The detention of civilians, unoffending and defenceless, was a breach of those courtesies which ought to be sacred, as mitigating the horrors of war. The occupation of Hanover was made in violation of the Germanic Constitution. This patrimony of our kings had in former wars been admitted to the benefit of neutrality; a reasonable distinction being taken betwixt the Elector of Hanover, as one of the grand feudatories of the empire, and the same person in his character of King of Great Britain; in which latter capacity only he was at war with France. But Buonaparte was not disposed to recognise these metaphysical distinctions; nor were any of the powers of Germany in a condition to incur his displeasure, by asserting the constitution and immunities of the empire. Austria had paid too deep a price for her former attempts to withstand the power of France, to permit her to extend her opposition beyond a feeble remonstrance; and Prussia had too long pursued a temporizing and truckling line of politics, to allow her to break short with Napoleon by endeavouring to merit the title her monarch once claimed,--of Protector of the North of Germany. [Sidenote: HANOVER SEIZED.] Every thing in Germany being thus favourable to the views of France, Mortier, who had already assembled an army in Holland, and on the frontiers of Germany, moved forward on Hanover. A considerable force was collected for resistance under his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge and General Walmoden. It soon appeared, however, that, left to their own resources, and absolutely unsupported either by England or the forces of the empire, the electorate was incapable of resistance; and that any attempt at an ineffectual defence would only serve to aggravate the distresses of the country, by subjecting the inhabitants to the extremities of war. In compassion, therefore, to the Hanoverians, the Duke of Cambridge was induced to leave the hereditary dominions of his father's house; and General Walmoden had the mortification to find himself obliged to enter into a convention, by which the capital of the electorate, and all its strongholds, were to be delivered up to the French, and the Hanoverian army were to retire behind the Elbe, on condition not to serve against France and her allies till previously exchanged.[38]