CHAPTER X

.

_Negotiation for Peace ineffectual..... The Allied Army besieges and takes Tour-nay..... The French are defeated at Malplaquet..... Mons surrendered..... Campaign in Spain..... The French King’s Proposals of treating rejected by the States-general..... Account of Dr. Sacheverel..... He is impeached by the Commons..... His Trial..... Debates upon it in the House of Lords..... He is silenced for three Years..... Conferences at Gertruydenburgh..... Pride and Obstinacy of the Dutch..... Douay besieged and taken by the Confederates, as well as Bethune, Aire, and St. Venant..... King Charles obtains a Victory over Philip at Saragossa, and enters Madrid..... Battle of Villaviciosa..... The Whig Ministry disgraced..... The Parliament is dissolved..... Meeting of the New Parliament..... The Duke of Marlborough insulted and reviled..... Inquiry into the Conduct of the War in Spain..... Severe Votes in the House of Commons against those who invited over the poor Palatines..... Harley stabbed at the Council Board by Guiscard; and created Earl of Oxford..... Death of the Emperor Joseph..... Representation by the Commons to the Queen..... Proceedings in the Convocation..... The Duke of Marlborough continues to command the Allied Army..... He surprises the French Lines..... Reduces Bouchain..... The Duke of Argyle commands the British Troops in Spain..... King Charles elected Emperor..... Expedition to Canada..... Insolence of the Jacobites in Scotland..... A Negotiation set on Foot between the Courts of France and England..... Prior is sent to Fountainbleau..... Ménager arrives privately in England..... The French King’s Proposals disagreeable to the Allies..... Violent Debate upon them in the House of Lords..... The Duke of Hamilton’s Title of Duke of Brandon disallowed..... Bill against occasional Conformity passes..... Duke of Marlborough dismissed from all his Employments..... Twelve new Peers created..... Prince Eugene of Savoy arrives in England..... Walpole expelled the House of Commons..... Votes against the Duke of Marlborough..... Resolutions against the Barrier-treaty and the Dutch..... Acts unfavourable to the Presbyterian Discipline in Scotland._

NEGOTIATION FOR PEACE INEFFECTUAL.

The French king was by this time reduced to such a state of humiliation by the losses of the last campaign, and a severe winter, which completed the misery of his subjects, that he resolved to sacrifice all the considerations of pride and ambition, as well as the interest of his grandson, to his desire of peace, which was now become so necessary and indispensable. He despatched the president Rouillé privately to Holland, with general proposals of peace, and the offer of a good barrier to the states-general, still entertaining hopes of being able to detach them from the confederacy. This minister conferred in secret with Buys and Vanderdussen, the pensionaries of Amsterdam and Gouda, at Moerdyke, from whence he was permitted to proceed to Woerden, between Leyden and Utrecht. The states immediately communicated his proposals to the courts of Vienna and Great Britain. Prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough arrived at the Hague in April, and conferred with the grand pensionary Heinsius, Buys, and Vanderdussen, on the subject of the French proposals, which were deemed unsatisfactory. Rouillé immediately despatched a courier to Paris, for further instructions; and the duke of Marlborough returned to England, to make the queen acquainted with the progress of the negotiation. Louis, in order to convince the states of his sincerity, sent the marquis de Torcy, his secretary for foreign affairs, to the Hague, with fresh offers, to which the deputies would make no answer until they knew the sentiments of the queen of Great Britain. The duke of Marlborough crossed the seas a second time accompanied by the lord Townshend, as ambassador-extraordinary and joint plenipotentiary; prince Eugene being likewise at the Hague, the conferences were begun. The French minister declared that his master would consent to the demolition of Dunkirk; that he would abandon the pretender, and dismiss him from his dominions; that he would acknowledge the queen’s title and the protestant succession; that he would renounce all pretensions to the Spanish monarchy, and cede the places in the Netherlands which the states-general demanded for their barrier; that he would treat with the emperor on the footing of the treaty concluded at Rys-wick, and even demolish the fortifications of Strasburgh. The ministers of the allies, rendered proud and wanton by success, and seeing their own private interest in the continuation of the war, insisted upon the restitution of the Upper and Lower Alsace to the empire; upon the French monarch’s restoring Strasburgh in its present condition; upon his ceding the town and castellany of Lisle, demolishing Dunkirk, New Brisac, Fort-Louis, and Hunningen. In a word, their demands were so insolent, that Louis would not have suffered them to be mentioned in his hearing, had not he been reduced to the last degree of distress. One can hardly read them without feeling a sentiment of compassion for that monarch, who had once given law to Europe, and been so long accustomed to victory and conquest. Notwithstanding the discouraging despatches he had received from the president Rouillé, after his first conferences with the deputies, he could not believe that the Dutch would be so blind to their own interest, as to reject the advantages in commerce, and the barrier which he had offered. He could not conceive that they would choose to bear the burden of excessive taxes in prosecuting a war, the events of which would always be uncertain, rather than enjoy the blessings of peace, security, and advantageous commerce: he flattered himself that the allies would not so far deviate from their purposed aim of establishing a balance of power, as to throw such an enormous weight into the scale of the house of Austria, which cherished all the dangerous ambition and arbitrary principles, without the liberality of sentiment peculiar to the house of Bourbon. In proportion as they rose in their demands, Louis fell in his condescension. His secretary of state, the marquis de Torcy, posted in disguise to Holland, on the faith of a common blank passport. He solicited, he soothed, he supplicated, and made concessions in the name of his sovereign. He found the states were wholly guided by the influence of prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough. He found these generals elated, haughty, overbearing, and implacable. He in private attacked the duke of Marlborough on his weakest side: he offered to that nobleman a large sum of money, provided he would effect a peace on certain conditions. The proposal was rejected. The duke found his enemies in England increasing, and his credit at court in the wane; and he knew that nothing but a continuation of the war, and new victories, could support his influence in England. Torcy was sensible that his country was utterly exhausted, that Louis dreaded nothing so much as the opening of the campaign; and he agreed to those articles upon which they insisted as preliminaries. The French king was confounded at these proposals; he felt the complicated pangs of grief, shame, and indignation. He rejected the preliminaries with disdain. He even deigned to submit his conduct to the judgment of his subjects. His offers were published, together with the demands of the allies. His people interested themselves in the glory of their monarch. They exclaimed against the cruelty and arrogance of his enemies. Though impoverished and half-starved by the war, they resolved to expend their whole substance in his support; and rather to fight his battles without pay, than leave him in the dire necessity of complying with such dishonourable terms. Animated by these sentiments, they made such efforts as amazed the whole world. The preliminaries being rejected by the French king, Rouillé was ordered to quit Holland in four-and-twenty hours; and the generals of the confederates resolved to open the campaign without further hesitation.

