GENERAL HISTORY. 



[101 



CHAPTER IX. 



Germany. —Hamburgh. — Hanover, its Erection to a Kingdom. — Prince 

 Regent^t Proclamation. — Hanoverian Diet assembled. — Speech of the 

 Duke of Cambridge. — Free Constitution of Nassau. — Prussia, its Mi- 

 litary Regulations: Alterations in the Ritual of Public Worship. — Con- 

 gress of Vienna.'— Views of Prussia on Saxony. — Declaration of the 

 King of Saxony,— Frontiers of Turkey: Cruel Treatment of the 

 Servians. 



A S no country in Europe had 

 •^^ undergone more changes 

 during the long war, of which it 

 was so often the seat, than Ger- 

 many, so in none was the process 

 of restoration more tardy, or more 

 obstructed with difficulties, arising 

 as well from the actual state in 

 which it was left at the period of 

 the general peace, as from the 

 complicated nature of its political 

 constitution. So much, in fact, 

 was to be done in order to re- 

 duce it to a harmonious and well- 

 balanced system, that the year 

 elapsed without settling some of 

 the most important points relative 

 to the future condition of the Ger- 

 manic states. Some dispositions, 

 however, were definitively made, 

 of which it will be proper to give an 

 account. 



No city in Germany had so much 

 reason to rejoice at the subversion 

 of Buonaparte's power as Ham- 

 burgh, which had suffered the ex- 

 tremes of tyranny and spoliation 

 under the rigorous and corrupt ad- 

 ministration of Davoust. From the 

 richest and most commercial city 

 in that part of Europe, it had been 

 reduced almost to beggary, and had 

 seen many of its principal inhabi- 



tants in the condition of fugitives 

 or exiles, its finest suburbs demo- 

 lished, and its population wasted 

 by want and disease. It must, 

 therefore, have been with sensa- 

 tions of true patriotic delight, that 

 on May 26, the Hamburghers wit- 

 nessed the resumption of the go- 

 vernmentby their nativeconstituted 

 authorities, and their independ- 

 ence restored under the patronage 

 of the allied powers. The Senate, 

 on that occasion, published an ad- 

 dress to their fellow citizens, marked 

 by the spirit of wisdom and mode- 

 ration. Though it was not yet 

 thought proper to leave the city 

 without the protection of foreign 

 troops, confidence was sufficiently 

 renewed for the operation of those 

 causes which are found so efficaci- 

 ous in speedily effacing the wounds 

 inflicted on commercial prosperity. 

 " Every thing (says an account 

 from Hamburgh) here acquires 

 new life, activity, and cheerful- 

 ness. The Elbe is again filled 

 with vessels of every description, 

 and several richly laden ships have 

 already entered our port. The 

 road from Altona to Hamburgh is 

 covered with an almost uninterrupt- 

 ed line of waggons, laden with the 



