than their own, that of the parents, whofe right of decifion, with refpect both to the education and the final difpofal of their children, would fcarcely be called in question. The attention of the emperor was, however, foon drawn away from the Louvain chace, which now flagged and grew cold upon the fcent, to another pursuit of the fame kind and nature. This was the college at Antwerp, which was likewife a noted feminary for the education of youth; but more particularly destined to the training up of young men to the epifcopal duties and functions. It feems that among these students were feveral spirited young men of an obferving and critical difpofition, who ventured to throw into the moft ridiculous points of view feveral of the contradictions and abfurdities which were moft confpicuous in the fovereign's conduct and projects; while others, of a more serious caft, entered coolly and argumentatively into an examination and expofure of the arbitrary meafures, by which they faid he was aiming directly at the fubverfion of the religion, govern ment, and conftitution of their country. It was not to be fuppofed that any of these things could be preferved from the knowledge of a monarch poffeffed of unbounded power, confequently of unbounded means of gratifying fpies and emiffaries, and whofe peculiarity it befides was, to wish to be acquainted with all the most private and trifling affairs of a great empire. It is true that he had repeatedly borne at Vienna, and feemed to treat with the utmost indifference and contempt, fuch feverity of cenfure, charge, and abuse, as had neVOL. XXXI. ver before, perhaps, been offered to any fovereign during life, and within the fcene of his own government; and that thefe pafquinades, libels, or charges, were not handed about privately in manufcript, but printed, advertifed, and fold like other publications, without fear or concern. Yet notwithstanding this continence and temper difplayed at Vienna, he determined upon exterminating that neft of hornets who feem to have given him fo much offence at Antwerp. A day being accordingly fixed for clearing that feminary of all its members, profeffors as well as ftudents, and for fhutting it entirely up, the neceflary military preparations were made in the morn ing for fupporting and August 4th. enforcing the execution of the decree. Several pieces of cannon were drawn out in the open and public places, and loaded in the view of the people, while a body of 400 foot were drawn up with muskets charged and bayonets fixed, to cover the artillery. The populace, both men and women, affembled in vaft crowds upon the quays, and in the great fquare, to behold this new and extraordinary fpectacle. A people nurfed up under the protection of laws, are difpofed to be sturdy in thofe matters which they know to be within their fanction; we need make no obfervation on the natural fullen obftinacy of the people. It is faid that they were warned more than once to difperfe, and that they replied, that they were unarmed, that they neither poffeffed the means, nor had the fmalleft intention of offering any offence, and that they had an undoubted right, while they acted thus peaceably, to walk or ftand in the streets as they liked. The only appearance of any oppofition to the measure in hand was a legal one, the reading of a proteft against it, under the fanction of law, by a notary. A captain of grenadiers, emulous of the example set by enfign Wuchetigh, and hoping to benefit equally by the repetition of it, to avoid racking his invention, in finding a new caufe, pretended to have received exactly the fame infult which the former had done, and inftantly threw in a close, regular, and much more effectual fire upon the promifcuous multitude. Above forty men and women were faid to have been killed upon the spot, and double that number fent wounded to the hospital. No words could defcribe the general horror which this cruel, coldblooded flaughter diffufed through every order of the people,and in every part of the provinces. It is but juftice to mankind likewife to observe, that thefe cruel executions, committed upon a defenceless people, by their rulers, in a season of peace and the most profound tranquillity, fcarcely operated lefs in exciting the deteftation and abhorrence of the neighbouring nations, than in producing thefe effects upon the immediate fufferers. In the mean time perfonal fecurity was now confidered as being fo precarious in the Netherlands, that feveral of the nobility, and a great number of other inha bitants of diftinétion and property, thought it neceffary to provide in time for their fafety, by retiring to Holland, Liege, and other neighbouring governments for protec tion. While the emperor could not bring himfelf to look his fierce enemy in the face, either on the Da nube, or even in defence of the Bannat; he feemed in fome degree to receive confolation for the ruin and difgrace which fell upon his vaft armies, from the cheap triumphs which were obtained by his favourite general in the Low Countries. His fer. vices never failed to draw forth approbation and acknowledgment. În one of his letters, dated at Semlin, and another at Weifkirchen, a few days before the fhameful rout, and the havock made of his army in the valley of Caransebes by the grand vizir, are the following paffages. "I perfectly approve of the vigorous "manner in which the troops repel"led infolence at Louvain, and yet more at Antwerp: they must per"fevere in the fame conduct to com"pel refpect."