THE ALLIED ARMY TAKE TOURNAY.

Prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough proceeded to Flanders, and towards the end of June the allied army encamped in the plain of Lisle, to the number of one hundred and ten thousand fighting men. At the same time, the mareschal Villars, accounted the most fortunate general in France, assembled the French forces in the plain of Lens, where he began to throw up intrenchments. The confederate generals having observed his situation, and perceiving he could not be attacked with any probability of success, resolved to undertake the siege of Tournay, the garrison of which Villars had imprudently weakened. Accordingly, they made a feint upon Ypres, in order to deceive the enemy, and convert all their attention to that side, while they suddenly invested Tournay on the twenty-seventh day of June. Though the garrison did not exceed twelve I weakened battalions, and four squadrons of dragoons, the place was so strong, both by art and nature, and lieutenant de Surville, the governor, possessed such admirable talents, that the siege was protracted contrary to the expectation of the allies, and cost them a great number of men, notwithstanding all the precautions that could be taken for the safety of the troops. As the besiegers proceeded by the method of sap, their miners frequently met with those of the enemy under ground, and fought with bayonet and pistol. The volunteers on both sides presented themselves to these subterraneous combats, in the midst of mines and countermines ready primed for explosion. Sometimes they were kindled by accident, and sometimes sprung by design; so that great numbers of those brave men were stifled below, and whole battalions blown into the air, or buried in the rubbish. On the twenty-eighth day of July, the besiegers having effected a practicable breach, and made the necessary dispositions for a general assault, the enemy offered to capitulate: the town was surrendered upon conditions, and the garrison retired to the citadel. Surville likewise entered into a treaty about giving up the citadel: the articles being sent to the court of Versailles, Louis would not ratify them, except upon condition that there should be a general cessation in the Netherlands till the fifth day of September. Hostilities were renewed on the eighth day of August, and prosecuted with uncommon ardour and animosity. On the thirtieth, Surville desired to capitulate on certain articles, which were rejected by the duke of Marlborough, who gave him to understand that he had no terms to expect, but must surrender at discretion. At length, his provisions being quite exhausted, he was obliged io surrender himself and his garrison prisoners of war, though they were permitted to return to France, on giving their parole that they would not act in the field until a like number of the allies should be released.

THE FRENCH ARE DEFEATED.

