the Empress.--Accession of Joseph II.--His Character.

The spring of 1760 found all parties eager for the renewal of the
strife, but none more so than Maria Theresa. The King of Prussia was,
however, in a deplorable condition. The veteran army, in which he had
taken so much pride, was now annihilated. With despotic power he had
assembled a new army; but it was composed of peasants, raw recruits, but
poorly prepared to encounter the horrors of war. The allies were
marching against him with two hundred and fifty thousand men. Frederic,
with his utmost efforts, could muster but seventy-five thousand, who, to
use his own language, "were half peasants, half deserters from the
enemy, soldiers no longer fit for service, but only for show."

Month after month passed away, during which the whole of Prussia
presented the aspect of one wide field of battle. Frederic fought with
the energies of desperation. Villages were everywhere blazing, squadrons
charging, and the thunders of an incessant cannonade deafened the ear by
night and by day. On the whole the campaign terminated in favor of
Frederic; the allies being thwarted in all their endeavors to crush him.
In one battle Maria Theresa lost twenty thousand men.

During the ensuing winter all the continental powers were again
preparing for the resumption of hostilities in the spring, when the
British people, weary of the enormous expenditures of the war, began to
be clamorous for peace. The French treasury was also utterly exhausted.
France made overtures to England for a cessation of hostilities; and
these two powers, with peaceful overtures, addressed Maria Theresa. The
queen, though fully resolved to prosecute the war until she should
attain her object, thought it not prudent to reject outright such
proposals, but consented to the assembling of a congress at Augsburg.
Hostilities were not suspended during the meeting of the congress, and
the Austrian queen was sanguine in the hope of being speedily able to
crush her Prussian rival. Every general in the field had experienced
such terrible disasters, and the fortune of war seemed so fickle, now
lighting upon one banner and now upon another, that all parties were
wary, practicing the extreme of caution, and disposed rather to act upon
the defensive. Though not a single pitched battle was fought, the
allies, outnumbering the Prussians, three to one, continually gained
fortresses, intrenchments and positions, until the spirit ev