called the Jews' burying ground, where they resolved to defend themselves to the last man. He Prudence, and past experience of the steady valour of the Russians, ought to have taught his Prussian majesty to rest satisfied with the advantage he had gained: but he could not bear to be a conqueror by halves. The ardour of his mind determined him to follow his blow, in hopes of crowning at once his glory and his vengeance, by the final destruction of a barbarous enemy, who had dared to enter within the line of his ambition; and whose cruel ravages had so often drawn him from the pursuit of victory, or obstructed the career of conquest. accordingly led on, to a new attack, his brave battalions, yet faint from recent toil, beneath the heat of a burning sun, and sore with many a wound. He led them against the main body of the Russian army, the greater part of which had not hitherto been engaged, posted on higher ground, and strongly defended by artillery. They were unequal to the difficult service: they fell back; they were ́ again brought to the charge, and a second time repulsed with great slaughter. Enraged at this disappointment, the king put himself at the head of his cavalry; but their vigour also was spent. In vain did he attempt to break the Russians (who are possessed of uncommon bodily strength, and an instinctive or mechanical courage, which makes them inaccessible to fear:) they baffled all his gallant efforts. Their fire was the mouth of a volcano, and. their bayonets a hedge of spears. The Prussians, wasted with fatigue, and startled at the number of the slain, blamed the perseverance of their prince, but still maintained the unequal combat. In those awful moments, when the finest troops in the world were wavering, and the greatest of modern commanders could with difficulty encourage them to keep their ground, the Austrian cavalry, yet fresh, broke in upon them with the impetuosity of a torrent. The Rus sian horse followed the animating example, and the foot resumed their activity. The exhausted Prussians yielded : yielded to the irresistible shock: they were seized with panic; they fled. The king rallied them: he brought them back to the charge; he set them an example of bravery in his own person. Three times did he renew the engagement in the front line. He had two horses shot under him, and many bullets had passed through his clothes. But all his intrepid exertions were ineffectual; the battle was irretrievably lost, and the approach of night only prevented the Prussian army from being utterly cut off. As the struggle terminated, the slaughter on both sides was awfully great, Near thirty thousand men lay dead on the field, or dying of their wounds and sixteen thousand of these were Prussians'. The issue of this battle astonished all Europe; and occasioned the most extravagant exultation among the hostile powers on one side, and the greatest depression of mind on the other. When the king of Prussia got possession of the village of Cunnersdorff, he wrote in the triumph of his heart, a congratulatory billet to his queen, without waiting for the final event: "We have "driven the Russians from their entrenchments. Expect "within two hours, to hear of a glorious victory!". And as this billet arrived at Berlin just as the post was going out, the premature intelligence reached the courts. of London and Versailles before the news of the king's disaster, also first conveyed in another laconic dispatch to the queen; "Remove from Berlin with the royal "family. Let the archives be carried to Potsdam. The town may make conditions with the enemy2." But if his Prussian majesty subjected himself to some degree of ridicule as a man, and blame as a commander, by his defeat at Cunnersdorff, his subsequent. conduct wiped all off, And the surprise of mankind, at his sudden and unexpected reverse of fortune, was soon lost in their admiration of the wonderful resources of his genius, and the unconquerable fortitude of his 1. Compared Relations of the battle of Cunnersdorff, published by authority at Berlin and Vienna. 2. Foreign Gazettes, passim. X X spirit. spirit. The day after the battle, he repassed the Oder, and encamped at Retwin; whence he removed to Fustenwalde, and posted himself so advantageously, that the Russians did not dare to make any attempt upon Berlin. He even watched their motions so assiduously, that the main body of their army, under the victorious Soltikow, instead of entering Brandenburg, marched into Lusatia. There he joined the grand Austrain army, under mareschal Daun; and the two generals held consultations concerning their future operations. In the meantime the king of Prussia, having refreshed and recruited his broken and exhausted troops, and supplied the loss of his artillery, (which had all fallen into the hands of the enemy) from the arsenal at Berlin, appeared again formidable. While his friends as well as his enemies were of opinion, that the Russian and Austrian armies united had only to determine what part of his dominions they chose first to subdue as a prelude to the