But, from the beginning, the struggle was unequal between Austria and Prussia. Nothing but a miracle could make a country then but of five millions vanquish a country of thirty; and the prodigious rapidity with which the Austrian armies were recruited after the severest losses, made perpetual battles actually necessary to keep them at bay. The Prussians had blockaded Prague. An Austrian force of forty-two thousand, or upwards, was advancing to raise the blockade; and Frederick, with his usual promptitude, rushed to meet it on its march, with thirty-two thousand. The armies met at Kaurzim, (better known as Kolin.) The battle began at noon, and was carried into night. The Prussians attacked: the Austrian positions were too strong for even the impetuosity and the perseverance of their brave assailants. The Prussians, after driving them from two heights, were ascending the _third_, when, from some mistake, their flank was exposed. The Austrian cavalry, then the finest on the Continent, took instant advantage of the misfortune, charged, and threw the whole movement into confusion. The battle was lost; and though the king retained the honour of the day by resting that night on the field, the result was unequivocal, in a retrograde march next day, and the raising of the blockade of Prague. This battle diminished his army by thirteen thousand men! The king exposed himself with almost desperation. At last his staff remonstrated with him on his gallant obstinacy, and one of his officers even exclaimed, "Does your Majesty mean to storm those batteries alone?" Frederick was now in the deepest distress. The Austrian hussars had advanced to the gates of Berlin, and even levied a contribution on the city. The scandalous convention by which the Hanoverian army laid down its arms, let loose its French assailants; and Prussia was about to be crushed by a weight of force then unexampled in European hostilities. On this occasion the envoy speaks in the spirit of a man who saw no hope for the king, but to save himself by a negotiation in which he must concede everything, or take his chance of an honourable death in the field. But he strikingly reminds the British Cabinet of the probable consequences of disaster to Prussia. "If the King of Prussia should be ruined, or obliged, from necessity, to throw himself into the arms of France, (which he has no inclination to do,) my duty obliges me to put your lordship in mind what the situation of England will be next year, without a single friend on the Continent to resist the whole undiverted power of France, instigated by the malice of the house of Austria, against which too early and too vigorous preparations cannot be made, and I most heartily wish they may be effectual.