The French strengthened their forces, and a cruel edict was issued at Paris, ordaining all British subjects in France between the ages of fifteen and fifty to enlist in the Irish Brigade, or go to the galleys--an edict which was enforced with such rigour, that in fifteen days all the Parisian prisons were crowded with British residents, chiefly poor Scottish Jacobites; but France soon found other and more worthy means of reinforcing her armies in Italy and on the Rhine, than by resorting to such inhospitable tyranny. For his services in the Italian war, Count Brown received a general's commission in 1736 from the Emperor Charles VI., who, discouraged by his reverses, signified a desire for peace; but it was scarcely negotiated, before he became involved in a new war that broke out on the confines of Europe and Asia. The rapid progress of the Russians against the Turks, and their capture of the Crimea, excited the ambition of Charles, who, by the treaty of 1726, was bound to assist Russia against the Porte; and now that prophecy, so often propagated, was in every one's mouth, that the period fatal to the Crescent was arrived! Again the Osmanli turned their arms against Hungary; and to protect that ancient kingdom rather than to assist the Czarina (who demanded of Austria 10,000 horse and 20,000 foot), Charles sent 8000 Saxon infantry, under Field-Marshal Seckendorf and General Count Brown, with whom the Duke of Lorraine went as a volunteer. By the peculation of the commissaries and contractors, these forces suffered incredible hardships, and their leaders found Gradisca, Bioc, even Belgrade, and all the Hungarian frontier fortresses dilapidated, and incapable of being defended. More troops and 600,000 florins were promised to them from Vienna, but neither came. Thus Seckendorf and Brown found themselves before the Turks with a small army of recruits, destitute of horses, caissons, and all the munitions of war. On receiving 10,000 florins, they raised 26,000 infantry, 15,000 horse, and 4000 irregulars; but the indecision of the Emperor, who interfered with all their arrangements, the nature of their forces, clamours among their soldiers, cabals among their officers, the severities they encountered, and the pressing ardour of the Osmanli, gave to the Imperial arms but a succession of humiliating defeats; and though Brown's fiery energy captured many small fortresses, others of greater importance were lost by Seckendorf, and at last Belgrade, the scene of our hero's earlier service, was besieged. Banjaluca, a strongly fortified town, which has two castles to defend it, and which stands on the frontier of Bosnia, at the confluence of the Verbas with the Save, was skilfully invested by the Austrians under the Prince of Hildburghausen, but he was compelled to raise the siege, and after a bloody conflict, was driven towards the Save by the Turks.