142] 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1796. . 
for the French, from the minds of by the way of the Danube, other= 
all the people in Germany, when 
they saw with how little reason 
they had expeéted to be benefited 
by the successes of those licen- 
tious invaders: Nothing less than 
their infamous conduc to the peo- 
ple, who hadlong viewed them with 
benevolence, and had received them 
with cordiality, could have effaced 
the impression which had so univer~ 
sally taken place in their favour. 
The Germans now became con- 
vinced of their error, in expecting 
that a foreign nation would be sin- 
cerely solicitous to rid them of their 
grievances, and would not rather 
make use of the opportunity of ren- 
dering them subservient to their own 
purposes. 
But that consequence of the 
forced retreat’ of the French from 
Germany, which politicians’ es- 
teemed most deserving of considera~ 
tion, was the immediate influence it 
had over the councils of the court 
of Berlin.’ While the French ap- 
peared irresistible, it harboured 
and undertook designs of a nature 
tending at once to revolutionize the 
whole empire, and to exaét the do- 
minion of Prussia equally on the fall 
of Austria and the ruin ot thesmaller 
statesofGermany. The movements 
and successes of the French in Ita] 
and on the Rhine,and the establish- 
ment. on the part of Prussia of a 
great military force in Nuremberg, 
seemed to indicate a plan for sur- 
rounding: the emperor, by a wide 
circle, at the same time that they 
laboured for his destruétion, by in- 
terior attacks. The French armies 
contraéted more and more the 
quarters of the Austrians on the 
Rhine; the position of the Prussians, 
at Nuremberg, precluded the army 
under the archduke from retreating 
wise than through their connivance, 
-which, according to the usual policy 
of the court of Berlin, must be pur- 
chased by some important conces- 
sion. Ina word, according to-hu- 
man views, the abasement, if not 
the ruin, of the house of Austria 
seemed to-be fast approaching ; and 
the liberties of the inferior states 
already to have fallen. It was, 
therefore, with universal satisfaction 
that Germany beheld the Prussian 
monarch’s associates in these iniqui- 
tous designs, disabled from giving 
him assistance or countenance. The 
world indignantly beheld the affeét- 
ed moderation he assumed, by pre- 
tending to relinquish his usurpations 
on the ground, that the inhabitants 
of the distriéts he had seized, would 
not consent to become his subjeéts, 
nor the empire itself*be prevailed 
upon to authorize him to accept of 
their submission. His ambition ap- 
peared altogether of a2 mean and 
contemptible kind. It was evident 
he would have sacrificed his common 
country to strangers, for the sake of 
promoting some paltry interests, 
the compassing of which would never 
have indemnified him from the dan- 
ger he must have incurred by intro- 
ducing so formidable and restless a 
people into Germany as the French. 
‘Their interference in its internal 
affairs would, in all likelihood, have 
been exerted without consulting ‘his 
inclinations and interest, and might, 
much more shortly than he imagined, 
have been extended to his own con- 
cerns, in a manner that would have 
affected him most detrimentally,and 
afforded him ample cause to repent 
of the sordid motives that had in- 
duced him to aétagainst his country. 
France, though disappointed in 
the great projeéts it had formed * 
« the 
