198 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1758/
' fiege of Harbourg, without any
- previous declaration of war ; and
- having made all thefe prepara-
- tions, and when they thought
' the enemy fufficiently weakened ' and deceived, to fight them with ' advantagCjthey declared that hof- ' tilities were to be commenced,
- and that they conTidered the con-
- vention as broken, while they
- were marching againft them, and
- attacking their ports.'
. The more the author of the Pa- j-allel exhauib his rhetoric in this fort of declamation, fo much the ]efs regard doth he pay to truth. It is certain and incontertible, that the Hanoverians conformed on their part, in every refpetl:, to the convention, as it was figned. It was neither the king's generals, nor Marfhal Richelieu, who caufed it to be broker, by their declarations ; but the court of Verfailles, which would no: look upon the conven- tion as obligatory, unlefs it ihouid be extended to the difarming of the auxiliary troops, and unlefs the king would leave his country to the difcretion of his enemies, till a general peace. The king, there- fore, had the fame right to look upon this affair as depending upon the refolution of the refpeflive courts, and to take his meafures accordingly. He made ufe of that right. It was natural not to com- mit hoftilities as long as Count Ly- nar's negotiation lafted ; but that minifter, as the court of Verfailles well knows, could never bring about negotiations of peace, which was, however, the true intention of the fufpenfion of arms. Could it be thought llrange, if the king, by virtue of the right which the in- flexible feverity of his enemies gave him, determined himfelf, according . to the events that happened, and
the viftory gained over the French army at Rofbach ? This event, however, did not influence his ma- jefty's refolutions. Ifany one will but calculate the date of thefe events, he will be convinced of the contrary. The battle of Rofbach happened on the 5th of Novem- ber, and the motions of the Hano- verian army were renewed on the 26th of the fame month. Theking could not have been informed at London, in fo fliort a time, of that fuccefs, to give orders to his mi- nifter to folicit the confenr of his Pruffian majefty, with regard to Prince Ferdinand, to whom the king offered the command of the army, fo as to receive the King of Prulfia's anfwer, to hear of the prince's arrival, and caufe hcilili- ties to b" renewed. Iftheiulesof good faith had not been fcrupu- loufly obferved, the French army might have been reduced to a more dangerous fituation than it really was. In what a critical fituation would it have fqund itfelf, if the king's troops, as they were fully authorized to do, had marched, ot\ the firil difcovery of the defign to difarm the a'-'.xiliary troops, and, at the fame time that the battle of Rofbach happened, and when Mar- fhal Richelieu was at Halberftadt with his army, had attacked him in the rear? The operations of the army did not begin till after the King of PrufTia was gone into Silefia, and when the French were not only upon their guard, but the firft; columns of their army had even advanced beyond Lunen- bourg, with defign to obtain, by open force, the unjufl conditions propofed by the court of Verfailles. As to the pretended preparations for the fiege of Harbourg, we know nothing a; all of them. We do
not
