3d Nov. 1760.

own counting, 2,036: but Kloster Kampen, in the wide-awake state, 'could not be won.

‘During the Fight, the Erbprinz's Rhine-Bridge had burst in two: 'his ammunition was running short;—and, it would seem, there is no " retreat, either! The Erbprinz put a bold face on the matter, stood 'to Castries in a threatening attitude; manoeuvred skilfully for two days longer, face still to Castries, till the Bridge was got mended; then, night of October 18th-19th, crossed to his own side; gathered'up his goods; and at a deliberate pace marched home, on those ' terms;-doing some useful fighting by the road. '18

Had lost nothing, say his admirers, 'but one cannon, which burst.' One burst cannon left on the field of Kloster Kampen;-but also, as we see, his errand along with it; and 1,600 good fighters lost and burst which was more important! Criticisms there were on it in England, perhaps of the unwise sort generally; sorrow in the highest quarter. "An unaccountable expedition," Walpole calls it, "on which "Prince Ferdinand suddenly dispatched his Nephew, at the head of a "considerable force, towards the frontiers of Holland, "-merely to see the country there?" which occasioned much solicitude in England, as the Main Army, already unequal to that of France, was thus ren"dered much weaker. King George felt it with much anxiety." An unaccountable Enterprise, my poor Gazetteer friends,-very evidently an unsuccessful one, so far as Wesel went. Many English fallen in it, too: "the English showed here again a ganz ausnehmende Tapferkeit," says Mauvillon; and probably their share of the loss was proportionate.

Clearly enough there is no Wesel to be had. Neither could Broglio, though disturbed in his Göttingen fortifyings and operations, be ejected out of Göttingen. Ferdinand, on failure of Wesel, himself marched to Göttingen, and tried for some days; but found he could not, in such weather, tear-out that firmly-rooted French Post, but must be content to "mask it," for the present; and, this done, withdrew (December 13th) to his winter-quarters near by, as did Broglio to his,-about the time Friedrich and Daun had finally settled in theirs.

Ferdinand's Campaigns henceforth, which turn all on the defence of Hanover, are highly recommended to professional readers; but to the laic sort do not prove interesting in proportion to the trouble. In fact, the huge War henceforth begins everywhere, or everywhere except in Pitt's department of it, to burn lower, like a lamp with the oil getting done; and has less of brilliancy than formerly. Hanover," the Belleisles, Choiseuls and wise French heads had said to themselves: "Canada, India, everything is lost; but were dear Hanover well in our clutch, Hanover would

18 Mauvillon, ii. 120-129; Tempelhof, ii. 325-332.

19 Walpole's George Second, iii. 299.

Let us try for

Dec. 1760-April 1761. be a remedy for many things!" Through the remaining Campaigns, as in this now done, that is their fixed plan. Ferdinand, by unwearied effort, succeeded in defending Hanover, -nothing of it but that inconsiderable slice or skirt round Göttingen, which they kept long, could ever be got by the French. Ferdinand defended Hanover; and wore-out annually the big French Armies which were missioned thither, as in the spasm of an expiring last effort by this poor hagridden France, -at an expense to her, say, of 50,000 men per year. Which was good service on Ferdinand's part; but done less and less in the shining or universally notable way.

So that with him too we are henceforth, thank Heaven, permitted and even bound to be brief. Hardly above two Battles more from him, if even two:—and mostly the wearied Reader's imagination left to conceive for itself those intricate strategies, and endless manœuvrings on the Diemel and the Dill, on the Ohm River and the Schwalm and the Lippe, or wherever they may be, with small help from a wearied Editor!

CHAPTER VI.

WINTER-QUARTERS 1760-61.

