CHAP. VI.] PEACE OF HUBERTSBURG. 439 regard to Clèves, Wesel, and Gelders, but simply requiring their evacuation by the French, who were therefore at liberty to make them over to Maria Theresa. France ceded to England Nova Scotia, Canada, and the country east of the Mississippi, as far as the Iberville. A line drawn through the Mississippi, from its source to its mouth, was henceforth to form the boundary between the possessions of the two nations, except that the town and island of New Orleans were not to be included in this cession. France also ceded the island of Cape Breton, with the isles and coasts of the St. Lawrence, retaining, under certain restrictions, the right of fishing at Newfoundland, and the isles of St. Peter and Miquelon. In the West Indies she ceded Grenada and the Grenadines, and three of the so-called neuter islands, namely, Dominica, St. Vincent, and Tobago, retaining the fourth, St. Lucie. Also in Africa, the river Senegal, recovering Goree; in the East Indies, the French settlements on the coast of Coromandel made since 1749, retaining previous ones. She also restored to Great Britain Natal and Tabanouly, in Sumatra, and engaged to keep no troops in Bengal. In Europe, besides relinquishing her conquests in Germany, she restored Minorca, and engaged to place Dunkirk in the state required by former treaties. Great Britain, on her side, restored Belle Isle, and in the West Indies, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Marie Galante, and La Desirade. Spain ceded to Great Britain Florida and all districts east of the Mississippi, recovering the Havannah and all other British conquests. British subjects were to enjoy the privilege of cutting logwood in the Bay of Honduras. Spanish and French troops were to be withdrawn from all Portuguese territories; and with regard to the Portuguese colonies, matters were to be placed in the same state as before the war. This clause involved the restoration of San Sacramento, which the Spaniards had seized. By way of compensation for the loss of Florida, France, by a private agreement, made over to Spain New Orleans and what remained to her of Louisiana. The PEACE OF HUBERTSBURG, between Austria, Prussia, and Saxony, was signed February 15th 1763.26 Maria Theresa renounced all pretensions she might have to any of the dominions of the King of Prussia, and especially those which had been ceded to him by the Treaties of Breslau and Berlin; and she agreed to restore to Prussia the town and county of Glatz, and the fortresses 26 Martens, t. i. pp. 61 and 71; Wenck, t. iii. pp. 368 and 380. 440 END OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. [BOOK VI. of Wesel and Gelders. 27 The Empire was included in the peace, but the Emperor was not even named. It would have been impossible for Frederick, had such been his intention, to invent a more cutting reply to the Emperor's threat of putting him under ban. It was not, however, the King of Prussia's object to humble the head of the Empire, but merely to avoid the unnecessary complications and delays which the Emperor's participation would have occasioned. The treaty was accompanied with two secret articles, by the first of which Frederick promised to give his vote for the Archduke Joseph at the next election of a King of the Romans.28 The other article regarded the marriage of one of the younger Archdukes with a Princess of Modena, with the expectation of succeeding to that duchy, which Frederick undertook to forward. In the peace with the Elector of Saxony, Frederick engaged speedily to evacuate that Electorate and to restore the archives, &c.; but he would give no indemnification for losses suffered. The Treaty of Dresden, of 1745, was renewed. Thus, after seven years of carnage, during which, according to a calculation of Frederick's, 886,000 men had perished, everything was replaced, in Europe, precisely in the same state as it had been in before the commencement of the war. The political results were, however, considerable. England, instead of France, began to be regarded as the leading Power, and the predominance of the five great States was henceforth established by the success of Prussia. This last result was wholly due to the genius and enterprise of Frederick II., who in the conduct of the war displayed qualities which procured for him from his admirers the appellation of the Great. Everything in this great struggle depended on his own personal exertions; and it is impossible to overrate the quickness, and in general the sureness of his conceptions, the happy audacity of his enterprises, his courage and endurance under reverses, and the fertility of his resources in extricating himself from them. It will, however, appear no derogation to him to allow that his genius must in all probability have at last succumbed to superior force but for some fortunate circumstances. These were, the wretched organisation of the French armies, the want of cordial cooperation on the part of the Russians, the desire of the Austrians 27 These last, as we have seen, were held by France, between which country and Prussia no particular peace was concluded. Frederick had even made preparations to recover his places on the Lower Rhine; but they were restored to him by a Convention between the French general, Langeron, and the Prussian Von Bauer, in March 1763. Menzel, B. v. 28 Joseph was accordingly elected and crowned at Frankfort, in the spring of 1764. Goethe, then a youth of fifteen, was present at the ceremony, and has given an account of it in his autobiography (Wahrheit und Dichtung, Buch v.). CHAP. VI.] RESULTS. 