had been prepared, did not lie in the proper place for annoying the enemy; that the water was there indeed too shallow to admit large ships near enough to batter the town with any prospect of success, but that, a little toward the left, the harbour was sufficiently deep, and that four or five ships of the line might have been moored within pistol shot of the walls'.

After the re-embarking of the troops, the distempers peculiar to the climate and season began to rage with redoubled fury. Nothing was heard from ship to ship, but complaints and execrations; the groans of the dying, and the service for the dead! Nothing was seen, but objects of woe or images of dejection; and the commanders, who had agreed in nothing else, were unanimous in pleading the expediency of a retreat from this scene of misery and disgrace. The fortifications of the harbour of Carthagena were accordingly demolished; and the English fleet sailed for Jamaica, to the astonishment and confusion of the mother-country, as well as of the colonies. The people were depressed in proportion to that exuberant joy with which they had been elevated; nor was anything afterward done by the conductors of this unfortunate enterprise, to retrieve the honour of the British arms. Although Vernon was reinforced with several ships of the line, and Wentworth with three thousand soldiers from England-and though they successively threatened St. Jago de Cuba, and Panama-they returned home without effecting anything of consequence, after having lost about fifteen thousand men.

The expedition under Anson was not more fortunate in the beginning; and, but for accident, it would have terminated in equal disgrace. Being attacked by a furious storm in passing Cape Horn, two of his ships were obliged to return in distress; one was lost; and the greater part of his people died of the scurvy, before he reached the island of Juan Fernandez, which had been appointed as the place of rendezvous. In that delightful abode the remainder of his crew recovered their health and spirits; and when he had again put to sea, he took several prizes off the coast of Chili, and plundered the town of Paita, on the coast of Peru, where he found a booty of silver to the amount of about thirty thousand pounds sterling. From his prisoners he learned that notwithstanding his reduced force, he had nothing to fear in those latitudes; as Don Joseph Pizarro, who commanded a Spanish squadron destined to oppose him, had been

1 Univ. Hist. vol. xv.

obliged to return to Rio de la Plata, after having lost two ships and fifteen hundred men, in attempting to double Cape Horn.

But this consolatory intelligence was balanced by information. of a less agreeable kind. The commodore also learned from some papers found on board his prizes, that the English expedition against Carthagena had miscarried. Such discouraging news made him sensible of the impropriety of attempting to execute that part of his instructions which regarded an attack upon Panama, in consequence of a supposed co-operation with the British troops, across the isthmus of Darien. He therefore bore away for Acapulco, in hopes of intercepting the Manilla galleon, which he understood was then at sea. Happily for the Spaniards, she had reached that port before his arrival. A.D. He endeavoured to intercept her in her return, but 1742. without effect. At this time he had only one ship, as two had been destroyed or abandoned for want of men to navigate or means to repair them. He at length reached Tinian, one of the Ladrone islands, where he and his crew were gratified with ample refreshments. He then sailed toward China, and arrived at Macao after a long and distressful voyage. Having A.D. refitted his ship, and taken in a supply of provisions, he 1743. again launched into the Pacific Ocean; and, after cruising for some time, he fortunately met with and took the annual ship bound from Acapulco to Manilla, laden with treasure, to the amount of about three hundred thousand pounds sterling, beside a variety of valuable commodities 1.

Anson now returned to the coast of China, where he asserted the honour of the British flag in a very spirited manner; and after an absence of about three years and nine months A.D. he re-appeared on the shores of England, to the great joy 1744. of his countrymen, who had heard of his disasters, and concluded that he and all his crew were lost. The Spanish treasure was carried to the Tower in pompous parade; and an expedition, which, all things considered, ought rather to have been deemed unfortunate, was magnified beyond measure. Anson's persever

ance, however, deserved praise; and the success of a single ship seemed to point out what might be performed by a strong squadron on the coast of the South Sea; but the failure of the formidable enterprise against Carthagena was still so fresh in

1 Anson's Voyage, by Walter. The treasure consisted of one million three hundred and thirteen thousand eight hundred and forty dollars or pesos, with uncoined silver equal in value to forty-three thousand six hundred and eleven dollars.

the memory of the nation, that no farther attempt was made during the war to distress the Spanish settlements in America.

I shall here, my dear Philip, close this letter; as the naval transactions in the European seas, though seemingly connected with the subject, will more properly enter into the general narration. The war occasioned by the death of the emperor Charles VI. must now engage our attention.

LETTER XXVIII.

A general View of the Affairs of Europe, from the Death of Charles VI. to the Treaty of Dresden, in 1745, and the Confirmation of the Treaty of Breslau.

THE death of the last prince of the ancient and illustrious house of Austria, without male issue, awakened the ambition of many potentates, the adjustment of whose pretensions threw

A.D. Europe into a ferment. By virtue of the Pragmatic 1740. Sanction, as well as the rights of blood, the succession to all the Austrian dominions belonged to the archduchess MariaTheresa, the late emperor's eldest daughter, married to Francis of Lorrain, grand duke of Tuscany. The kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, the provinces of Silesia, Austrian Suabia, Upper and Lower Austria, Stiria, Carinthia, Carniola, Burgaw, Brisgaw, the Low Countries, Friuli, Tirol, the duchies of Milan, Parma, and Placentia, composed that ample inheritance.

