hort broadsiding, made prizes
of them. And now, on this Braddock Disaster, orders went, "To seize and
detain all French Ships whatsoever, till satisfaction were had." And,
before the end of this Year, about "800 French ships (value, say,
700,000 pounds)" were seized accordingly, where seizable on their watery
ways. Which the French ("our own conduct in America being so undeniably
proper") characterized as utter piracy and robbery;--and getting no
redress upon it, by demand in that style, had to take it as no better
than meaning Open War Declared. [Paris, December 21st, 1755, Minister
Rouille's Remonstrance, with menace "UNLESS--:" London, January 13th,
1756, Secretary Fox's reply, "WELL THEN, NO!" Due official "Declaration
of War" followed: on the English part, "17th May, 1756;" "9th June," on
the French part.]

Chapter XV.--ANTI-PRUSSIAN WAR-SYMPTOMS: FRIEDRICH VISIBLE FOR A MOMENT.

The Burning of AKAKIA, and those foolish Maupertuis-Voltaire Duellings
(by syringe and pistol) had by no means been Friedrich's one concern,
at the time Voltaire went off. Precisely in those same months, Carnival
1752-1753, King Friedrich had, in a profoundly private manner, come upon
certain extensive Anti-Prussian Symptoms, Austrian, Russian, Saxon, of
a most dangerous, abstruse, but at length indubitable sort; and is, ever
since, prosecuting his investigation of them, as a thing of life and
death to him! Symptoms that there may well be a THIRD Silesian War
ripening forward, inevitable, and of weightier and fiercer quality than
ever. So the Symptoms indicate to Friedrich, with a fatally increasing
clearness. And, of late, he has to reflect withal: "If these
French-English troubles bring War, our Symptoms will be ripe!" As, in
fact, they proved to be.

King Friedrich's investigations and decisions on this matter will be
touched upon, farther on: but readers can take, in the mean time, the
following small Documentary Piece as Note of Preparation. The facts
shadowed forth are of these Years now current (1752-1755), though this
judicial Deposition to the Facts is of ulterior date (1757).

In the course of 1756, as will well appear farther on, it became
manifest to the Saxon Court and to all the world that somebody had been
playing traitor in the Dresden Archives. Somebody, especially in
the Foreign Department; copying furtively, and imparting to Prussia,
Despatches of the most secret, thrice-secret and thrice-dangerous
nature, whic