On

A MELANCHOLY little event, which afterwards proved unexpectedly unfortunate for Friedrich, had happened in England ten days before the Battle of Torgau. Saturday 25th October 1760, George II., poor old gentleman, suddenly died. He was in his 77th year; feeble, but not feebler than usual, -unless, perhaps, the unaccountable news from Kloster Kampen may have been too agitating to the dim old mind? the Monday of this week he had, 'from a tent in Hyde Park,' presided at a Review of Dragoons; and on Thursday, as his Coldstream Guards were on march for Portsmouth and foreign service, 'was in his Portico at Kensington to see them pass;'-full of zeal always in regard to military matters, and to this War in particular. Saturday, by sunrise he was on foot; took his cup of chocolate; inquired about the wind, and the chances of mails arriving; opened his window, said he would have a turn in the Gardens, the morning being so fine. It was now between 7 and 8. The Valet then withdrew with the chocolate apparatus; but had hardly shut the door, when

Dec. 1760-April 1761.

he heard a deep sigh, and fall of something,-"billet of wood from the fire?" thought he ;-upon which, hurrying back, he found it was the King, who had dropt from his seat, as if in attempting to ring the bell.' King said faintly, "Call Amelia," and instantly died. Poor deaf Amelia (Friedrich's old love, now grown old and deaf) listened wildly for some faint sound from those lips now mute forever. George Second was no more; his grandson George Third was now King.1

Intrinsically taken, this seemed no very great event for Friedrich, for Pitt, for England or mankind: but it proved otherwise. The merit of this poor King deceased, who had led his Nation stumbling among the chimney-pots at such a rate in these mad German Wars for Twenty Years past, was, That he did now stand loyal to the Enterprise, now when it had become sane indeed; now when the Nation was broad awake, and a Captain had risen to guide it out of that perilous posture, into never-expected victory and triumph! Poor old George had stood by his Pitt, by his Ferdinand, with a perfect loyalty at all turns; and been devoted, heart and soul and breeches-pocket, to completely beating Bourbon's oppressive ideas out of Bourbon's head. A little fact, but how important, then and there! Under the Successor, all this may be different :-ghastly beings, Old Tutors, Favourites, Mother's-Favourites, flit, as yet invisible, on the new back

stairs should Bute and Company get into the foreground, people will then know how important it was. Walpole says:

'The Yorkes' (Ex-Chancellor Hardwicke people) 'had long dis'tasted this War:' yes, and been painfully obliged to hold their tongues: but now,' within a month or so of the old King's death, 'there was published, under Lord Hardwicke's countenance, a Tract setting forth the burden and ill-policy of our German measures. It was called Considerations on the German War; was ably written, and changed many men's minds.' This is the famous "Mauduit Pamphlet:" first of those small stones, from the sling of Opposition not obliged to be dormant, which are now beginning to rattle on Pitt's Olympian Dwelling-place,-high really as Olympus, in comparison with others of the kind, but which unluckily is made of glass like the rest of them! The slinger of this first resounding little missile, Walpole informs us, was one Mauduit, formerly a Dissenting Teacher,'son of a Dissenting Minister in Bermondsey, I hear, and perhaps himself once a Preacher, but at present concerned with Factorage of Wool on the great scale; got soon afterwards promoted to be Head of the 1 Old Newspapers (in Gentleman's Magazine, xxx. 486-88).

Dec. 1760-April 1761. Customhouse in Southampton, so lovely did he seem to Bute and Company. 'How agreeable his politics were to the interior of the Court, soon appeared by a place' (Southampton Customhouse) 'being bestowed on him by Lord Bute.' A fortunate Mauduit, yet a stupidly tragical; had such a destiny in English History! Hear Walpole a little farther, on Mauduit, and on other things then resonant to Arlington Street in a way of their own. 'To Sir Horace Mann' (at Florence):

November 14th, 1760' (tenth night after Torgau).

* *

'We " are all in guns and bonfires for an unexpected victory of the King of 'Prussia over Daun; but as no particulars are yet arrived, there are 'doubters.'