Almost all the European powers had guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction; but, as prince Eugene judiciously remarked, “a hundred thousand men would have guaranteed it better than a hundred thousand treaties!" Selfish avidity and lawless ambition can only be restrained by force. Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria, laid claim to the kingdom of Bohemia, on the strength of an article in the will of the emperor Ferdinand I. brother to Charles V. Augustus II. king of Poland and elector of Saxony, exhibited pretensions to the whole Austrian succession, in right of his wife, eldest daughter of the emperor Joseph, elder brother of Charles VI. His Catholic majesty deduced similar pretensions from the rights of the daughter of the emperor Maximilian II. wife to Philip II. of Spain, from whom he was descended by females;

and the king of Sardinia revived an obsolete claim to the duchy of Milan. The king of France also pretended that he had a right to the whole disputed succession, as being descended in a right line from the eldest male branch of the house of Austria, by two princesses, married to his ancestors Louis XIII. and XIV. But, conscious that such a claim would excite the jealousy of all Europe, he did not appear as a competitor; though he was not without hopes of aggrandizing himself, and of dismembering the Austrian dominions, by abetting the claims of another.

In the mean time Maria Theresa took quiet possession of that vast inheritance which was secured to her by the Pragmatic Sanction. She received the homage of the states of Austria at Vienna; and the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia swore allegiance to her by their deputies, as did the Italian provinces. Possessed of a popular affability, which her predecessors had seldom put in practice, she gained the hearts of her subjects, without diminishing her dignity. But, above all, she ingratiated herself with the Hungarians, by voluntarily accepting the ancient oath of their sovereigns: by which the subjects, in case of an invasion of their privileges, are allowed to defend themselves, without being treated as rebels.

As the ancestors of this princess had ever been backward in complying with such engagements, the early adoption of that prudent measure was attended with extraordinary popularity. The Hungarians, who, after two hundred years spent in seditious broils and civil wars, still bore with impatience the Austrian yoke, submitted with pleasure to the government of Maria Theresa, whom they almost adored, and who was worthy of their high regard. Her first care, after conciliating the affection of her people, was to procure for her husband a share in all her crowns, under the title of co-regent; and she flattered herself, that the consequence, thus conferred upon the grand duke, would soon raise him to the imperial throne. But she had forgotten that she was destitute of money; that a number of pretenders, for the whole or a part of the Austrian succession, were rising up against her; and that her troops, though far from inconsiderable, were dispersed over her extensive dominions.

The first alarm was given by a formidable, but unexpected pretender. Frederic III., king of Prussia, had lately succeeded his father, Frederic William, a wise and politic prince, who had, by rigid economy, amassed a prodigious treasure, though he maintained, for his own security, an army of sixty thousand men,

which he prudently left his son to employ." If we may be said to owe the shade of the oak," observes the royal historian, "to the acorn from which it sprang, in like manner we may discern, in the sagacious conduct of Frederic William, the source of the future greatness of his successor 1."

This ambitious, enlightened, and enterprising monarch, whose A.D. character I shall have occasion to develope in describing 1741. his heroic achievements, and in tracing his extensive plans of policy, revived an antiquated claim of his family to a part of Silesia; and, instead of having recourse to unmeaning manifestos, he began his march at the head of thirty thousand disciplined warriors, in order to establish his right. When he found himself in the heart of that rich province, and in possession of Breslau, its capital, he showed a disposition to negotiate. He offered to supply Maria Theresa, then commonly known by the appellation of queen of Hungary, with money and troops; to protect, to the utmost of his power, the rest of her dominions in Germany, and to use all his interest to place her husband on the imperial throne, provided she would cede to him the Lower Silesia.

That would have been a small sacrifice for peace and security. But the queen was sensible, that, by yielding to the claims of one pretender, she should only encourage those of others. She therefore rejected, perhaps too hastily, the offers of the king of Prussia, and sent count Neuperg, one of her best generals, with a strong body of troops into Silesia, to expel the invaders. The April 10. two armies, nearly equal in number, met at Molwitz, near Neiss, where a fierce battle ensued. When it had continued four hours, the Austrians, in spite of their most vigorous efforts, were obliged to retire under the cannon of Neiss.

N.S.

This victory, which was followed, though not immediately, by the reduction of Glatz and Neiss, and the submission of the whole province of Silesia, was acquired solely by the firmness of the Prussian infantry, and their celerity in firing, in consequence of a new exercise which they had learned from their young king. The cavalry were totally routed, by the superiority of the Austrians in horse; the royal baggage was pillaged, and the king himself, in danger of being made prisoner, was carried off the field, in the more early part of the engagement. But the second line of infantry stood immoveable; and, by the admirable discipline of that body, the battle was restored'.

1 Mém. de Brandebourg, tom. ii.

2 Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV, chap. v.