-And again, from Weifkirchen," I altogether approve "the measures you have taken to crush thofe diforders, and enforce « refpect to the foldiery. I hope, by thefe acts of vigour, and the "flight of the principal malecon" tents, we shall be able finally to "re-establish order."-Is it then any wonder, that with fuch encouragement and applause from a great monarch, and accompanied with profeffions of the greatest friendship, couched in the most endearing terms, a foldier of fortune, without other connection or hope to look to, fhould eagerly wish, and affiduously endeavour, not only to preferve, but to increase that favour and confidence or will it be any furprize to thofe acquainted with the world, that fuch a man, fo circumftanced, fhould be little fcrupulous about the means of attaining or preferving, objects to him of greater importance, than the acquifition of a large kingdom would have been to his master ? Though Though this was the last military execution of any great notice which took place in the courfe of the year, yet the rafhnefs and violence of government was every day, and in every thing apparent. Laws were repeatedly declared to be of no avail, except in ordinary cafes between man and man; but to place them in any degree of oppofition to, or competition with, the fupreme will of the fovereign, was confidered and treated as a crime of the firft magnitude. The fame principle was extended to all capitulations and compacts, whether ancient or modern, however strongly confirmed, or folemnly fworn to and ratified, between the fovereigns and the people. The breath of the prefent emperor was to do or to undo all things. While he seemed difpofed to wreak all the vexation and vengeance excited by the unexpected valour of the Turks, and the difgrace which he fo continually and feverely experienced, upon his unarmed fubjects in the Low Countries, the bishops and abbots, who bore fo great a fway in these provinces, were conftantly labouring under the apprehenfion of being stripped of all their temporalities, according to the threats continually thrown out by the minifters, for their steadinefs in refufing to fend their youth to the feminary at Louvain; an object which the fovereign feemed nearly to have as much at heart, as even the fubversion of the laws and civil rights of the people. The revenues of fome of the abbots were already under fequeftration, for the fpirit and firmnefs which they had lately fo eminently difplayed, as members of the affemblies of Brabant and Hainault, in oppofing the arbitrary decrees and measures of the fovereign; the celebrity and popularity which they had thus acquired by no means tending to procure any mitigation of the rigour of the fentence. Both these and the other abbacies, which gave their poffeffors feats in the provincial affemblies, although they were thereby integral parts of the constitution, legislature, and government of the country, were notwithstanding all threatened with speedy and final fuppreffion and confifcation. The largenefs of their eftates could leave little room to doubt of the serious intention which accompanied this denunciation. In the mean time, these fo lately flourishing and fmiling provinces prefented a fullen, filent, fettled gloom; melancholy and despair appearing in every countenance. A people of an equable temper and flow paffions, are always deeply affected when at all fo. The best and most valuable inhabitants were daily quitting the country; thofe whofe affairs would not permit, though their ability might, to adopt that mode of fecurity, under continual apprehenfion of their perfons being feized by fome arbitrary and irrefiflible mandate, while the prisons were already filled with fuppofed delinquents, under the loofe general charge, of being inimical to the prefent government of fovereign will. Foreign commerce, internal trade, and the various branches of manufacture, feemed fo totally annihilated, as fcarcely to leave a veftige behind that they had ever exifted; and the only trades that could procure employment, were thofe that administered to the immediate neceffities of life. To complete the climax of misfortune, this miferable people could not enter The important events of the war between the great powers on the borders in Europe and Afia, as well as thofe connected with the revolution in Holland, neceffarily occafioned our poftponing other matters, which, though of confideration, were not fo immediately interefting, and which would not fuffer any diminution of their value or character by a later difcuffion. The internal affairs of Germany come within this defcription, where an extraordinary act of violence committed by one prince, afforded a happy opportunity to a neighbouring great fovereign, of dignifying his reign, and unfolding his own character with great advantage to the world, by an act of fignal justice. The circumstances were as follow. The death of the count of Lippe Schaumbourg (a fovereign prince of the empire) having taken place on the 15th of February 1787, a too potent neighbour, the landgrave of Heffe Caffel, could not refift the temptation of feizing the poffeffions of the infant fon and fucceffor of the late