The next object that attracted the eyes of the confederates was the city of Mons, which they resolved to besiege with all possible expedition. They passed the Schelde on the third day of September, and detached the prince of Hesse to attack the French lines from the Haisne to the Sombre, which were abandoned at his approach. On the seventh day of September, mareschal de Boufflers arrived in the French camp at Quievrain, content to act in an inferior capacity to Villars, although his superior in point of seniority. The duke of Marlborough having received advice that the French were on their march to attack the advanced body under the prince of Hesse, decamped from Havre in order to support that detachment. On the ninth the allies made a motion to the left, by which the two armies were brought so near each other that a mutual cannonading ensued. The French army, amounting to one hundred and twenty thousand men, were posted behind the woods of La Merte and Tanières, in the neighbourhood of Malplaquet. The confederates, nearly of the same number, encamped with the right near Sart and Bleron, and the left on the edge of the wood of Lanière; the head quarters being at Blaregnies. The enemy, instead of attacking the allies, began to fortify their camp, which was naturally strong, with triple intrenchments. In a word, they were so covered with lines, hedges, intrenchments, cannon and trees laid across, that they seemed to be quite inaccessible. Had the confederates attacked them on the ninth, the battle would not have been so bloody, and the victory would have proved more decisive; for they had not then begun to secure the camp; but Marlborough postponed the engagement until they should be reinforced by eighteen battalions which had been employed in the siege of Tournay; and in the meantime, the French fortified themselves with incredible diligence and despatch. On the eleventh day of September, early in the morning, the confederates, favoured by a thick fog, erected batteries on each wing and in the centre; and about eight o’clock, the weather clearing up, the attack began. Eighty-six battalions on the right, commmanded by general Schuylemburgh, the duke of Argyle, and other generals, and supported by two-and-twenty battalions under count Lottum, attacked the left of the enemy with such vigour, that, notwithstanding their lines and barricadoes, they were in less than an hour driven from their intrenchments into the woods of Sart and Tanières. The prince of Orange and baron Fagel, with six-and-thirty Dutch battalions, advanced against the right of the enemy, posted in the wood of La Merte, and covered with three intrenchments. Here the battle was maintained with the most desperate courage on both sides. The Dutch obliged the French to quit the first intrenchment; but were repulsed from the second with great slaughter. The prince of Orange persisted in his efforts with incredible perseverance and intrepidity, even after two horses had been killed under him, and the greater part of his officers either slain or disabled. The French fought with an obstinacy of courage that bordered on despair, till seeing their lines forced, their left wing and centre giving way, and their general, Villars, dangerously wounded, they made an excellent retreat towards Bavay, under the conduct of Boufflers, and took post between Quesnoy and Valenciennes. The field of battle they abandoned to the confederates, with about forty colours and standards, sixteen pieces of artillery, and a good number of prisoners; but this was the dearest victory the allies had ever purchased. About twenty thousand of their best troops were killed in the engagement; whereas the enemy did not lose half that number, and retired at leisure, perfectly recovered of that apprehension with which they had been for some years inspired and overawed by the successes of their adversaries. On the side of the allies, count Lottum, general Tettau, count Oxienstern, and the marquis of Tullibar-dine, were killed, with many other officers of distinction. Prince Eugene was slightly wounded in the head; lieutenant-general Webb received a shot in the groin. The duke of Argyle, who distinguished himself by extraordinary feats of valour, escaped unhurt; but several musket-balls penetrated through his clothes, his hat, and periwig. In the French army, the chevalier de St. George charged twelve times with the household troops, and in the last was wounded with a sword in the arm. The mareschal de Villars confidently asserted, that if he himself had not been disabled, the confederates would certainly have been defeated.

MONS SURRENDERED.

Considering the situation of the French, the number of their troops, and the manner in which they were fortified, nothing could be more rash and imprudent than the attack, which cost the lives of so many gallant men, and was attended with so little advantage to the conquerors. Perhaps the duke of Marlborough thought a victory was absolutely necessary to support his sinking interest at the court of Great Britain. His intention was to have given battle before the enemy had intrenched themselves; but prince Eugene insisted upon delaying the action until the reinforcement should arrive from Tournay. The extraordinary carnage is imputed to the impetuosity of the prince of Orange, whose aim through this whole war was to raise himself into consideration with the states-general by signal acts of military prowess. The French having retired to Valenciennes, the allies were left at liberty to besiege Mons, which capitulated about the end of October; and both armies were distributed in winter quarters. The campaign on the Rhine produced nothing but one sharp action, between a detachment of the French army commanded by the count de Borgh, and a body of troops under count Merci, who had passed the Rhine in order to penetrate into Franche-compte. The Imperial officer was worsted in this encounter, with the loss of two thousand men; obliged to repass the river, and retire to Fribourg. In Piedmont, velt-mareschal Thaun commanded the confederates in the room of the duke of Savoy, who refused to take the field until some differences, which had arisen between the emperor and him, should be adjusted. Thaun’s design was to besiege Briançon; but the duke of Berwick had taken such precautions as frustrated his intention, though part of the troops under the French general were employed in suppressing an insurrection of the Camisars, and other malcontents in the Vivaraz. These were entirely defeated in a pitched battle; and Abraham, one of their leaders, being taken, was broke alive upon the wheel; three-and-twenty were hanged, and the other prisoners sent to the galleys. The pope delayed acknowledging king Charles under various pretences, in hopes that the campaign would prove favourable to the house of Bourbon; till at length the emperor giving him to understand that his army should take up their winter quarters in the ecclesiastical state, his holiness solemnly owned Charles as king of Spain, Naples, and Sicily.

CAMPAIGN IN SPAIN.

