was obliged at last to yield to the reiterated discharge of the Spanish 1772 artillery, and the island was recovered to the crown of Spain. This was followed by an affair of far greater importance on the continent. The Chilese, displeased at some measures of the Spanish viceroy, rose in arms; and, attacking the city of Beldivia, they massacred the white inhabitants of the suburbs, which they afterwards fired, and set the negroes free :† nor did they retire till they had forced the Spaniards to fly for refuge within the walls of the city. * PORTUGAL. Our attention is again called to the measures adopted by the marquis de Pombal to promote the national prosperity. The most remarkable of these was an edict to prohibit the import of various foreign articles, to the prejudice of the product and manufactures of Portugal. This proceeded from a laudable desire of rousing the nation from those indolent, lethargic habits which oppression and the insecurity of property had brought on them. But the manner in which the salutary measure was executed shews the excess to which tyranny was carried by him. We are informed that the executioners of the royal mandate caused the clothes made of prohibited manufactures to be publicly torn from the persons of those who wore them. Such acts prove that he considered the nation in no other light than slaves, destined to bear whatever ill usage his imagination might suggest. The same remarks are applicable to the reforms which the marquis made, this year, in the university of Coimbra. These were become requisite from the languor and relaxation of discipline which a want of patronage to literary men, and the discouragement of every intellectual energy, had given rise to among the Portuguese. The premier, without using the proper means to revive the spirit of emulation, introduced such regulations as obliged the professors and students to attend to their respective business : but 1772 1772 but they were accompanied with an arbitrary dismission of such professors as were not perfectly agreeable to him, and the appointment of his creatures in their room. His aversion to the jesuits, which was seen in all these regulations, was more observable in the malice which he testified towards the memory of Malagrida. Remarking that the nation appeared still to read with pleasure a work which had given him repute, entitled, "The true Causes of the Earthquake in 1755," he caused it to be publicly burned by virtue of a royal edict, under an idea of its containing pernicious sentiments. Such acts evince the fearful apprehensions which ever disturb a tyrant's repose, and are the just punishment of his injustice and cruelty. с 1772 ITALY. WHEN We contemplate the character of this pontiff in every different light, at one time diffusing happiness around him as the friend of mankind and the delight of every society, at another exercising his talents as a statesman, improving the finances of his see by his economy, and introducing good order into every department of its administration by his strict attention to it, whilst he, at the same time, was exemplary in the discharge of every office and every duty that appertained to a manly piety, avoiding the intrigues of courts as well as of the cloister, because he despised the objects and condemned the motives of them, we cannot but lament that such a man should have been involuntarily led to interest himself in the contest now subsisting between the catholic sovereigns of Europe and the order of jesuits. He was sensible of the importance of the affair, and was also aware of the danger which threatened him from the dilemma to which he was reduced, and would gladly have extricated himself from it. This appears from his answer to the monarchs who warmly solicited him to decide on their fate. Give me time," said he, "to examine the important business on which I have to pronounce. I am the common "father of all the faithful, but more especially of the regulars; and I 66 b Pombal. 29. C Idem. 4. 23. 66 cannot "cannot destroy a famous order, without having such reasons for so doing "as will justify me in the eyes of all ages, but above all in the eyes of "God. I will not merely execute the will of others, I will be a judge.” 1772 GERMANY, PRUSSIA, RUSSIA, AND POLAND. NEVER was a nefarious project more artfully planned, nor attended with more favourable circumstances in the prosecution, nor executed with more ease and success, than that of the Prussian king for the partition of Poland. The present situation of the neighbouring states, which induced them to abandon the favourite idea of the balance of power, conspired with the ambitious views of the partitioning powers and the civil dissension which distracted the unhappy country itself in completing its ruin.