Letters Concerning the English Nation (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1741 edition. Excerpt: ... A LETTER Concerning the Burning os ALTENA, As related in the History of Charles XII. Paris 25 April 1733. TH E great difficulty we have in France of getting books from Holland, is the reason why the ninth tome of the Bibliotheque Raisonnee came but late to my hands. And I will observe by the way, that if the journal is equal to the pieces I have perus'd in it, it is a misfortune for our men of letters in France, that they are not acquainted with that work. In page 496, part II. of the ninth tome abovemention'd, I found a letter in which I am accus'd of aspersing the city of Hamburgh in the history of Charles the twelfth. A- few days since one Mr. Richey os Hamburgh, a scholar and a man of merit, having honoured me with a visit, revived the the complaint I just now mention'd in the name of his fellow-citizens. Here follows the relation I gave, and what I myself am oblig'd to declare. In the heat of the unhappy war which made so dreadful a havock in the North, the Counts of Steinbock and of Welling, the Swedish Generals, . form'd Anno 1713, in. the very city of Hamburgh, a resolution to burn Altena, a trading city, and subject to the Danes; for the commerce of this city began to flourish so much, that the Hamburghers grew a little jealous of it. This resolution was executed unmercifully in the night of the ninth of January. These generals lay in Hamburgh that very night; they lay in it the tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth; and dated from the last mentioned city the letters they wrote to clear themselves from the imputation of being the authors of so barbarous a catastrophe. 'Tis besides certain, and the Hamburghers themselves do not deny it, that the gates of their city were shut against several of the inhabitants of Altena; against...