The military operations in Spain and Portugal were unfavourable to the allies. On the seventh of May, the Portuguese and English were defeated at Caya by the Spaniards, under the command of the mareschal de Bay. The castle of Alicant, guarded by two English regiments, had been besieged, and held out during a whole winter. At length the chevalier d’Asfeldt ordered the rock to be undermined, and having lodged two hundred barrels of gunpowder, gave Syburg the governor to understand, that two of his officers might come out and see the condition of the works. This offer being accepted, Asfeldt in person accompanied them to the mine: he told them he could not bear the thoughts of seeing so many brave men perish in the ruins of a place they had so gallantly defended, and allowed them four-and-twenty hours to consider on the resolution they should take. Syburg continued deaf to his remonstrances; and, with an obstinacy that savoured more of stupidity than of valour, determined to stand the explosion. When the sentinels that were posted on the side of the hill gave notice, by a preconcerted signal, that fire was set to the mine, the governor ordered the guard to retire, and walked out to the parade accompanied by several officers. The mine being sprung, the rock opened under their feet, and they falling into the chasm, it instantly closed, and crushed them to death. Notwithstanding this dreadful incident, colonel d’Albon, who succeeded to the command, resolved to defend the place to the last extremity. Sir Edward Whitaker sailed from Barcelona to the relief of the place; but the enemy had erected such works as effectually hindered the troops from landing. Then general Stanhope, who commanded them, capitulated with the Spanish general for the garrison, which marched out with all the honours of war, and was transported to Minorca, where the men were put into quarters of refreshment. On the frontiers of Catalonia, general Starem-berg maintained his ground, and even annoyed the enemy. He passed the Segra, and reduced Balaguer; having left a strong garrison in the place, he repassed the river, and sent his forces into winter quarters. The most remarkable event of this summer was the battle of Poultowa, in which the king of Sweden was entirely defeated by the czar of Muscovy, and obliged to take refuge at Bender, a town of Moldavia, in the Turkish dominions. Augustus immediately marched into Poland against Stanislaus, and renounced his own resignation, as if it had been the effect of compulsion. He formed a project with the kings of Denmark and Prussia to attack the Swedish territories in three different places; but the emperor and maritime powers prevented the execution of this scheme, by entering into a guarantee for preserving the peace of the empire. Nevertheless, the king of Denmark declared war against Sweden, and transported an army over the Sound of Schonen; but they were attacked and defeated by the Swedes, and obliged to re-embark with the utmost precipitation. The war still continued to rage in Hungary, where, however, the revolters were routed in many petty engagements.

FRENCH KING’S PROPOSALS OF TREATING REJECTED BY THE STATES-GENERAL.

Though the events of the summer had been less unfavourable to France than Louis had reason to expect, he saw that peace was as necessary as ever to his kingdom; but he thought he might now treat with some freedom and dignity. His minister, Torcy, maintained a correspondence with Mr. Petkum, resident of the duke of Holstein at the Hague: he proposed to this minister, that the negotiation should be renewed; and demanded passes, by virtue of which the French plenipotentiaries might repair in safety to Holland. In the meantime, the French king withdrew his troops from Spain, on pretence of demonstrating his readiness to oblige the allies in that particular; though this measure was the effect of necessity, which obliged him to recall those troops for the defence of his own dominions. The states-general refused to grant passes to the French ministers; but they allowed Petkum to make a journey to Versailles. In the interim king Philip published a manifesto, protesting against all that should be transacted at the Hague to his prejudice. Far from yielding Spain and the Indies to his competitor, he declared his intention of driving Charles from those places that were now in his possession. He named the duke of Alba and count Bergheyck for his plenipotentiaries, and ordered them to notify their credentials to the maritime powers; but no regard was paid to their intimation. Philip tampered likewise with the duke of Marlborough; and the marquis de Torcy renewed his attempts upon that general; but all his application and address proved ineffectual. Petkum brought back from Versailles a kind of memorial, importing, that those motives which influenced the French before the campaign was opened, no longer subsisted; that the winter season naturally produced a cessation of arms, during which he would treat of a general and reasonable peace, without restricting himself to the form of the preliminaries which the allies had pretended to impose; that, nevertheless, he would still treat on the foundation of those conditions to which he had consented, and send plenipotentiaries to begin the conference with those of the allies on the first day of January. The states-general inveighed against this memorial, as a proof of the French king’s insincerity; though he certainly had a right to retract those offers they had formerly rejected. They came to a resolution, that it was absolutely necessary to prosecute the war with rigour; and they wrote pressing letters on the subject to all their allies.

{ANNE, 1701--1714}

ACCOUNT OF DE SACHEVEREL.

