proved next day by the king’ (see also Walpole, George II, ii. 131, and Addit. MS. 32870, ff. 21, 61, 72). Eight years before, when the Duke of Bedford thought of sending out highlanders as colonists to Nova Scotia, Cumberland had promised his support to the scheme, ‘as it is much to be wished that these people may be disposed of in such a manner as to be of service to the government instead of a detriment to it’ (Bedford Correspondence, i. 564).
On other points the duke and Pitt were opposed. Hanover was threatened with invasion owing to its connection with England, and the king wished the duke to command the army of observation formed to cover it. Pitt was anti-Hanoverian, and from his connection with Leicester House he was indisposed to swell the duke's army. No British troops and not much money could be obtained for the defence of Hanover. The king disliked Pitt and Temple, and was determined to get rid of them, and the duke unwisely persuaded his father to take this step before he himself left England. He is even said to have made it a condition of his acceptance of a command to which he was personally disinclined (Walpole, George II, ii. 195).
On 9 April 1757 the duke set out for Germany, and joined his army at Bielefeld. It numbered about forty thousand men—mainly Hanoverians, Hessians, and Brunswickers—and held the line of the Lippe hills, west of the Weser. Frederick the Great, now England's ally, had strongly urged that the army should advance towards the Rhine to support his fortress of Wesel; but the Hanoverian ministers, by whose advice the duke was to be guided, insisted that it should confine itself to the defence of the electorate. The Prussian garrison of Wesel, therefore, evacuated that place, and joined the Hanoverian army for a time; but in the middle of July it was called away to Magdeburg.
In the beginning of June the French army under Marshal d'Estrées, having crossed the Rhine into Westphalia, advanced from Münster upon Bielefeld. It was double the strength of the duke's army, and the latter retired across the Weser. The French occupied Hesse, passed the Weser higher up, and moved northward upon Hanover. There was an action between the outposts of the two armies at Ladferde on 24 July, after which the duke drew back to a position behind the village of Hastenbeck. His right was covered by the guns of Hameln, his left rested upon some wooded heights, and he had a swamp in his front. Here he was attacked and defeated on the 26th. Advancing through the woods the French turned his left, captured his principal battery, and forced him to retreat. But meanwhile three Hanoverian battalions, which had been sent round the woods to guard the left, struck unexpectedly upon the right flank of the French columns, and caused so much confusion that at one time Estrées also gave orders for retreat. Hence there was no pursuit, and the duke's army retired in good order. He had lost only twelve hundred men, but he made no further attempt to check the French progress. He was himself in favour of joining the Prussians, but in obedience to the king's instructions he retreated slowly northward upon Stade, where the Hanoverian archives and treasury had been placed (Addit. MS. 32874, fol. 381, and Cumberland Papers). It was hoped that the French would not follow him, but would pass on into Brandenburg.
When the news of the battle reached England, the king, who had spent all his own savings upon this army, told Newcastle that ‘he had stood it as long as he could, and he must get out of it as well as he could;’ he could do nothing more for the king of Prussia, but would let him know that he was obliged to make his own peace separately, as elector. He wrote to the duke to the same effect on 11 Aug., and sent him full powers to treat with the French commander, binding himself, as elector, to ratify and observe any convention the duke should sign. On the 16th he added that the duke should not agree to the surrender of the troops without letting him know, and that he wished the negotiations to be prolonged till it was ascertained how the idea of a separate peace was regarded at Vienna.
The British ministers at first agreed that they ‘could give no advice about the intended neutrality,’ since they were not prepared to offer effectual aid to Hanover. Pitt, who had returned to office with Newcastle at the end of June, would not hear of sending British troops thither (Grenville Papers, ii. 206). Such British troops as were available were to be sent, at his instance, on the fruitless expedition to Rochefort. Frederick had been beaten at Kollin on 18 June, and there were rumours that he was treating secretly with France. But he denounced these rumours as calumnies, protested against the intended desertion of him, and marched westward against the French. The British ministers changed their tone, and began to urge upon the king that his separate treaty was both impracticable and dishonourable. Up to 10 Sept. the king maintained that he knew what he was about, and often repeated
