[p. 530]
|530| German state power, however, gained nothing thereby, for already another centre of opposition to it was forming more and more, and into possession of the lands which Sweden lost in Germany there came neither immediately the German Empire, to serve as a fund for the treasury of the Empire, nor princes of its own, but princes who were already fellow estates and now stepped into the place of what was formidable to the unity of the state.
In the deep peace which the German Empire maintained while it was filled with general war, Hanover, which now had one prince with England, played a role which however remained without further result; there was no principle to maintain to which Germany’s interest attached itself immediately. Neither political freedom nor freedom of conscience was to be defended, and in general Hanover did not afterwards raise itself to the rank of influence in Germany which Sweden and afterwards Prussia maintained; England’s constitution and interests too remote did not permit Hanover, and with it the relation to Germany and England’s political relation, to be amalgamated as the first Brunswick prince who ascended England’s throne still did from natural attachment to his German relations, and the separation of the interests of England and Electoral Brunswick became most visible in the Seven Years’ War, when France, with the project of conquering America and India in Hanover, thought itself so clever, but learnt through the outcome how little the devastation of Hanover did harm to the English nation. In this separation and thus in the lesser influence on Germany England’s monarch has remained a German estate of the Empire.
In the same war Germany did not lose Silesia, but the power whose greatness is most contrary to the unity of the German state enlarged itself thereby and maintained itself in this in the Seven Years’ War which afterwards sprang from this conquest. In
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