The parliament of Great Britain being assembled on the fifteenth day of November, the queen in her speech told both houses that the enemy had endeavoured, by false appearances and deceitful insinuations of a desire after peace, to create jealousies among the allies: that God Almighty had been pleased to bless the arms of the confederates with a most remarkable victory and other successes, which had laid France open to the impression of the allied arms, and consequently rendered peace more necessary to that kingdom than it was at the beginning of the campaign. She insisted upon the expediency of prosecuting the advantages she had gained, by reducing that exorbitant and oppressive power which had so long threatened the liberties of Europe. The parliament were as eager and compliant as ever.. They presented congratulatory addresses: they thanked the duke of Marlborough for his signal services; while great part of the nation reproached him with having wantonly sacrificed so many thousand lives to his own private interest and reputation. In less than a month the commons granted upwards of six millions for the service of the ensuing year, and established a lottery, with other funds, to answer this enormous supply. On the thirteenth day of December, Mr. Dolben, son to the late archbishop of York, complained to the house of two sermons preached and published by Dr. Henry Sacheverel, rector of St. Saviour’s in Southwark, as containing positions contrary to revolution principles, to the present government, and the protestant succession. Sacheverel was a clergyman of narrow intellects, and an overheated imagination. He had acquired some popularity among those who had distinguished themselves by the name of high-churchmen, and took all occasions to vent his animosity against the dissenters. At the summer assizes at Derby, he had held forth in that strain before the judges; on the fifth day of November, in Saint Paul’s church, he, in a violent declamation, defended the doctrine of non-resistance; inveighed against the toleration and dissenters; declared the church was dangerously attacked by her enemies, and slightly defended by her false friends: he sounded the trumpet for the church, and exhorted the people to put on the whole armour of God. Sir Samuel Garrard, the lord mayor, countenanced this harangue, which was published under his protection, extolled by the tories, and circulated all over the nation. The complaint of Mr. Dolben against Sacheverel, was seconded in the house of commons by sir Peter King and other members. The most violent paragraphs were read: the sermons were voted scandalous and seditious libels. Sacheverel, being brought to the bar of the house, acknowledged himself the author of both, and mentioned the encouragement he had received from the lord mayor to print that which was entitled, “The Perils of False Brethren.” Sir Samuel, who was a member, denied he had ever given him such encouragement. The doctor being ordered to withdraw, the house resolved he should be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors; and Mr. Dolben was ordered to impeach him at the bar of the house of lords, in the name of all the commons of England. A committee was appointed to draw up articles, and Sacheverel was taken into custody. At the same time, in order to demonstrate their own principles, they resolved that the reverend Mr. Benjamin Hoadly, rector of St. Peter-le-Poor, for having often justified the principles on which her majesty and the nation proceeded in the late happy revolution, had justly merited the favour and recommendation of the house; and they presented an address to the queen, beseeching her to bestow some dignity in the church on Mr. Hoadly, for his eminent service both to the church and state. The queen returned a civil answer, though she paid no regard to their recommendation. Hoadly was a clergyman of sound understanding, unblemished character, and uncommon moderation, who, in a sermon preached before the lord mayor of London, had demonstrated the lawfulness of resisting wicked and cruel governors, and vindicated the late revolution. By avowing such doctrines, he incurred the resentment of the high churchmen, who accused him of having preached up rebellion. Many books were written against the maxims he professed. These he answered; and, in the course of the controversy, acquitted himself with superior temper, judgment, and solidity of argument. He as well as Bishop Burnet and several other prelates, had been treated with great virulence in Sacheverel’s sermon, and the-lord treasurer was scurrilously abused under the name of Volpone. The doctor being impeached at the bar of the upper house, petitioned that he might be admitted to bail; but this indulgence was refused, and the commons seemed bent upon prosecuting him with such severity as gave disgust to men of moderate principles. Meanwhile the tories were not idle. They boldly affirmed that the whigs had formed a design to pull down the church, and that this prosecution was intended to try their strength before they could proceed openly to the execution of their project. These assertions were supported, and even credited by great part of the clergy, who did not fail to alarm and inflame their hearers; while emissaries were employed to raise a ferment among the populace, already prepared with discontent, arising from a scarcity which prevailed in almost every country of Europe. The ministers magnified the dangers to which the church was exposed, from dissenters, whigs, and lukewarm prelates. These they represented as the authors of a ruinous war, which in a little time would produce universal famine; and as the immediate encouragers of those Palatine refugees who had been brought over, to the number of six thousand, and maintained by voluntary contributions, until they could be conveniently transported into Ireland and the plantations of America. The charity bestowed upon those unhappy strangers exasperated the poor of England, who felt severely the effects of the dearth, and helped to fill up the measure of popular discontent. The articles against Dr. Sacheverel being exhibited, his person was committed to the deputy-usher of the black rod, but afterwards the lords admitted him to bail. Then he drew up an answer to the charge, in which he denied some articles, and others he endeavoured to justify or extenuate. The commons having sent up a replication, declaring they were ready to prove the charge, the lords appointed the twenty-seventh day of February for the trial in Westminster-hall.

HIS TRIAL.

