By these conquests Jourdan was now stationed in the heart of Ger many, whence he threatened to invade, at his pleasure, the dominions of all the neighbouring princes. Sax⚫ny and Bohemia lay open to him, and fuch was the consternation universally occafioned by these victorios irruptions of the French into the empire, that its numerous princialities and states seemed to have led all courage, and to be preared for any conditions the victor should think it proper to impose upon them.

General Moreau, on the other hand, immediately after his victory at Ettlingen, took poffeffion of Friburgh, the capital of the Brisgaw, and of Stutgard, the capital of the duchy of Wirtemburg; the archduke endeavoured to impede his operations; but was speedily conftrained to retire across the Necker, where, taking advantageous pofitions, he refolutely strove again to resist him: but his efforts were inefectual, and he was compelled to confult his fafety, by paffing to the other fide of the Danube, while Moreau made himself master of the rich and extenfive circle of Swabia.

The respective dominions of the duke of Wirtemburg, and the margrave of Baden, being now in poffeffion of the French, those princes were compelled to make application to the directory, for a ceflation of hoftilities against them. They eafily obtained their request, and their dominions were restored to them, on condition of entirely detaching themselves from the enemies to the republic, and affording them no assistance of any kind. The poffeffions of the duke, on the left of the Rhine, were ceded to France.

The facility and moderation dif

played by the directory, on this oc cafion, was, in the unanimous opinion of politicians, the foundest policy they could pursue in their prefent circumstances. As it could not be the design of the French government, to retain any of the acquisitions made in Germany, the wisest measures they could embrace, were to restore them to their ownners, on the fimple condition of ceasing to act against the French. This alone would gradually establish an amicable correspondence with those fovereigns and states in Germany, whose friendship it behoved them to cultivate, and whom it was their business to detach from the interests of the house of Austria, by holding out the aid of the republic against its too extensfive power and influence in all that related to the management and concerns of the Germanic body. This period seemed appropriated, as it were, to the depression of this ambitious power. The policy of the French was indefatigably exercised in confirming the antipathy of its former enemies, and in raising up as many new ones as circumstances would enable them. Pruffia, the hereditary rival of Austria, was encouraged to form as many new pretenfions, and to revive as many old and obfolete claims, as it had strength to enforce.

The ambition of the house of Brandenburgh had conftantly been upon the increase, fince its exaltation to the regal title, in the commencement of the present century. It had omitted no opportunity of adding to its territories, and the circumstances of Europe had, in general, been favourable to its pursuits.

The jealousy of the house of Austria did not view this aggrandisement

disement of an inveterate rival, without paying a conftant, though fruitless attention to the means of preventing it. Hence the two ruinous wars, during the reign of Frederick, styled the great, that deprived Auftria of fuch extenfive territories. The court of Vienna had ample cause to rue its endeavours to reduce a power so strongly supported by others, and especially by the house of Bourbon, the sworn foe, during a long period, to the posseffors of the Imperial crown, whose despotic aims, at the liberties of Germany, had more than once been fruftrated by its interpofition.

Though the French monarchy was no more, its politics still fubfifted respecting the houses of Auftria and Brandenburgh. Of course, the court of Berlin, conscious of the utility to be derived from so powerful an ally, foon retracted its shortlived enmity to France, when it found that, whether a kingdom or a commonwealth, its aid might safely be relied upon in any future contest with the court of Vienna.

To these motives may be ascribed the passive acquiefcence of the Pruffian councils, in the enterprizes of the French in Germany. As Prussia expected, and was promised a fare in the spoils of Austria, it connived at all the proceedings of these dangerous invaders, fecure of a like connivance on their part.

The neceffity of coinciding with many of the views of this ambitious court, induced the directory to give an indirect assent to the ufurpations it had refolved on. While the French armies were employed in the seizure of so many towns and territories, the Prussian ministry revived claims upon the Imperial city of Nuremberg, that had lain

dormant upwards of two hundred years. They were of a most serious nature, and directed to no less than the fovereignty of that large and flourishing city; the fuburbs of which the king of Pruffia challenged as his property, and took forcible poffeffion of them, in contempt of the reclamation of the fenate and regency.

So manifest a violation of the native and long acknowledged right of no inconfiderable state in Germany, countenanced in so glaring and unquestionable a manner by the French generals, was viewed, by the difcerning part of the Germans, as the remuneration-tacitly allowed to Pruffia by France, for affenting to its invasion of the empire, and showed, at the fame time, how readily the rulers of the republic would facrifice the liberties and independence of others to their own ambitious pursuits.

The diffatisfaction universally produced, by this conduct of the French, did them essential disservice throughout all Germany, and indeed through all Europe. It now became certain, by the evidence of facts, that their pretences, to assume the protection of states and nations against tyranny, were a mere impofition upon the credulity of mankind. The connection of Pruffia with the republic, exposed it to the fufpicion of abetting the project of diffolving all the political ties that held together the Germanic body, and under the protection of which the immunities and liberties of the lesser princes and states were respected by the more powerful.

