[p. 562]
|562| when, at the close of the year 1800, the estates which were not assembled were minded to hold a new assembly, – this meeting and deliberation was refused them by Prussia, because Prussia, as guarantor of the tranquillity of the North, had to judge what measures were to be taken for it.
When the northern coalition against England’s pretensions over neutral ships seemed about to come into war with England, Hanover, one of the principal members of the league, to which its neutrality was guaranteed, (together with other imperial cities) was occupied by Prussia.24) It had to disband its troops and take over the provisioning of the Prussian corps. The peace has been ratified by the estates of the German Empire, yet Prussia has had its ratification officially announced for itself directly in Paris.
24) In the margin: whereby Hanover had no support to expect from Germany.
The whole history of the war, the separation of northern Germany from southern, the particular acts of neutrality and peace of the former, while the latter languished under the most cruel misery and so saw itself wholly abandoned by the former, make it clear not only that Germany is divided into independent states, but also that their interest is completely separated, and if the bond of the state is loose as in the Middle Ages, yet no free union is to be expected. In the most powerful of all interests, when Germany was diminished by the lands of the left bank of the Rhine, when the one half was overrun and plundered by the enemies, no help was given, not only none in accordance with the union of the Empire, but none even voluntary. The other estates had separated themselves from all cooperation, and one part, even by placing its neutrality in the guarantee of a prince who was at the same time foreign, at the same time also gave out of its hands
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