The eyes of the whole kingdom were turned upon this extraordinary trial. It lasted three weeks, during which all other business was suspended; and the queen herself was every day present, though in quality of a private spectator. The managers for the commons were sir Joseph Jekyl, Mr. Eyre, solicitor-general, sir Peter King, recorder of the city of London, lieutenant-general Stanhope, sir Thomas Parker, and Mr. Robert Walpole, treasurer of the navy. The doctor was defended by sir Simon Harcourt and Mr. Phipps, and assisted by Dr. Atterbury, Dr. Smallridge, and Dr. Friend. A vast multitude attended him every day to and from Westminster-hall, striving to kiss his hand, and praying for his deliverance, as if he had been a martyr and confessor. The queen’s sedan was beset by the populace, exclaiming, “God bless your majesty and the church. We hope your majesty is for Dr. Sacheverel.” They compelled all persons to lift their hats to the doctor as he passed in his coach to the temple, where he lodged; and among these some members of parliament, who were abused and insulted. They destroyed several meeting houses; plundered the dwelling houses of eminent dissenters; and threatened to pull down those of the lord chancellor, the earl of Wharton, and the bishop of Sarum. They even proposed to attack the bank, so that the directors were obliged to send to Whitehall for assistance. The horse and foot guards were immediately sent to disperse the rioters, who fled at their approach. Next day the guards were doubled at Whitehall, and the train bands of Westminster continued in arms during the whole trial. The commons entreated the queen, in an address, to take effectual measures for suppressing the present tumults, set on foot and fomented by papists, nonjurors, and other enemies to her title and government. She expressed a deep sense of their care and concern, as well as a just resentment at these tumultuous and violent proceedings. She published a proclamation for suppressing the tumults; and several persons being apprehended, were afterwards tried for high-treason. Two of them were convicted and sentenced to die, but neither suffered. The commons presented another address of thanks to her majesty for her gracious answer to their first remonstrance. They took this occasion to declare, that the prosecution of the commons against Dr. Henry Sacheverel proceeded only from the indispensable obligation they lay under to vindicate the late happy revolution, the glory of their royal deliverer, her own title and administration, the present established and protestant succession, together with the toleration and the quiet of the government. When the doctor’s counsel had finished his defence, he himself recited a speech, wherein he solemnly justified his intentions towards the queen and her government, and spoke in the most respectful terms of the revolution and the protestant succession. He maintained the doctrine of “non-resistance” in all cases whatsoever, as a maxim of the church in which he was educated, and by many pathetical expressions endeavoured to excite the compassion of the audience. He was surrounded by the queen’s chaplains, who encouraged and extolled him as the champion of the church; and he was privately favoured by the queen herself, who could not but relish a doctrine so well calculated for the support of regal authority.

DEBATES UPON IT IN THE LORDS.

On the tenth day of March, the lords being adjourned to their own house, the earl of Nottingham proposed the following question:--“Whether, in prosecutions by impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanors, by writing or speaking, the particular words supposed to be criminal are necessary to be expressly specified in such impeachments?” The judges being consulted, were unanimously of opinion, that, according to law, the grounds of an indictment or impeachment ought to be expressly mentioned in both. One of the lords having suggested that the judges had delivered their opinions according to the rules of Westminster-hall, and not according to the usage of parliament, the house resolved, that in impeachments they should proceed according to the laws of the land, and the law and usage of parliament. On the sixteenth day of the month, the queen being in the house incognita, they proceeded to consider whether or not the commons had made good the articles exhibited against Dr. Sacheverel. The earl of Wharton observed, that the doctor’s speech was a full confutation and condemnation of his sermon: that all he had advanced about non-resistance and unlimited obedience was false and ridiculous: that the doctrine of passive obedience, as urged by the doctor, was not reconcileable to the practice of churchmen: that if the revolution was not lawful, many in that house, and vast numbers without, were guilty of blood, murder, rapine, and injustice; and that the queen herself was no lawful sovereign, since the best title she had to the crown was her parliamentary title, founded upon the revolution. He was answered by the lord Haversham in a long speech. Lord Ferrers said, if the doctor was guilty of some foolish unguarded expressions, he ought to have been tried at common law. The earl of Scarborough observed, the revolution was a nice point, and above the law; he moved that they should adjourn the debate, and take time to consider before they gave judgment. Dr. Hooper, bishop of Bath and Wells, allowed the necessity and legality of resistance in some extraordinary cases; but was of opinion, that this maxim ought to be concealed from the knowledge of the people, who are naturally too apt to resist; that the revolution was not to be boasted of, or made a precedent; but that a mantle ought to be thrown over it, and it should be called a vacancy or abdication. He said the original compact were dangerous words, not to be mentioned without great caution; that those who examined the revolution too nicely were no friends to it; and that there seemed to be a necessity for preaching up non-resistance and passive obedience at that time, when resistance was justified. The duke of Argyle affirmed, that the clergy in all ages had delivered up the rights and privileges of the people, preaching up the king’s power, in order to govern him the more easily; and therefore they ought not to be suffered to meddle with politics. The earl of Anglesea owned the doctor had preached nonsense; but said, that was no crime. The duke of Leeds distinguished between resistance and revolution; for had not the last succeeded, it would have certainly been rebellion, since he knew of no other but hereditary right. The bishop of Salisbury justified resistance from the book of Maccabees; he mentioned the conduct of queen Elizabeth, who assisted the Scots, the French, and the states-general, in resisting their different sovereigns, and was supported in this practice both by her parliaments and her convocations. He observed that king Charles I. had assisted the citizens of Rochelle in their rebellion; that Manwayring incurred a severe censure from the parliament, for having broached the doctrine of the divine right of kings; and that though this became a favourite maxim after the restoration, yet its warmest asserters were the first who pleaded for resistance when they thought themselves oppressed. The archbishop of York, the duke of Buckingham, and other leaders of the tory interest, declared that they never read such a piece of madness and nonsense as Sacheverel’s sermon; but they did not think him guilty of a misdemeanor. Next day, Dr. Wake, bishop of Lincoln, accused Sacheverel of having made a strange and false representation of the design for a comprehension, which had been set on foot by archbishop Sancroft, and promoted by the most eminent divines of the church of England. He was of opinion that some step should be taken for putting a stop to such preaching, as, if not timely corrected, it might kindle heats and animosities that would endanger both church and state. Dr. Trimnel, bishop of Norwich, expatiated on the insolence of Sacheverel, who had arraigned archbishop Grindal, one of the eminent reformers, as a perfidious prelate, for having favoured and tolerated the discipline of Geneva. He enlarged upon the good effects of the toleration. He took notice of Sacheverel’s presumption in publishing inflammatory prayers, declaring himself under persecution, while he was prosecuted for offending against the law, by those who in common justice ought to be thought the fairest accusers, and before their lordships, who were justly acknowledged to be the most impartial judges. In discussing the fourth article, the bishop of Salisbury spoke with great vehemence against Sacheverel, who, by inveighing against the revolution, toleration, and union, seemed to arraign and attack the queen herself; since her majesty had so great a share in the first, had often declared she would maintain the second, and that she looked upon the third as the most glorious event of her reign. He affirmed that nothing could be more plain than the doctor’s reflecting upon her majesty’s ministers; and that he had so well marked out a noble peer there present, by an ugly and scurrilous epithet which he would not repeat, that it was not possible to mistake his meaning. Some of the younger peers could not help laughing at this undesigned sarcasm upon the lord-treasurer, whom Sacheverel had reviled under the name of Volpone; they exclaimed, “Name him, name him;” and in all probability the zealous bishop, who was remarkable for absence of mind and unguarded expressions, would have gratified their request, had not the chancellor, interposing, declared that no peer Was obliged to say more than he should think proper.

