WE E have now brought our Register to the third year, and we hope it has been conducted to the fatisfaction of the Public. In our collections we have continued our attention to lay before our Readers the most striking and useful of the detached pieces that have appeared during the year, and to study variety as far as it could be done without loading the work, or introducing frivolous and impertinent matter., The Reader will find fome difference in the paging between this and the preceding volumes. In order to allow fufficient time for digesting the History and Chronicle, it was neceffary to put the other articles of the collection earlier to the press; this has divided the book into two parts, from the beginning of each of which the pages are numbered. With regard to that hiftory, we are extremely fenfible of the defects to which, from the very nature of our plan, we are liable, to say nothing of our own particular inability. We have no occafion to bespeak the candour and indulgence of the Public, which we have already abundantly experienced. In our fituation, as the annual relaters of events, we are unavoidably subject to to inaccuracies and mistakes, which it would be vain to think of concealing from the judicious Reader by any parade. Such a Reader must be fenfible, that mistakes cannot poffibly be avoided in fuch a work: for he will be confcious that imperfection must neceffarily be expected from hafte; and that we must represent things according to their appearances at the time, though thefe appearances may afterwards be difcovered to have been delufive. These are misfortunes to which all are subject, who, without being perfonally concerned in them, write upon public affairs near the time in which they have been tranfacted. But we, who give no account of the business of the year, until the conclufion of each campaign, are less liable to be impofed upon, and lefs fubject to contradict our own accounts, than those who confine themselves to shorter periods. These Annual Hiftories, imperfect and inaccurate as they evidently muft be, are yet of confiderable ufe: they aid the memory; they connect in the mind the fcattered events; they fhew their dependencies and relations ; in fhort, they fupply, for a time, the place of a folid and regular hiftory, which is not to be expected in many years after the events. THE THE ANNUAL REGISTER, For the YEAR 1760. THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT WA R. CHAP. I. Nothing decided in the war. State of the feveral powers concerned. Great Britain and Prufia propose an accommodation. Difficulties in concluding a peace. The condition and bopes of France. Demands on the king of Pruffi. Treaty faid to be between Ruffia and Auftria. F all the wars which have haraffed Europe for more than a century had not proved it, the events of the laft campaign muft have fatisfied every thinking man, that victories do not decide the fate of nations. Four moft bloody, and to all appearance moft ruinous defeats which he suffered in that year, had defpoiled the king of Pruffia of no more than a fingle town. After thefe accumulated blows he ftill found himself in a condition to make good his winterquarters; to cover his dominions; VOL. III. themselves compelled to fly before their captives; and after having fuffered a confiderable defeat, fhould be pushed back almoft on their own territories? On the other hand, it might have been fupposed that the effect of these advantages under the management of a very great commander, who was befides largely reinforced, could have been frustrated only by the lofs of fome great battle. But the fact was otherwife. The Hanoverians, without any adverfe ftroke in that campaign, were obliged to repafs the Rhine and the Lippe; and fince that time, fortune having decided nothing by the events of five years war, has given to Prince Ferdinand the poffeffion of a great part of Weftphalia in the manner of a conquered country; and yet fees him abandoning Heffe, and with difficulty covering the borders of Hanover. In thort, the victory of Crevelt could not enable the duke of Brunfwick to defend the Rhine. The battle of Bergen did not give M. Broglio an entrance into Hanover. The great victory of Minden did not drive the French from the Maine. We have feen armies, after complete victory, obliged to act as if they had been defeated; and after a defeat, taking an offenfive part with fuccefs, and reaping all the fruits of victory. Thefe reflections are ftill more ftrongly enforced by the fortune of the king of Prati. Covered with the laurels of Lowofitz, Prague, Rofbach, and Lafla, when he began, after to many complete triumphs, to purtue hi advantages, and to improve fuccefs into conquit, the fcene was induly altered. As foon as he attempted to penetrate with effect into the enemies cour try, without having fuffered any very fignal blow, without any confiderable mistake committed upon his fide, Fortune, who hath as it were attached herself to the defenfive, immediately forfook him. He was not able to take a fingle place. And thofe advantages which at other times and fituations would have laid the foundation of lasting empire, have in his cafe only protracted a fevere deftiny, which fome think in the end inevitable; but which as many, as great, and as entire victories fince obtained over his forces, have not yet been able to bring upon him. The balance of power, the pride of modern policy, and originally invented to preferve the general peace as well as freedom of Europe, has only preferved its liberty. It has been the original of innumrable and fruitless wars. That political torture by which powers are to be enlarged or abridged, according to a ftandard, perhaps not very accurately imagined, ever has been, and it is to be feared will always. continue a caufe of infinite contention and bloodthed. The foreign ambaffadors conftantly refiding in all courts, the negociations inceffantly,carrying on, fpread both confederacies and quarrels fo wide, that whenever hoftilities commence, the theatre of war is always of a prodigious extent. All parties in those diffufive operations have of neceffity their trong and weak fides, What they gain in one part is loft in another; and in conclufion, their affairs become fo balanced, that all the powers concerned are certain to lofe a great deal; the moft fortunate acquire little; and what they do acquire is never in any reafonable proportion to charge and lofs. Frequent |