A subsidy of three hundred thousand pounds granted to the British parliament, was, however transmitted to the queen of Hungary, and proved a very seasonable supply, in the midst of her multiplied necessities'.

In the mean time the elector of Bavaria, being joined by the French forces under the mareschal Broglio, surprised the Imperial city of Passau, upon the Danube; and entering Upper-Austria, at the head of seventy thousand men, took possession of Lintz, the capital of that dutchy, where he received the homage of the states. From Lintz, several detachments of his troops advanced within a few leagues of Vienna; which being badly fortified, could make, it was generally thought, but a feeble resistance against the victorious enemy. And many of those who were best acquainted with Germany, and with military operations, considered that city as already lost. The inhabitants took the alarm, and removed to places of greater safety their most valuable effects. The Danube was daily seen covered with boats, for this purpose; a great part of the suburbs was pulled down; and a summons was sent to Kevenhuller, the governor, to surrender the place.

In this extremity of her fortune, the archduchess, committing her desperate affairs to the care of her husband and her brave generals, left Vienna, and retired to Presburg in Hungary; where having assembled the states of that kingdom, she appeared before them with her eldest son, yet an infant, in her arms, and addressed them in a speech to the following purport: "Abandoned by my friends, persecuted "by my enemies, and attacked by my nearest relations, "I have no resource left but in your fidelity and valour. "On you alone I depend for relief; and into your hands I "commit, with confidence, the son of your sovereign, and my just cause." At once filled with rage and compassion at these affecting expressions of confidence, by so flat

5. Smollett.

tering

tering an appeal to their loyalty, and by the appearance of a young beautiful and heroic princess, in distress, the palatines drew their sabres, and exclaimed in a tone of enthu siasm, "We will die for our KING, Maria-Theresa!" Nor was this a momentary start of passion. While with tears they swore to defend her, they published a manifesto against the elector of Bavaria; and by a solemn act of state, they gave a perpetual exclusion of him and his posterity from the throne of Hungary.

The Hungarian nobility were instantly in arms; and old count Palfy, whom the queen honoured with the name of father, marched to the relief of Vienna with thirty thousand men. Kevenhuller, the governor, had a garrison of twelve thousand: count Nuperg was in Bohemia at the head of about twenty thousand: the grand duke and his brother, prince Charles of Lorrain, who was the delight of the Austrian armies, commanded another large body; and prince Lobkowitz, count Berenclau, count Traun, and other general officers, were exerting themselves to the utmost in raising troops for the service of their mistress.

These powerful armies, the declining season, and the strength of the garrison of Vienna, induced the elector of Bavaria to moderate his ideas. Instead of investing that capital, he marched into Bohemia; and being there joined by twenty thousand Saxons, he laid siege to Prague. The place was stormed, and taken by the gallantry of the famous count Saxe, natural son of Augustus II. of Poland, who had already entered into the French service, and exhibited, on this occasion, a remarkable instance of his generosity and humanity. He not only saved the town from pillage, but the persons of the inhabitants from any violence or insult. And the elector of Bavaria, having been crowned king of Bohemia at Prague, proceeded to Frankfort, A.D.1742. where he was elected emperor under the name of Charles VII. and invested with the Imperial

JAN. 4.

ensigns.

6. So the Hungarians always call their sovereign, of whatever sex.

The

The mareschal de Belleisle, who made a splendid figure at this inauguration, seemed now in a fair way to complete his whole undertaking; more especially as he had found means to engage Sweden in a war with Russia, in order to prevent the empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, from aiding her sister sovereign. But events suddenly took a new direction in Germany, as we shall afterwards have occasion to see. In the mean time we must turn our attention toward the affairs of England; observing, in making this transition, that the war between Sweden and Russia was distinguished by no remarkable event, and soon terminated in an equitable peace.

