king of Poland and elector of Saxony, January 1733- The candidates for the vacant crown were, Augustus son to the late king, and Stanislaus, whom Charles XII. in the zenith of his profperity had elevated to the throne, and which on the decline of that monarch's fortune he had been compelled to relinquish. Louis XV. king of France, having married the daughter of Stanislaus, supported the pretenfions of this prince with all his power; and the Polish primate, and a majority of the diet, being gained over by the intrigues of the French ambassador, proceeded to the election, and Stanislaus was unanimously chosen king at Warsaw, and proclaimed with loud acclamations. The imperial courts of Vienna and Petersburg, however, between whom it is remarkable that a ftrict and almost uninterrupted harmony had fubfifted, from the period that Ruffia affumed her proper rank as a European power, efpoufed with warmth the interests of the house of Saxony: and protesting by their refpective minifters against the election of Stanislaus as null and void, an army of Auftrians was affembled on the frontiers of Silefia; and 50,000 Ruffians under general Lafci actually entered Poland, on the fide of Lithuania. Being quickly joined by a body of Saxons and Poles of the electoral party, the elector of Saxony was proclaimed king of Poland by the bishop of Cracow. King Stanislaus, finding himfelf wholly unable to refift so great a force, abandoned Warfaw to his rival, and retired to Dantzic, where he was pursued and closely befieged by the Ruffians and Saxons. This prince, however, found means to escape, previous to the furrender of the city, which was followed by a general fubmiffion to the authority of Auguftus, and a general amnesty was in return granted to the partifans of Stanislaus. Though the court of Verfailles failed in their grand object in Poland, in order to be fully avenged upon the emperor, who had been the principal obftacle to its accomplishment, and whofe dominions lay much more open to attack than Ruffia, Ruffia, the duke of Berwick received orders to pass the Rhine at the head of a numerous army in October, and Fort Kehl was in a fhort time compelled to capitulate. The winter months having paffed over, he renewed his operations with great vigor. After the reduction of Traerbach, the duke invefted the important town of Philipfburg; and vifiting the trenches was killed on the 12th of June* by a cannon-ball, leaving behind him an high reputation for valor and military skill. The French general had been oppofed, during the whole of this campaign, by the celebrated prince Eugene, now far advanced into the vale of years, in a ftate of languishment and infirmity, and retaining little refemblance of the hero of Blenheim and Belgrade. Notwithstanding the lofs fuftained by the French in the death of their commander, Philipfburg was obliged, after a brave defence, to furrender, though upon the most honorable terms. During these transactions the French king had concluded a treaty with Spain and Sardinia, in conformity to which, those powers declared war against the emperor. And the marechal duc de Villars, the ancient rival of Marlborough and Eugene, was prevailed upon to take the command of the French army in Italy; which, being joined by the forces of Savoy, expelled the Imperialifts from the Milanefe. He furvived, however, but a fhort time the fatigues of the campaign, in which he fully sustained the glory of his name and nation, dying at Turin early 1734: * M. Voltaire tells us, that the marechal de Villars, on being folicited to refume his military honors, and to place himself at the head of the army destined for Italy, repeated with energy and enthusiasm the following lines, from Racine's tragedy of Bajazet : Quoi tu crois, cher Ofmin, que ma gloire paffée carly in the enfting spring, at the age of eighty. After the death of this great man, the command devolved upon the marechal de Coigné; between whom and the imperial generals, the count de Merci and marechal Konigseg, various fierce and bloody, but indecifive encounters took place, into the particular narration of which it is not neceffary to enter. Whilft the Auftrians were thus driven from the Milanese, and with difficulty maintained their ground in the Mantuan, the Neapolitan nobility, irritated and oppreffed under the government of the count de Vifconti, the imperial viceroy, joined in an invitation to don Carlos, the infant duke of Parma, to attempt an invasion of that kingdom. He accordingly entered the Neapolitan territories at the head of a confiderable army, and was received in the metropolis with loud acclamations, as the national deliverer. The count de Vifconti, having retreated into Apulia, was followed thither by the Spanish general, the count de Montemar; who, attacking the Auftrians at Bitonto, May 25, 1734, gained a moft complete victory. Don Carlos, being now proclaimed and acknowledged king of Naples, immediately determined