After obstinate disputes, and much virulent altercation, Sacheverel was found guilty by a majority of seventeen voices; and four-and-thirty peers entered a protest against this decision. He was prohibited from preaching for the term of three years: his two sermons were ordered to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, in presence of the lord mayor and the two sheriffs of London and Middlesex. The lords likewise voted that the executioner should commit to the same fire the famous decree passed in the convocation of the university of Oxford, asserting the absolute authority and indefeasible right of princes. A like sentence was denounced by the commons upon a book intituled, “Collections of Passages referred to by Dr. Sacheverel, in his Answer to the Articles of Impeachment.” These he had selected from impious books lately published, and they were read by his counsel, as proofs that the church was in danger. The lenity of the sentence passed upon Sacheverel, which was in a great measure owing to the dread of popular resentment, his friends considered as a victory obtained over a whig faction, and they celebrated their triumph with bonfires and illuminations.

{1710}

On the fifth day of April, the queen ordered the parliament to be prorogued, after having, in her speech to both houses, expressed her concern for the necessary occasion which had taken up great part of their time towards the latter end of the session. She declared that no prince could have a more true and tender concern for the welfare and prosperity of the church than she had, and should always have; and she said it was very injurious to take a pretence from wicked and malicious libels, to insinuate that the church was in danger by her administration.

CONFERENCES AT GERTRUYDENBURGH.

The French king, seeing the misery of his people daily increase, and all his resources fail, humbled himself again before the allies, and by the means of Petkum, who still corresponded with his ministers, implored the states-general that the negotiation might be resumed. In order to facilitate their consent, he despatched a new project of pacification, in which he promised to renounce his grandson, and to comply with all their other demands, provided the electors of Cologn and Bavaria should be re-established in their estates and dignities. These overtures being rejected, another plan was offered, and communicated to the plenipotentiaries of the emperor and queen of Great Britain. Then Petkum wrote a letter to the marquis de Torcy, intimating, that the allies required his most christian majesty should declare, in plain and expressive terms, that he consented to all the preliminaries, except the thirty-seventh article, which stipulated a cessation of arms, in case the Spanish monarchy should be delivered to king Charles in the space of two months. He said the allies would send passports to the French ministers, to treat of an equivalent for that article. Louis was even forced to swallow this bitter draught. He signified his consent, and appointed the mareschal D’Uxelles and the abbé Polignac his plenipotentiaries. They were not suffered, however, to enter Holland, but were met by the deputies Buys and Vanderdussen, at Gertruydenburgh. Meanwhile, the states desired the queen of England to send over the duke of Marlborough to assist them with his advice in these conferences. The two houses of parliament seconded their request in a joint address to her majesty, who told them she had already given directions for his departure; and said she was glad to find they concurred with her in a just sense of the duke’s eminent services. Both the letter and the addresses were procured by the interest of Marlborough, to let the queen see how much that nobleman was considered both at home and abroad. But she was already wholly alienated from him in her heart, and these expedients served only to increase her disgust.

PRIDE AND OBSTINACY OF THE DUTCH.