441 in the last years of the war to spare their troops, and finally the opportune death of the Empress Elizabeth. The part played in the war by the Empress-Queen, though unfortunate in the result, can hardly be regarded with disapprobation, as her efforts were directed to recover what she regarded as legitimately her own. But the conduct of France, Sweden, Saxony, and Spain, and especially of the first-named country, must be condemned as a great political blunder. With regard to England, the expediency of plunging into a continental war for the sake of the Hanoverian Electorate may well admit of question. It should, however, be remembered that the struggle also concerned the balance of European power; that the honour and dignity of the King were in some degree at stake; and it must at least be admitted that, after once engaging in the contest, England, under the counsels of Bute, acted no very honourable part in abandoning her ally the King of Prussia. The Peace was highly unpopular in England. It was thought that more advantageous terms should have been insisted on, and Bute resigned soon after its conclusion. 442 CHARACTER OF PETER III. [Book VI. CHAPTER VII. DURING the period which elapsed between the Peace of Paris and the outbreak of the first French revolution, the affairs of Eastern and Western Europe offer but few points of contact and connection. The alliance between France and Austria, and the Bourbon family compact, helped to maintain peace upon the continent, and thus the only war among the western nations was a maritime one between France, Spain, and England. The affairs of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, were assuming a high degree of importance, through the wars and intrigues of Russia, now rapidly assuming the dimensions of a colossal Power. We shall, therefore, pursue the affairs of these groups of nations separately in the following chapters. We have already briefly alluded to the revolution which placed Catherine II. upon the throne of Russia. Peter III. owed his downfall to two causes; he had lost the affections both of his subjects and of his wife. Peter was on the whole a good-natured, well-meaning man, but wholly unfit to govern either a nation or a household. He lost his throne and his life chiefly through his want of tact and knowledge of the world. The slave of passion and caprice, the sport of every impulse to a degree that caused the soundness of his intellect to be suspected, he took no pains to conceal his feelings. He openly displayed his contempt for the manners of the Russians and the creed of their Church; and as he had not that strength of character which had enabled Peter the Great to triumph over the prejudices of his subjects, he became at once both hated and despised. Yet it was no difficult task to govern the Russians. His predecessor Elizabeth had sat securely on her throne, though she utterly neglected all business, and abandoned herself, to the most profligate extravagance and the vilest sensuality. Peter, on the contrary, began his reign with some measures really good in themselves, but unwelcome because they had not the true Russian stamp. Although Elizabeth's clemency has been praised, she had sent 80,000 persons to languish OF CATHERINE II. 443 CHAF. VII.] in Siberia. Most of these, with the exception of common criminals, were recalled by Peter, and among them Biron, the former Duke of Courland, Marshal Münnich, and L'Estocq. He forbade the use of torture and abolished the Secret Chancery, a terrible inquisition of police. He enlarged the privileges of the nobles, permitted them to travel, or even to enter foreign service without forfeiting their national rights; and he did away with all monopolies. But it was the reforms which he attempted in the army and the Church that proved most dangerous to himself. He dismissed Elizabeth's costly body-guard, converted his own Holstein Cuirassiers into a regiment of horseguards, and ordered that all the rest of the army should be clothed and disciplined after the Prussian fashion. Still more hazardous were his innovations in the Church. A Lutheran himself, he abolished at his court the observance of the Greek fasts, and openly neglected most of the established usages of that religion. He endeavoured to suppress the use of images, candles, and other external rites, and to reform the long, patriarchal beards, and distinctive habits of the clergy. These attacks afforded to that order a handle to excite the populace against him; but Peter's real offence had been his beneficial attempt to reduce their enormous incomes by confiscating the possessions of the convents. As he thus estranged from him the affections of his people, so he had long before alienated those of his wife. The union had never been a happy one. Catherine had lived on ill terms with her husband ever since their marriage, in spite of the attempts of Frederick II. to reconcile them. They had each their paramours. Peter's favourite mistress was Elizabeth Woronzoff, a woman of vulgar, unprepossessing appearance, and ordinary mind. On the anniversary of his birthday February 21st 1762, he had insulted his wife by compelling her to decorate this creature with the Order of Catherine. The Empress, on the other hand, was no model of domestic virtue. Her son, Paul Petrowitsch, the heir of the Russian throne, was, as we have said, undoubtedly the offspring of Soltikoff. Ever since 1755 she had lived apart from her husband, and had indulged herself in criminal amours. Even during the lifetime of the Empress Elizabeth she had conspired against her husband with the chancellor, Bestuscheff; and after Peter's accession it seemed unavoidable that one should fall. As he had threatened to dismiss her, Catherine resolved to anticipate him, and her character enabled her to accomplish his ruin. These wretches were compelled to change their names before their departure into exile, and swear never to resume them. Hermann, Gesch. Russlands, B. v. S. 178. |