'December 5th, 1760. I have received the samples of brocadella.' 'I shall send you a curious Pamphlet, the only work I almost ' ever knew that changed the opinions of many. It is called Con'siderations on the Present German War,2 and is written by a wholesale 'Wollen-Draper' (connected with Wool, in some way; "Factor at Blackwell Hall," if that mean Draper :-and a growing man ever after; came to be "Agent for Massachusetts," on the Boston-Tea occasion, and again did Tracts; was "President of the"-in short, was a conspicuous Vice-president, so let us define him, of The general AntiPenalty or Life-made-Soft Association, with Cause of civil and religious Liberty all over the World, and suchlike; and a Mauduit comfortably resonant in that way till he died3); 'but the materials are supposed to 'be furnished by the faction of the Yorkes. The confirmation of the

King of Prussia's victory near Torgau does not prevent the disciples ' of the Pamphlet from thinking that the best thing which could happen for us would be to have that Monarch's head shot off.' (Hear, hear!)

'There are Letters from the Hague' (what foolish Letters do fly about, my friend!), 'that say Daun is dead of his wounds. If he is, I 'shall begin to believe that the King of Prussia will end successfully at last.' (Oh!) It has been the fashion to cry-down Daun; but, as much as the King of Prussia may admire himself' (does immensely, according to our Selwyn informations), 'I dare say he would have been glad to be matched with one much more like himself than one so opposite as the Marshal.'

6

January 2d, 1761. The German War is not so popular as you 'imagine, either in the Closet or in the Nation." (Enough, enough.) The Mauduit Pamphlet, which then produced such an effect, is still to be met in old Collections and on Bookstalls; but produces little save weariness to a modern reader. 'Hanover not in real danger,' argues he; if the French had it,

2 "London: Printed for John Wilkie, at the Bible, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1761," adds my poor Copy (a frugal 12mo, of pp. 144), not adding of what edition. 3 Chalmers, Biog. Dictionary; Nichols, Literary Anecdotes; &c. &c. 4 Walpole, Letters to Sir Horace Mann (Lond. 1843), i. 6, 7.

Dec. 1760-April 1761. 'would not they, all Europe ordering them, have to give it up again?' Give it up,-gratis, or in return for Canada and Pondichery, Mauduit does not say. Which is an important omission ! But Mauduit's grand argument is that of expense; frightful outlay of money, aggravated by ditto mismanagement of same.

A War highly expensive, he says-(and the truth is, Pitt was never stingy of money: "Nearly the one thing we have in any plenty; be frank in use of that, in an Enterprise so ill-provided otherwise, and involving life and death!" thinks Pitt);—'dreadfully expensive,' urges Mauduit, and gives some instances of Commissariat moneys signally wasted,—not by Pitt, but by the stupidity of Pitt's War Offices, Commissariat Offices, Offices of all kinds; not to be cured at once by any Pitt-How magazines of hay were shipped and re-shipped, carried hither, thither, up this river, down that (nobody knowing where the war-horses would be that were to eat it); till at length, when it had reached almost the value of bohea tea, the right place of it was found to be Emden (nearest to Britain from the first, had one but known), and not a horse would now taste it, so spoiled was the article; all horses snorted at it, as they would have done at bohea, never so expensive.5 These things are incident to British warfare; also to Swedish, and to all warfares that have their War Offices in an imaginary-state,-state much to be abhorred by every sane creature; but not to be mended all at once by the noblest of men, into whose hands they are suddenly thrust for saving his Nation. Conflagration to be quenched; and your buckets all in hideous leakage, like buckets of the Danaïdes : -your one course is, ply them, pour with them, such as they

are.

Mauduit points out farther the enormous fortunes realised by a swindling set of Army-Furnishers, Hebrews mainly, and unbeautiful to look on. Alas, yes; this too is a thing incident to the case; and in a degree to all such cases, and situations of sudden crisis;-have not we seen Jew Ephraim growing rich by the copper money even of a Friedrich ? Christian Protestants there are, withal, playing the same game on a larger scale. Herr Schimmelmann ("Mouldy

5 Mauduit (towards the end) has a story of that tenor,-particulars not worth verifying.