654 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1805. 



mercial relations of his kingdom of 

 Italy with the hereditary states, 

 were subject to obstructions, and 

 tha*^ his subjects of France and Italy 

 found in Austria a very different re- 

 ception, from that which a state of 

 peace gave them a right to expect. 

 — In the distribution of the indem- 

 nities in Germany, Austria had been 

 treated with a partiality that ought 

 to rrown all her wishes, and surpass 

 even her expectations. Yet her 

 conduct shewed, that she was far 

 from being satisfied. She alternately 

 employed arts and menaces to pro- 

 cure from the petty princes the ces- 

 sion of such possessions as suited her. 

 'J'hus it was that she acquired Lin- 

 dau on the lake of Constance, and 

 the isle of Menau in the same lake, 

 which placed in her hands one of the 

 keys of Switzerland. She obtained 

 the cession of Altkousen from the 

 Teutonic order, which made her mis- 

 tress of an important post, the port 

 of Rhinau. She had enlarged her 

 territory by a number of other ac- 

 quisitions, and was meditating fresh 

 ones. As a means of aggrandize- 

 ment, she was not afraid to employ 

 evident usurpations, which she 

 sought to conceal under legal forms. 

 — Thus it was, that, under colour of 

 « right paramount, (a right which 

 she had renounced by a treaty) and 

 the exercise of which was incompa- 

 tible with the execution of the recess 

 of the Germanic empire, she appro- 

 priated t herself some possessions, 

 which she affected to consider in a 

 state of disherison and without legal 

 proprietors, though the recess had 

 formally disposed of them towards 

 the division of the indemnities. By 

 these means she disappointed many 

 princes of those possessions which 

 it had been thought just to assign 

 them, under pretence of this same 



right paramount, which so farasre- 

 garded the Swiss, she called the right 

 (dHncameration), she carried off 

 considerable sums from Switzerland. 

 She sequestered the fiefs of a neigh- 

 bouring prince in Bohemia, under 

 pretence of compensations due to 

 the elector of Saltzburg, of which, 

 contrary to every right, she claimed 

 to be sole arbitress. She persisted, 

 with menaces, to keep recruiting 

 parties in the Bavarian provinces, 

 in Franconia and Suabia, and inter- 

 rupted, by every means in her pow- 

 er, the conscription for the electoral 

 army there, abusing the prerogatives 

 formerly grafted to the head of the 

 German empire for the common be- 

 nefit of the states composing it, and 

 now fallen into disuse. She revived 

 them in order to interrupt the exer- 

 cise of their sovereignty by the 

 neighbouring princes, in those pos- 

 sessions which fell to their lot in the 

 division, and to deprive them of the 

 increase of influence in the diets, 

 which ought to result from these 

 possessions. — The recess of the em- 

 pire, a consequence and fulfilment 

 of the treaty of Luneville, had for 

 its object, exclusive of the division 

 of the indemnities, to establish, by 

 means of this distribution itself, in 

 the south of Germany, an equilibri- 

 um, which might insure its indepen- 

 dence, and to prevent those eventual 

 causes of misunderstanding and war, 

 which an immediate contact between 

 the territories of France and Austria 

 might frequently give rise to. Such 

 Mas the view of the mediators and 

 of the German empire ; such was 

 the view of justice, of reason, and 

 of a humane policy, and conform- 

 able to the true interests of Austria 

 herself. — Thus Austria reversed what 

 the recess had so wisely established, 

 when, by her acquisitions in Suabia, 



she 