upon the reduction of Sicily: and the count de Montemar, landing in that ifland in the month of August, proceeded with great rapidity in his conquefts, the natives difplaying every where a difpofition rather to affist than to oppofe the progrefs of his arms; and on the arrival of don Carlos in perfon, the imperialifts were compelled finally to evacuate the island. The emperor, finding himfelf unable to cope with his adverfaries, applied for fuccor in this emergency to his powerful ally, the czarina, who immediately ordered a body of thirty thousand men to march to his affiftance. But, before they could arrive at the scene of action, a general treaty of peace was concluded in the fpring of 1735, nearly on the terms propofed by the maritime powers; and agreeably to which, Naples and Sicily were yielded to the infant don Carlos; and and Parma and Placentia, the patrimonial poffeffions of the infant, were ceded to the houfe of Auftria, to whom alfo the other conquefts of the allies in Italy and Germany were reftored. The reverfion of the grand duchy of Tufcany, now formally relinquifhed by Spain, was conferred as a fief of the empire, at the demise of the grand duke, laft of the illuftrious houfe of Medicis, upon the duke of Lorraine, who was deftined for the future husband of the eldest arch-duchefs Maria Therefa, a princess distinguished for her perfonal and mental accomplishments, and fole heirefs, under the pragmatic fanction, of the vaft dominions of the house of Auftria. The elector of Saxony was acknowledged as king of Poland, and the duchy of Lorraine was ceded to Stanislaus, who was permitted to retain the title of king; and after the death of the titular monarch, to be for ever united to the crown of France, which thus made, under the unambitious and pacific administration of cardinal Fleury, an acquifition of far greater importance and value than any which had refulted from the moft fplendid fucceffes of Richelieu, Mazarine, or Louvois. The king of Sardinia was gratified by the ceffion of fome fmall diftricts of the Milanefe; which is faid to have been compared, by one of the ancestors of this monarch, to an artichoke, which, from its magnitude not being digeftible at once, must be devoured leaf by leaf. On reverting to the regular progreffion of domeftic events, we find the feffion of 1734 diftinguished by a very vigorous effort to repeal the Act for Septennial Parliaments -as a flagrant encroachment upon the rights of the people— as having a dangerous tendency to increase the influence of the crown, and as being actually productive of very pernicious effects. The minifter having defied the opposition to adduce a single inftance in which the interests of the nation had been injured by the operation of this bill, or by any undue exercise of the royal prerogative as connected with it, fir William Wyndham obferved, "that it was reasona ble and just to argue against the continuance of a bill of this nature; not merely from what had happened, but from what might happen. Let us fuppofe then," said he "a man of mean fortune and obscure origin, abandoned to all notions of virtue and honor, and pursuing no object but his own aggrandizement, raised by the caprice of fortune to the ftation of first minifter: let us fuppose him palpably deficient in the knowledge of the interefts of his country; and employing, in all tranfactions with foreign powers, men ftill more ignorant than himself : let us fuppofe the honor of the nation tarnished, her political confequence lost, her commerce infulted, her merchants plundered, her feamen perishing in the depths of dungeons—and all these circumstances palliated or overlooked, left his administration fhould be endangered: fuppofe him poffeffed of immense wealth, the spoils of an impoverished nation; and suppofe this wealth employed to purchase feats in the national fenate for his confidential friends and favorites-In fuch a parliament, fuppofe all attempts to inquire into his conduct constantly over-ruled by a corrupt majority, who are rewarded for their treachery to the public by a profufe diftribution of penfions, pofts, and places under the minister. -Let us fuppofe this minifter infolently domineering over all men of sense, figure, and fortune, in the nation; and having no virtuous principle of his own, ridiculing it in others, and endeavoring to deftroy or contaminate it in all. With fuch a minifter, and fuch a parliament, let us suppose a prince upon the throne—uninformed, and unacquainted either with the interests or inclinations of his people-weak, capricious, and actuated at once by the paffions of ambition and avarice. Should fuch a cafe ever occur, could any greater curfe happen to a nation, than fuch a prince, advised by fuch a minifter, and that minister supported by such a parliament. The existence of such a prince and fuch a minifter, no human laws may indeed be adequate to prevent; but the existence of fuch a parliament may, |