TWO:We have now reached the summer of 1729. George II. was a weak-minded, though a proud, conceited man, who, as King of England, assumed airs of superiority which greatly annoyed his irascible and petulant brother-in-law, Frederick William. Flushed with his new dignity, he visited his hereditary domain of Hanover. The journey led him through a portion of the Prussian territory. Courtesy required that George II. should announce that intention to the Prussian king. Courtesy also required that, as the British monarch passed over Prussian soil, Frederick William should furnish him with free post-horses. I will furnish the post-horses, said Frederick William, if the king apprise me of his intention. If he do not, I shall do nothing about it. George did not write. In affected unconsciousness that there was any such person in the world as the Prussian king, he crossed the Prussian territory, paid for his own post-horses, and did not even condescend to give Frederick William any notice of his arrival in Hanover. The King of Prussia, who could not but be conscious of the vast inferiority of Prussia to England, stung to the quick by this contemptuous treatment, growled ferociously in the Tobacco Parliament.It is not strange that Frederick, being destitute of religious principle, should have ever contemplated suicide as his last resort. On the 2d of November the king came in sight of the encampment of General Daun at Torgau, on the Elbe, some score of leagues north of Dresden. The king was at the head of forty-four thousand troops. Marshal Daun had eighty thousand, strongly intrenched upon heights west of the city, in the midst of a labyrinth of ponds, hills, ravines, and forests. We shall not attempt to enter into a detail of the battle. The following plan of the battle will give the military reader an idea of the disposal of the forces.