count. The latter had appointed his widow to the guardianship of his children, and Likewife to the regency and government of the country, during the minority of the young count. But in two days after his death, three Heffian regiments of infantry, as many of cavalry, with a strong body of artillery, fuddenly entered the defenceless country, feized the city and caftle of Buckebourg, and poffeffed themfelves of the whole coun ty of Lippe Schaumbourg. This fmall principality contains two cities, three towns, and feventy-two villages. Notwithstanding the fuddennefs of this unexpected invafion, the vigilance and celerity of the faithful minifter and privy counsellor of the late count, preferved not only his fon, but the archives of the country, from the hands and defigns of his enemies. With thefe treasures he arrived fafe at Minden, where the dominion and protection of the king of Pruffia afforded them abundant fecurity; but the countess was laid and kept under arreft in her own caftle; while the people were obliged to do homage and fwear allegiance to their new mafter, and all public bufinefs was conducted in the name of the landgrave. It will not be fuppofed, in fuch a commonwealth as that of Germany, where the poffeffions of the numerous ftates, however small many of them may be, are, however, all fecured and guaranteed by many general laws and fanctions, which bind the whole to the preservation of each individual, that fo flagrant an outrage would be ventured upon, without fome colour of right, or pretence of claim. It appears accordingly, that the ancestor of the late count, by marrying a woman of inferior rank, (a circumftance which is placed in a degree of confideration by the Germans,perhaps without example among any other people excepting the Gentoo cafts) afforded fome occafion, or at least pretence, for this exertion of violence: the landgrave infifting that the defcendants of this marriage being illegitimate, the fief was become vacant, and likewife, that it reverted, in that cafe, to the house of Heffe; a question which, perhaps, would would have admitted of as tedious a litigation as that of illegitimacy. It happened, however, unluckily for the claim of the landgrave, that the queftion relative to the yalidity of this marriage had formerly, and near the time, been much contefted, and that it had been fully confirmed, and the legitimacy of the iffue accordingly established by the feparate decrees of two of the fuperior tribunals of the empire, which were each competent to the purpose. But though this procedure might not well bear the test of examination with refpect to its morality and juftice, the defign was certainly not ill laid, when tried by the rules of that policy which looks only to advantage. For if no fuperior power had interpofed to fave them by an act of fummary justice, it may be easily feen what the fituation of a poor exiled family would have been, rendered more helpless by a long minority, involved in an endless litigation, with a very powerful, and at leaft, one of the richest princes of the empire; while the very means which fhould have fupported them in the defence of their rights, were in the hands of their enemy, and applied to their fabverfion. For it is to be obferved that the great tribunals of the em pire are o flow in their forms, and dilatory in their proceedings, that a law-fuit is at this time depending, upon a queftion of territorial right, between a great and a fmaller family, which commenced above two hundred years ago; the former having been the whole time in poffefion of the litigated object, which it gained in the first inftance by force. The violence and apparent injuftice of the prefent affair, caufed a very general fenfation of pity for the orphan and his diftreffed family, and of dislike to the oppreffor, throughout Germany. The Aulic council took up the bufinefs with fpirit, and iffued a decree, ftrongly condemning the wrong, and ordaining reftitution to be forthwith made to the injured family. But as the efficacy of their decrees depended upon the fupport they received from the emperor, and every body knew he was too deeply involved in fchemes of foreign ambition, to think it at all convenient to embroil himfelf at home, efpecially with fo powerful a prince as the landgrave, rendered ftill more formidable from his being a principal member of the German confederacy, and united fo clofely as he was with the two kingelectors of Brandenburgh and Hanover, the hope of any near effect to be produced by their interference was weak indeed. If the king of Pruffia had not confulted juftice more than the dictates of intereft and a narrow policy, he not only would have had a difagreeable card to play, but his fanction to the wrong would, in all human probability, the prefent pofture of public affairs in Germany confidered, have rendered it irrevocable, or at leaft have occafioned the affair to be left open for the decifion of a future age, while the poor family were expofed to every degree of ruin and diftrefs. The landgrave was his kinfman, clofe friend and ally; and his alliance, in the prefent fate of things, and according to the political views which directed the conduct of the court of Berlin, appeared to be of great importance; while the protection of a weak family, and the prefervation of a fmall principality, could an[D] 3 fwer |