conquest of the whole, he obliged both to act on the defensive. And he at the same time detached a body of six thousand men, under general Wunch, to the relief of Saxony; where the army of the empire had made great progress, during his absence. Hall, Wittemberg, Leipsic, Torgau, and even Dresden itself, had surrendered to the Imperialists. But the detachment under Wunch retook Leipsic on the 21st of September; and having joined general Finck who commanded in Saxony, the Prussian generals repulsed the army of the empire at Corbitz, though supported by a body of Austrians under general Haddick, and recovered every place in that electorate except Dresden. SEPT. 21. Encouraged by these successes, and seeing that he could not second the operations of the king on the side of Silesia, prince Henry quitted his camp at Hornsdorff near Gorlitz, in Lusatia, and marched with incredible celerity into Saxony, were he joined the Prussian parties under Finck and Wunch. This rapid march obliged mareschal mareschal Daun also to quit his camp in Lusatia, and to separate his army from that of count Soltikow, in order to protect Dresden. And the Prussian monarch, thus freed from the presence of his most dangerous enemy, having put himself between the Russians and GreatGlogaw, obliged them to relinquish an enterprise which they had formed against that place, and return into Poland. Fortune, in a word, seemed yet to be preparing triumphs for the intrepid Frederic, after all his disasters; and if he had placed less confidence in her flattering promises, which he had so frequently found to be delusive, he might have closed the campaign with equal glory and success. But his enterprising spirit induced him once more to trust the deceiver, and attempt a great line of action, while prudence, reason, experience, and even self-preservation, dictated a sure one. No sooner did his Prussian majesty find himself disengaged, in consequence of the retreat of the Russians, than he marched into Saxony; and there joined his brother Henry, near Torgau, on the second of November, in spite of all the efforts of the Austrian generals. On this junction, the army of the empire retired. Marcschal Daun, who had threatened prince Henry, fell back upon Dresden. And the king of Prussia saw himself, once more, at the head of a gallant army of sixty thousand men, in high spirits, and still ready to execute any bold enterprise, under the eye of their sovereign and commander, so lately reduced to the brink of despair. But as the season was already far in the decline, and remarkably severe, his most able generals were of opinion that no important enterprise could be undertaken with any probability of success, and that his wisest conduct would be to watch the motions of the Austrians, and cut off the provisions of mareschal Daun; who must, by these means, infallibly be obliged to abandon Dresden, and retire into Bohemia, leaving to the Prussians, as hitherto, the entire possession of Saxony. The The king's views, however, extended to greater and more decisive advantages. He knew that the passes into Bohemia were so difficult, that, by seizing certain posts, the subsistence of the Austrians might not only be cut off, but their retreat rendered impracticable. Having obliged mareschal Daun to retreat as far as Plawen, and advanced himself to Kesseldorf, he accordingly ordered general Finck, with nineteen battalions and thirty-five squadrons to occupy the defiles of Maxen and Ottendorff, through which alone he thought it possible for the enemy to communicate with Bohemia. This service was successfully executed; and no doubt was entertained that mareschal Daun would be obliged to hazard a battle, or to surrender at discretion, as he seemed now to have no resource left but in victory. Meanwhile that sagacious general, sensible of his danger, sent experienced officers to reconnoitre the posi tion of the Prussian detachment; and finding the commander lulled into the most fatal security, he took possession of the neighbouring eminences, and surrounding the enemy on all sides, precluded the possibility of escape. The Prussians defended themselves gallantly for one day, and made several vigorous efforts to disentangle themselves from the net in which they were caught, but in vain: they were foiled in every attempt to force those defiles which they had been appointed to guard. Night put an end to the struggle, and to the effusion of blood. Next morning general Finck, seeing his situation desperate, as every avenue through which a retreat could be made was planted with bayonets, judged it more prudent to submit to necessity, than wantonly to throw away the lives of so many brave men, who might serve their king on some more promising occasion. He therefore endeavoured, though ineffectually, to obtain terms. They were sternly denied him. And he was ultimately forced to surrender at discretion, on the 26th of November; he himself with eight other generals, and near twenty thousand men, being made prisoners of war3. NOV. 16. 3. Compared relations, ubi sup. This |