1758
1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760
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French forces suffer further reverses in the continuing Seven Years' War. The duke of Brunswick's son Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand drives them back across the Rhine and defeats them June 23 in the Battle of Crefield, the French West African ports of Senegal and Gorée fall to the British, and the British score victories in America.
The Battle of Zorndorff August 25 gives Friedrich II (the Great) a victory over a Russian army that has invaded Prussia with 42,000 men under the command of Count Wilhelm Fermor and laid siege to the town of Kustrin, 45 miles from Berlin. When the Prussians threaten to disrupt their lines of communication, the Russians turn from their siege to attack Friedrich, who has only 36,000 men, but cavalry led by General Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz turns the tide of battle, and the Russians withdraw to Königsberg after sustaining 21,000 casualties (Prussian casualties total 13,500). A 78,000-man Austrian army under the command of Marshal Leopold Jozef, graf von Daun, defeats a 30,000-man Prussian army October 14 at the Battle of Hochkirch, capturing 101 guns and inflicting 9,500 casualties (including dead, wounded, and taken prisoner), but General von Seidlitz covers the Prussian retreat, Austrian casualties total 7,500 killed and wounded, and Friedrich successfully resists efforts by von Daun to drive his forces out of Saxony and Silesia.
Three mounted men ambush Portugal's José Manuel on the night of September 8 as he is returning with his valet, Texeiras, from the home of the Marchioness Teresa da Távora, and although his coachman drives off quickly the king has been wounded by gunshot fire. The marques de Pombal uses the incident to crush the nobility and Jesuits who have opposed him. He convenes a special court in December, empowering it to use torture and waive normal legal procedures. Troops soon arrest the Marquess de Távora, his wife and their two sons, Gabriel Malagrida, and 12 other Jesuits; the duque d'Aveiro confesses under torture and servants give evidence (much of it will later be retracted) (see 1759).
The French Canadian fortress of Louisburg falls July 26 to British forces under Generals Jeffery Amherst, 41, and James Wolfe, 31, with support from Admiral Edward Boscawen, now 47 (who is actually commander in chief of the expedition), and Robert Rogers of Rogers' Rangers as the French and Indian War continues in North America (see 1757). The French have defeated Scottish-born General James Abercrombie, 52, who was trying to take their 3-year-old Fort Ticonderoga (Fort Carillon) on Lake Champlain July 8, but the British take Fort Frontenac August 27 and Fort Duquesne November 25. They build Fort Stanwix on highlands overlooking the upper Mohawk River (see Treaty, 1768), win control of Cape Breton Island, and drive the French from other strongholds (see 1759).
Tableau économique by French surgeon-general and economist François Quesnay, 64, propounds a system by which the products of agriculture will be distributed without government restraint among the productive classes of the community (landowners and farmers) and the unproductive classes (manufacturers and merchants). Using a diagram to show the relationship between the different economic classes and sectors of society and the flow of payments between them, Quesnay states that agriculture is the only true source of wealth; his disciple Victor Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, will say that Quesnay's manifesto contributes as much to the stability of political societies as have the inventions of money and writing.
"The Friend of Man, or Treatise on Population" ("Ami des hommes, ou Traité de la population") by the marquis de Mirabeau is based largely on the views of the late Richard Cantillon, emphasizing the primacy of agriculture over commerce as a source of wealth. Mirabeau has anticipated some of the physiocratic doctrines of François Quesnay and joins him and others in favoring a reform of France's antiquated, inefficient taxation system.
Pope Benedict XIV dies at Rome May 3 at age 83 after an 18-year reign in which he has made concessions to the kings of Savoy and Naples but prevented them from gaining supremacy over the Church. Having built granaries in all the towns and villages of the Papal States and built roads as well, he is succeeded July 6 by Venetian-born cleric Carlo della Torre Cardinal Rezzonico, 65, who will reign until 1769 as Clement XIII.
The New Jerusalem (De nova Hierosolyma) by Swedish naturalist-scientist Emanuel Swedenborg, 70, is a religious treatise. Swedenborg distinguished himself at age 30 during a siege of Frederikshall by inventing machines for carrying boats overland from Stromstadt to Iddefjord, and Queen Ulrika Eleanora elevated him to the nobility the following year. He began having visions 15 years ago, and his followers have founded the Church of the New Jerusalem, or New Church.
Religious leader Jonathan Edwards assumes office in January as president of the 12-year-old College of New Jersey (later Princeton) but dies March 22 at age 54.
"If you want a thing done, go; if not, send," says Benjamin Franklin in his annual Poor Richard's Almanack.
The first issue of The Annual Register published at London is a survey of world affairs. Edmund Burke has persuaded publisher Robert Dodsley to issue the work and will edit it anonymously for close to 30 years.
Nonfiction: De l'esprit by French philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius, 43, extends the sensationist psychology of John Locke to the ethical and social fields. Helvétius produces a major scandal by propounding a utilitarianism with atheistic and materialistic implications (see Locke, 1690); The Law of Nations (Le Droit des gens) by Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel, 44, is a popularization of Christian Wolff's 1749 work by the same title (Jus gentium) but rejects Wolff's idea of a regulatory world state, proposing instead that there be national rights and duties under a natural law of international relations that permits a country to remain neutral while others are engaged in hostilities; Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals by Welsh-born English moral philosopher and Presbyterian clergyman Richard Price, 35.
Painting: The Jar of Apricots by Jean-Siméon Chardin; The Mill at Charenton by François Boucher; Hogarth's Servants by William Hogarth.
Sculpture: Love and Friendship by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, whose allegorical figure group includes some statues resembling his patron, Madame de Pompadour, who has supported him since 1750 but will no longer do so.
First performances: A Mass by Austrian singer-pianist-composer Marianne (Anna Katherina) von Martínez, 17, is sung at Vienna's Court Church of St. Michael.
South Carolina planter Charles Pinckney dies at age 55, leaving his widow, Eliza, to manage his seven plantations and look after the four children that she has borne in five years (see 1744). Within a few years the colony will be producing more than a million pounds of indigo dye annually.
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