equally contemptible in numbers and discipline. In this crisis of its fate, all hope was fixed upon the assistance of England. Arms, ammunition, provisions, and about ten thousand land forces, were accordingly sent over; but the Spanish troops had already passed the mountains in three divisions, taken several places, and confidently hoped soon to become masters of the whole kingdom. The town of Miranda was taken possession of on the 9th May; Braganza soon afterwards submitted without resistance; and the whole province of Tras-os-Montes was overrun to the banks of the Douro. A second army entering the province of Beira, reduced Almeida, and proceeding southwards approached the Tagus. A third army of combined French and Spanish troops assembled in Estremadura, with the intention of penetrating into Alentejo, and, by means of a junction with the other armies, hoped to threaten Lisbon. All this while the Portuguese, though reinforced by the British troops, had no army in the field capable of encountering the enemy in battle, but were obliged to confine their operations to the defence of passes. The Spanish army in Beira made repeated attempts to cross the Tagus, which, however, were foiled by the skill of the count de la Lippe, a German officer who had formerly served under prince Frederick of Brunswick, and had now the supreme command of the Portuguese army. He dispatched brigadier-general Burgoyne, with a detachment of British troops, to attack an advanced body of Spaniards which lay at Valencia; the result was a complete surprise, in which the Spaniards sustained considerable loss. The British troops also gained additional honour by the surprise of a large body of Spanish cavalry near Villa Velha, directed by general Burgoyne, and executed by colonel Lee, with distinguished success. But the cause of Portugal now received a more signal support from another

quarter. The autumnal rains began to set in, and the invading armies perceiving no immediate prospect of further success, found themselves under the necessity of abandoning their conquests, and evacuating Portugal, before the close of the campaign.

In other quarters the British arms were signally successful against the Spanish monarch. The ministry, well aware that their new enemy was peculiarly vulnerable in his West India possessions, meditated the reduction of Havanah, the principal town of the island of Cuba, where the Spanish galleons were in the habit of assembling previous to their sailing for Europe, a conquest which, if achieved, could not fail to strike terror into the court of Madrid, and produce the most auspicious consequences. An expedition was consequently fitted out, under the command of sir George Pococke and the earl of. Albemarle, which sailed from Portsmouth on the 5th March, and arrived off the Havanah, June 5th. The difficulties of the enterprise seemed to dispirit the most sanguine, and they certainly were not overrated. The Fort of Moro, by which the harbour is protected, was considered to be almost impregnable. After a siege of forty-four days, during which the British forces had to sustain astonishing difficulties, the place was stormed, and carried at the point of the bayonet. On the 14th August the town of Havanah capitulated; nine ships of the line and four frigates were taken in the harbour; three sail of the line had been previously sunk by the enemy, and two were destroyed on the stocks. Abundance of arms and military stores, with silver and merchandise amounting to two or three millions sterling, fell into the hands of the captors; nor was the glory acquired by this exploit inferior to its other advantages.

But Spain was not the only sufferer at this time from the valour of the British arms in the West

Indies. An enterprise had been determined on, at the close of the preceding year, against the island of Martinico, then in possession of the French. A squadron was accordingly equipped under the command of admiral Rodney, consisting of eighteen ships of the line, with twelve thousand troops under the command of general Monckton, which assembled at Barbadoes early in the month of January. A landing was effected without loss, and the army proceeded to the town of Fort Royal, which was protected by a strong citadel and batteries. These latter were stormed and carried, and on the 4th February the town and citadel capitulated. The town of St. Pierre, which was the capital of the island, still remained, but it capitulated on the 10th; and thus the whole island was in possession of the British. This important conquest was followed by the remainder of the Caribbee Islands, viz. Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Tobago, all of which were brought under the British dominion.

While the British forces were engaged in capturing the Havanah and Martinico, an armament sailed from Madras under the direction of rearadmiral Cornish and brigadier-general Draper, for the Philippine Islands. The object of this enterprise was the reduction of the city of Manilla, the capital of the island of Leuconia, the seat of the Spanish government in those islands, and the centre of communication between South America and the East Indies. The British fleet anchored in the bay of Manilla before the governor had the least intimation of its approach, or had even been informed of the war with England. After a fruitless resistance the place was taken by assault. The governor, who had taken refuge in the citadel, surrendered at discretion, but solicited protection for the inhabitants, to which the British commander consented on the

payment of a ransom of four millions of dollars! The result was, that the whole range of the Philippine Islands fell with the city of Manilla.

The British empire had now acquired an extent which astonished the world. Everywhere victorious both by land and sea, and in all quarters of the globe, it only remained for her to bring the campaign in Germany to a successful termination, in order to her dictating whatever terms of peace she thought proper; and an extraordinary event which took place about the time of opening the campaign, happily paved the way for retrieving the fortune of her ally the king of Prussia. This was the death of Elizabeth, empress of Russia, who was succeeded in the august throne by her nephew, Charles Peter Ulric, of the house of Holstein, who took the title of Peter III. a prince of a mild and conciliating spirit, though somewhat eccentric in his conduct, and a great admirer of the king of Prussia. He began his reign with regulating, on the most generous principles, the government of his own country. He freed the nobility and gentry from the slavish vassalage under which they groaned, and placed them on a footing with those of the same rank in other European countries. He abolished the pri

3 This princess was the second daughter of the great Peter, and a descendant worthy of her predecessor for many magnanimous traits in her public character, although her private life was polluted with vices of the grossest nature. She ruled the Russian empire with absolute, but with mild authority; humanized its laws and manners, which all the efforts of her father had never been able to draw beyond the very skirts of barbarity; and kept up its respectability in the scale of Europe by the wisest and firmest policy. The part which she took in this war, though, in some degree, it might have been dictated by resentment, was yet consistent with the soundest policy. By interference in German disputes, she established a precedent for being the arbiter when dissensions arose in the empire, while by assisting one power against the other, she dexterously embroiled and weakened both.

vate chancery, a kind of state inquisition; recalled many exiles from Siberia; and, extending his benign polity to his subjects of all conditions, he reduced the taxes on the necessaries of life, and greatly relieved the lower classes. The same mild

spirit which dictated the civil regulations of this prince, infused itself into his foreign politics. Among the political changes with which his reign commenced, one was that of a total alteration in the system of conduct adopted by the Russian court towards that of Prussia. He ordered a memorial to be delivered in the month of February to the allied powers, in which he declared, that " in order to the reestablishment of peace, he was ready to sacrifice all the conquests made by the Russian arms during the war;" and without waiting the slow progress of negotiation, he, on the 16th March, concluded a suspension of hostilities with his Prussian majesty.

The king of Prussia did not fail to profit by this great revolution in his favour. He concluded a treaty of peace and alliance with Peter, in which the latter stipulated to join his troops with those of Prussia, for the purpose of expelling the Austrians from Silesia. The court of Sweden, too, now under the influence of Russia, signed a treaty of peace with Prussia on the 22d May. In the course of the campaign the Austrians were driven back to the extremity of Silesia, while detachments of the Prussians and Russians penetrated into Bohemia, and laid the country under contribution.

But while fortune was thus smiling upon the king of Prussia, the tide of success was checked by an unexpected revolution that took place in Russia. The new emperor, by his rashness in innovating, greatly shocked the prejudices of many, even while he was consulting their interests. He disgusted both the army and the ecclesiastics, by the contempt with which he treated all the ancient institutions of