. A part of Silesia, my capital, my stores of war, are lost; my disasters would be extreme, had I not a boundless trust in your courage, firmness, and love of country. There is not one of you but has distinguished himself by some great and honorable deed. The moment for courage has come. Listen then I am resolved, against all rules of the art of war, to attack the nearly threefold stronger army of Charles of Lorraine, wherever I may find it. There is no question of the number of the enemy, nor of the strength of their position; we must beat them, or all of us find our graves before their batteries. Thus I think, thus I mean to act; announce my decision to all the officers of my army; prepare the privates for the scenes which are at hand; let them know I demand unqualified obedience. They are Prussians; they will not show themselves unworthy of the name. Does any one of you fear to share all dangers with me, he can this day retire; I never will reproach him.”

Then, as the enthusiasm kindled around him, he continued, with a serene smile: "I know that not one of you will leave me. I rely on your true aid, and am assured of victory. If I fall, the country must reward you. Go, tell your regiments what you have heard from me." And he added: "The regiment of cavalry which shall not instantly, at the order, charge, shall be dismounted and sent into garrisons; the battalion of infantry that shall but falter shall lose its colors and its swords. Now farewell, friends; soon we shall have vanquished, or we shall see each other no more.'

On the morning of December fifth, at half-past four, the army was in motion, the king in front, the troops to warlike strains singing,—

Grant, Lord, that we may do with might

That which our hands shall find to do!

1757.

"With men like these," said Frederic, "God will give me the victory."

The Austrians were animated by no common kindling impulse. The Prussians, on that day, moved as one being, endowed with intelligence, and swayed by one will. Never had daring so combined with prudence, as in the arrangements of Frederic. His eye seized every advantage of place, and his manœuvres were inspired by the state of his force and the character of the ground. The hills and the valleys, the copses and the fallow land, the mists of morning and the clear light of noon, came to meet his dispositions, so that nature seemed instinct with the resolve to conspire with his genius. Never had orders been so executed as his on that day; and never did military genius, in its necessity, so summon invention to its rescue from despair. His line was formed to make an acute angle with that of the Austrians; as he moved forwards, his left wing was kept disengaged; his right came in contact with the enemy's left, outwinged it, and attacked it in front and flank; the bodies which Lorraine sent to its support were defeated successively, before they could form, and were rolled back in confused masses. Lorraine was compelled to change his front for the defence of Leuthen; the victorious Prussian army advanced to continue the attack, now employing its

left wing also. Leuthen was carried by storm, and the Austrians were driven to retreat, losing more than six thousand in killed and wounded, more than twenty-one thousand in

prisoners. The battle, which began at half-past one, 1757. was finished at five. It was the master-piece of motion and decision, of moral firmness and warlike genius; the greatest military deed, thus far, of the century. That victory confirmed existence to the country where Kant and Lessing were carrying free inquiry to the sources of human knowledge. The soldiers knew how the rescue of their nation hung on that battle; and, as a grenadier on the field of carnage began to sing, "Thanks be to God," the whole army, in the darkness of evening, standing amidst thousands of the dead, uplifted the hymn of praise.

Daun fled into Bohemia, leaving in Breslau a garrison of twenty thousand men. Frederic astonished Europe by gaining possession of that city, reducing Schweidnitz, and recovering all Silesia. The Russian army, which, under Apraxin, had won a victory on the north-east, was arrested in its movements by intrigues at home. Prussia was saved. In this terrible campaign, two hundred and sixty thousand men stood against seven hundred thousand, and had not been conquered.

CHAPTER XIII.

CONQUEST OF THE VALLEY OF THE WEST.

MINISTRY CONTINUED.

1757-1758.

WILLIAM PITT'S

1757.

THE Protestant nations compared Frederic to Gustavus. Adolphus, as the defender of the Reformation and of freedom. With a vigor of hope like his own, Pitt, who always supported the Prussian king with fidelity and zeal, and eight days before the battle of Rossbach had authorized him to place Ferdinand of Brunswick at the head of the English army on the continent, planned the conquest of the colonies of France. Consulted through the undersecretaries, Franklin gave advice on the conduct of the American war, criticised the measures proposed by others, and enforced the conquest of Canada.

In the house of commons, Lord George Sackville made the apology of Loudoun. "Nothing is done, nothing attempted," said Pitt, with vehement asperity. "We have lost all the waters; we have not a boat on the lakes. Every door is open to France." Loudoun was recalled, and added one more to the military officers who advised the magisterial exercise of British authority, and voted in parliament to sustain it by fire and sword.

Rejecting the coercive policy of his predecessors, Pitt invited the New England colonies and New York and New Jersey, each without limit, to raise as many men as possible, believing them "well able to furnish at least twenty thousand," for the expedition against Montreal and Quebec; while Pennsylvania and the southern colonies were to aid in conquering the west. He assumed that England should provide arms, ammunition, and tents; he "expected and

required" nothing of the colonists but "the levying, clothing, and pay of the men; ” and for these expenses he promised that the king should "strongly recommend to parliament to grant a proper compensation." Moreover, in December, 1757, he obtained the king's order that every provincial officer of no higher rank than colonel should have equal command with the British, according to the date of their respective commissions.

1757.

Pitt was a friend to liberty everywhere, and sought new guarantees for freedom in England. During the height of his power, a bill was carried through the house of commons, extending the provisions for awarding the writ of habeas corpus to all cases of commitment; and, when the law lords obtained its rejection by the peers, he was but the more confirmed in his maxim, that "the lawyers are not to be regarded in questions of liberty."

His genius and his respect for the rights of the colonies, the prospect of conquering Canada and the west, and unbounded anticipations of future greatness, roused their utmost activity. In some of them, especially in New England, their contributions exceeded a just estimate of their ability. The thrifty people of Massachusetts disliked a funded debt, and avoided it by taxation. In addition to the sums expected from England, their tax in one year of the war was, on personal estate, thirteen shillings and fourpence on the pound of income, and on two hundred pounds income from real estate was seventy-two pounds, besides various excises and a poll-tax of nineteen shillings on every male over sixteen. Once, in 1759, a colonial stamp-tax was imposed by their legislature. Connecticut cheerfully bore as heavy burdens.

The unhappy Canadians, who had not enjoyed repose enough to cultivate their lands, were cut off from regular intercourse with France by the maritime superiority of England. "I shudder," said Montcalm, in February, 1758, "when I think of provisions. The famine is very great." "For all our success," thus he appealed to the minister, "New France needs peace, or sooner or later it must fall; such are the numbers of the English, such the difficulty of