French Invasion of Minorca--Character of the Duc de Richelieu, and Blakeney--Incapacity of the Duke of Newcastle--French Reports from Minorca--Public Indignation against Admiral Byng--His Despatch--Remarks on the Character of Government--The Empress-Queen joins with France--Law-suit respecting the public right of way through Richmond New Park--The Prince of Wales--The Princess Dowager and Lord Bute--Death of Chief Justice Rider--Loss of Minorca--Byng arrested--Political Squibs--Popular Movements on the loss of Minorca--Revolution in Sweden--Causes of the War in Germany--German Ministers--The Courts of Dresden and Vienna--Character of the Czarina--League of Russia, Austria, and Saxony against the King of Prussia--He is apprized of it--Endeavours to secure Peace--He invades Saxony, and captures Dresden. During these agitations of the Court, which were little known, and less talked of, the attention of the public was directed to Minorca. Sixteen thousand French had landed there without opposition: no part of the island, indeed, was capable of defence, but Fort St. Philip. The inhabitants received the invaders even with alacrity, though their privileges had been preserved under the English Government, and though they enjoyed all the folly of their religion without the tyranny of it. The Jews and Greeks established there behaved with more gratitude: of the natives, sixteen only adhered to the English. The magistrates hurried to take new oaths, and to welcome the singular personage sent to be a conqueror. This was the Duc de Richelieu; a man, who had early surprised the fashionable world by his adventures, had imposed on it by his affectations, had dictated to it by his wit and insolent agreeableness, had often tried to govern it by his intrigues, and who would be the hero of the age, if histories were novels, or women wrote history. His first campaign was hiding himself at fourteen under the Duchess of Burgundy’s bed, from whence he was led to the Bastille, and whither he had returned four several times. A genius so enterprising could not fail to captivate the ladies: the Duchess of Modena, the Regent’s daughter, would fain have preferred him to the _triste_ glory of reigning over an acre of territory with a dismal Italian husband. Richelieu was soon after sent to, and as soon recalled from, Vienna, for carrying a black lamb in his state-coach at midnight to sacrifice to the moon, in order to obtain a recruit of vigour. The very exploit gained him as many hearts as if the boon had been granted. Yet with an advantageous person and adventurous disposition, he was supposed to want the two heroic attributes that generally compose a woman’s Alexander. So much was his courage questioned, that he was driven to fight and kill the Prince of Lixin in the trenches at Philipsburg.