-The Swedish monarch, whose enterprising disposition might otherwise have led him to oppose a design so hostile to his interests, was occupied in the establishment of absolute power in his own kingdom. The maritime powers were either prevented by domestic feuds, or did not think themselves sufficiently interested to justify the involving themselves in a war with three powerful monarchs to prevent the execution of it. Hence it arose that they stood aloof during these transactions; instead of encouraging and supporting Sweden and Denmark, and maintaining the independency of the Baltic states. France, though averse to the partition, and chagrined to observe the arrangements made by her ally, the house of Austria, with the northern states, was not in circumstances that enabled her to act with becoming spirit; and was, therefore, content with making the Polish confederates remittances which were too small to produce the desired effect. And the sultan, who would gladly have maintained the independency of Poland from enmity to the two imperial courts, was fully employed in hostilities with Russia. It was, moreover, thought that the mediators between him and the empress Catharine studiously protracted the negotiation, because they were of opinion that their views respecting the partition would be more successfully prosecuted 1772 1772 prosecuted while Russia was embroiled with the Porte.-The courts of Vienna and Petersburg had each, as we have seen, their peculiar schemes of aggrandizement. But when they perceived the determination of his Prussian majesty to share in their spoils, and saw the resolute aspect which he wore, they deemed it politic to relinquish them, and to accede to Frederic's conciliatory plan of partition.-Before we pursue the negotiations by which this was accomplished, it is proper to attend to the affairs of the Polish confederates. In wars which have their origin in the warm feelings of patriotism, or those of despair excited by an attempt to deprive a nation of their civil or religious rights, the agents are seldom directed by the dictates of prudence. When the confederates perceived their own weakness, when they found that they had no ally on whom they could rely, and had reason to fear that the Turks, on whose diversion of the Russian forces they chiefly rested their hopes, would soon be driven to the hard terms of peace proposed to them, prudence would have recommended that they should have desisted from a contest which was now become hopeless. The Austrian court had not yet declared its intentions respecting Poland. And its known jealousy of Russia, its professions of friendship for the Polish republic, and the engagements which it had made with the Porte, afforded the confederates a gleam of hope, which was sufficient to animate them to further exertions.—Taking the field in the month of February they gained possession of the citadel of Cracow by surprise, † and fought several slight actions with detachments of the Russians and the crown troops of Poland. But this only served to deceive them with delusive hopes. Within four months, marshal Zaremba was forced, after a brave defence, to surrender the fortress of Tyniec‡ to the Russians, now reinforced with a body of Austrians. And this event was soon followed by the reduction of the citadel of Cracow. The situation of Poland was, at this time, the most singular as well as deplorable that ever an unhappy state was reduced to. The Russians had overrun the whole kingdom, and were in possession of the chief fortresses.— The Austrians had seized the royal salt-mines at Wielickza and Bochinia, the + February 2. In June. a Annual Register. 27. the product of which made the chief branch of the king's revenue.-And the Prussians, possessing themselves of royal Prussia, deprived him of the port duties, another material source of it. All of them, mean-while, professed the most honourable intentions towards the state and nation, as if in derision of the virtues of justice, friendship, and public faith, which they were thus audaciously violating. But the time was now arrived when the veil was to be drawn aside, and the object of their mysterious negotiations was to be made known to the world. Having prepared the way for their projected partition, each having acted the part allotted him with consummate address, when they saw that not one of the neighbouring powers had the spirit to offer itself as the champion of the independency of Europe, they seized the favourable moment to declare their designs by publishing a manifesto, setting forth the principles on which they had acted relative to the affairs of Poland since the death of the late king || After representing the anarchy which had prevailed in that country, they proposed to give reasons for their present line of conduct: "These powers are obliged, at a great expence, to take mea"sures of precaution, in order to secure the tranquillity of their own fron"tiers; they are exposed to the uncertain but possible consequences of the " entire dissolution of Poland; to the danger of seeing their mutual harmony and good friendship destroyed; the maintenance of which, at the "same time that it secures their own peace and tranquillity, is a matter of "the highest importance to Europe. From this view of things it will appear that nothing can be of more urgent necessity than to apply an "immediate remedy to evils from which the neighbouring nations have "already experienced the most disagreeable effects; and the consequences " of which, if not timely prevented, must bring on such changes in the political system of this part of Europe as may be fatal to the general "tranquillity."-Some decisive measure was, therefore, to be adopted to save the kingdom of Poland from entire dissolution and to preserve the peace of Europe. And, happily, the device occurred to them of asserting their respective claims to districts lying within the boundaries of Poland. "In consequence hereof, her majesty the empress of all the Russias, her majesty 66 1772 b Annual Register. 27. September 2. |