The intimate connection between England and the house of Austria, since the revolution in 1738, cemented by the blood spilt during two long and desolating wars, in which the subjects of the two powers had greatly signalized themselves, by opposing the ambition of Lewis XIV. made the people consider this connection, and not altogether without reason, as essential to the preservation of the liberties of Europe, against the dangerous usurpations of the house of Bourbon. The English nation, therefore, warmly espoused the cause of the queen of Hungary; and no sooner was it known that France, in violation of the Pragmatic sanction, had formed the project of dismembering the succession of Charles VI. and placing a creature of her own upon the Imperial throne, than the cry for war was loud, and for fulfilling to the utmost the treaties with the late emperor. The miscarriages in the West-Indies were forgot; the increase of taxes, which had lately occasioned so much clamour, was disregarded; and liberal subscriptions were opened, by private individuals, for the support of MariaTheresa.

George II. who seemed only to value the British crown as it augmented his consequence in Germany, was sufficiently disposed to enter into these views; and although the imminent danger, to which his electoral dominions were ex

posed,

posed, induced him to submit to a treaty of neutrality for Hanover, that treaty did not affect him in his regal capacity. As king of Great-Britain, he might still assist the queen of Hungary; he might even, it was said, hire his electoral troops to fight the battles of Maria-Theresa. Of this he seemed convinced. But the leading members of the opposition in parliament had declaimed so long, and so eloquently, against continental connections, that a change in his ministry was judged necessary, before any effectual step could be taken.

Sir Robert Walpole, whose credit had been for some time on the decline, finding he could no longer serve his master to advantage, or secure a respectable majority in the house of commons, resigned his employments and was created earl of Oxford. Mr. Sandys, a sturdy patriot, who had distinguished himself by his perseverance in opposing the measures of the late minister, was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, in the room of his political antagonist; the earl of Wilmington was placed at the head of the treasury; lord Carteret, the Cicero of the house of lords, was made secretary of state; and the eloquent and patriotic Mr. Pulteney, the most popular man in the kingdom, was restored to the dignity of a privy-counsellor, and soon after created earl of Bath. Other changes of less consequence took place.

From the new ministry the most popular measures were expected: nothing less was presumed on than a total renovation of the constitution. A number of motions to this purport was accordingly made in both houses of parliament; but to the astonishment of the nation, they were all violently opposed, and quashed, by the very men who had lately maintained the principles on which they were founded, and whose former speeches had suggested many of them. The most important of these motions were the following three: one for appointing a committee "to inquire into the conduct of affairs during the last twenty years:" one for bringing in a bill" to repeal the act for septennial parliaments;" and one for "excluding pensioners from the house of lords,"

lords," by an act of the whole legislature. In this ministerial opposition, Mr. Pulteney, immediately before he was created earl of Bath, and Mr. Sandys, the new chancellor of the exchequer, particularly distinguished themselves in the house of commons, as did lord Carteret in the house of peers'.

The eyes of the people were now opened; and they discovered, that the men whom they had been accustomed to consider as incorruptible patriots, and who had so long distracted the councils of the nation with their thundering orations, were only the heads of an ambitious faction struggling for power, and ready, when gratified with a share in the honours and offices of the state, to espouse measures, and adopt maxims, which they had formerly reprobated, as big with ruin and disgrace. This political apostacy was no less observable in their conduct with respect to foreign than domestic affairs. Though German subsidies, standing armies, and continental connections, had been the constant objects of their indignation, while out of place, and had furnished them with the occasion of some of the finest strokes of their popular eloquence, the new ministry extended their complaisance to their sovoreign in all these particulars, much farther than their execrated predecessors. Beside providing for the subsidies to Denmark and Hesse-Cassel, they procured a vote of five hundred thousand pounds to the queen of Hungary; they augmented the land forces to sixty-two thousand five hundred men: they transported into the Low Countries sixteen thousand British troops, under the earl of Stair, to make a diversion in favour of Maria Theresa, even before they were assured of the concurrence of Holland; and they ordered those troops to be joined by six thousand Hessians, and sixteen thousand Hanoverians, in British pay. This army, however, after much idle parade, went into winter-quarters, without performing any thing

VOL. V.

7. Parl. Debates, 1742.

of