A furmise had prevailed for many years, that the house of Brandenburgh had conceived the idea of placing itself at the head of the [K2] empire, empire, supported by the protestant interest, which stood on a parity of strength and importance with that of the Roman catholic; it also counted among its friends and wellwishers, those powers abroad, with which Auftria was liable to be at variance. But the support of the most potent of these powers had vanished from its ideas, fince the matrimonial alliance that took place between the houses of Bourbon and Austria, in the perfon of the late unhappy queen of France. It had revived however on the treaty that fevered Pruffia from the coalition, and it was secretly held out, by France, as the most efficacious temptation to a court, the afpiring views of which required no less motives at this period to fecure its alliance.

Could the conftitution of Germany have undergone such a change, as to place the Imperial diadem on the head of a proteftant prince, and could the house of Brandenburgh have fecured its fucceffion to this dignity, it was generally imagined that Pruffia would have interested itself in the defence of the empire; but the little expectation it entertained, of being able to compass such a point, rendered it, in the general opinion, indifferent to the preservation of the Germanic conftitution. Provided the difmemberment of this great body should be accompanied with these advantages, which the politics of Prussia kept in view, it was the public perfuafion that no opposition would arife from the court of Berlin, to an alteration, from which it would derive fuch material benefit. The smaller states first, and then the greater in lower Germany, seemed likely to be swallowed up

peace-meal in a rifing Pruffian empire: if this empire itself should not be divided, by that partitioning policy, which has fupplanted the law of nations, among the Russians, Swedes, and Austrians.

A conviction of the rapacious views of Prussia had greatly alienated the attachment of the Germans to that power. The willingness of the French, to permit the encroachments it had in contemplation, fubjected them no less to a diminution of that partiality with which they had hitherto been favoured by the people of Germany. These had hoped, that the dread of this victorious nation would have fo far operated in favour of the common classes every where, as to have induced the divers princes, engaged in the coalition, to have abated of the rigorous exactions from their respective subjects, and procured to these a milder treatment than if their arms had been fuccefsful. But when they began to feel the weight of the contributions demanded by the French in the countries of which they had taken poffeffion, and found that the authority they exercised was no less grievous and severe, than that of their former rulers, their good wishes to the French diminished, and they began to mistrust those promises of equity and moderation, to those who fubmitted to them, which had induced such numbers to give them a friendly reception, and to welcome them as their deliverers from oppreffion.

The mass of the people in the numerous districts, where contributions were required by the French, had expected that no more would have been exacted from these than their just proportion; but, contrary contrary to their hopes, and in contradiction to those principles of equality on, which the French laid so much stress, these, with a degree of carelesiness and improvidence, that belied the ideas, which had been so universally formed of their fagacity, left the repartition of the sums to be raised, to the management of those very persons who had been objects of public discontent and complaint, for the injustice and partiality of which they had been the instruments, under their respective governments. These being, for the fake of expedition, entrusted with those levies, made no alteration in the manner, and adhered to established precedents. Thus the privileged classes still enjoyed their former exemptions, and the inferior part of the community was loaded, as antecedently, with almost the whole burden of the taxes, imposed for the raifing of the contributions. This was the most injudicious of all the measures adopted by the French in the management of their new acquifitions, and it operated more fatally to their interest than was perceptible to the generality. It excited the most violent resentment in the multitude, which had been taught to believe, that whereever the French became masters, all oppressions would be at an end, and no man would be treated worse than his neighbour. To be deceived in so barbarous and oppreffive a manner: to behold their tyrannical rulers authorized to lord it over them as usual, and to find that the prefence of the French, from which so much had been expected, produced no mitigation of their flavery. To be rendered, in short, no less

1

miferable by the successes of the French, than they could have been, had their boasted republic been destroyed, and the completest despotism established on its ruins, filled them with the keenest indignation at a people whom they now branded as deceivers and impostors, and wholly unworthy of the good fortune that had attended them. Had the French republic been true to the principles professed in their declarations and manifestoes to all nations, they would have been wholly irrefistible. All thrones raised on despotic power would have fallen; and, as was faid of Alexander * the Great, the earth would have stood filent before them. It is to their weakness and vices, the inconfistency of their conduct in Italy, Germany, and wherever they went, with their professions, the prevalence of their passions over their principles, that most of the European potentates owe their crowns at the present moment.

One of the causes of the readiness with which the French allowed the petty fovereigns of Germany, to collect in their own manner the contributions imposed upon them, was, to conciliate their good will, and convince them that no interference was, aimed at in their domestic affairs, by leaving to them the arrangement, of which their sovereignty and independence remained unviolated. Had the French pursued another system, and proclaimed an entire emancipation of their subjects from all farther allegiance to their native princes, it was far from clear that fuch a meafure would have produced any other confequence than throwing the countries,

[K3]

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4

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144

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Swabia from:z,