The French ministers were subjected to every species of mortification. They were in a manner confined to a small fortified town, and all their conduct narrowly watched. Their accommodation was mean: their letters were opened; and they were daily insulted by injurious libels. The Dutch deputies would hear of no relaxation, and no expedient for removing the difficulties that retarded the negotiation. In vain the plenipotentiaries declared, that the French king could not with decency, or the least regard to his honour, wage war against his own grandson: the deputies insisted upon his effecting the cession of Spain and the Indies to the house of Austria; and submitting to every other article specified in the preliminaries. Nay, they even reserved to them selves a power of making ulterior demands after the preliminaries should be adjusted. Louis proposed that some small provision should be made for the duke of Anjou, which might induce him to relinquish Spain the more easily. He mentioned the kingdom of Arragon; and this hint being disagreeable to the allies, he demanded Naples and Sicily. When they urged that Naples was already in possession of the house of Austria, he restricted the provision to Sicily and Sardinia. He offered to deliver up four cautionary towns in Flanders, as a security for Philip’s evacuating Spain; and even promised to supply the confederates with a monthly sum of money, to defray the expense of expelling that prince from his dominions, should he refuse to resign them with a good grace. The substance of all the conferences was communicated to lord Townshend, and count Kinzendorf, the Imperial plenipotentiary; but the conduct of the deputies was regulated by the pensionary Heinsius, who was firmly attached to prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough, more averse than ever to a pacification. The negotiation lasted from the nineteenth day of March to the twenty-fifth of July, during which term the conferences were several times interrupted, and a great many despatches and new proposals arrived from Versailles. At length the plenipotentiaries returned to France, after having sent a letter to the pensionary, in which they declared that the proposals made by the deputies were unjust and impracticable; and complained of the unworthy treatment to which they had been exposed. Louis resolved to hazard another campaign, not without hope that there might be some lucky incident in the events of war, and that the approaching revolution in the English ministry, of which he was well apprized, would be productive of a more reasonable pacification. The states-general resolved, that the enemy had departed from the foundation on which the negotiation had begun, and studied pretences to evade the execution of the capital points, the restitution of Spain and the Indies: and, in short, that France had no other view than to sow and create jealousy and disunion among the allies. Lord Townshend, in a memorial, assured them that the queen entirely approved their resolution, and all the steps they had taken in the course of the negotiation; and that she was firmly resolved to prosecute the war with all possible vigour, until the enemy should accept such terms of peace as might secure the tranquillity of the christian world.

DOUAY, BETHUNE, AIRE, &c. TAKEN BY THE CONFEDERATES.

The conferences did not retard the operation of the campaign. Prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough set out from the Hague on the fifteenth day of March for Tournay, in order to assemble the forces which were quartered on the Maese, in Flanders, and Brabant. On the twentieth of April, they suddenly advanced to Pont-a-Vendin, in order to attack the lines upon which the French had been at work all the winter, hoping by these to cover Douay and other frontier towns, which were threatened by the confederates. The troops left for the defence of the lines retired without opposition. The allies having laid bridges over the scarp, the duke of Marlborough with his division passed the river and encamped at Vitri. Prince Eugene remained on the other side and invested Douay, the enemy retiring towards Cambray. Mareschal Villars still commanded the French army, which was extremely numerous and well appointed, considering the distress of that kingdom. Indeed, the number was augmented by that distress; for many thousands saved themselves from dying of hunger, by carrying arms in the service. The mareschal having assembled all his forces, passed the Schelde, and encamped at Boucham, declaring that he would give battle to the confederates: an alteration was immediately made in the disposition of the allies, and proper precautions taken for his reception. He advanced in order of battle; but having viewed the situation of the confederates, he marched back to the heights of St. Lawrence, where he fixed his camp. His aim was, by continual alarms, to interrupt the siege of Douay, which was vigorously defended by a numerous garrison, under the command of monsieur Albergotti, who made a number of successful sallies, in which the besiegers lost a great number of men. They were likewise repulsed in several assaults; but still proceeded with unremitted vigour until the besieged, being reduced to the last extremity, were obliged to capitulate on the twenty-sixth of June, fifty days after the trenches had been opened. The generals finding it impracticable to attack the enemy, who were posted within strong lines from Arras towards Miramont, resolved to besiege Bethune, which was invested on the fifteenth day of July, and surrendered on the twenty-ninth of August. Villars marched out of his intrenchments with a view to raise the siege; but he did not think proper to hazard an engagement: some warm skirmishes, however, happened between the foragers of the two armies. After the reduction of Bethune, the allies besieged at one time the towns of Aire and St. Venant, which were taken without much difficulty. Then the armies broke up, and marched into winter quarters.

KING CHARLES, OBTAINING A VICTORY AT SARAGOSSA, ENTERS MADRID.

The campaign on the Rhine was productive of no military event; nor was anything of consequence transacted in Piedmont. The duke of Savoy being indisposed and out of humour, the command of the forces still continued vested in count Thaun, who endeavoured to pass the Alps, and penetrated into Dauphiné; but the duke of Berwick had cast up intrenchments in the mountains, and taken such precautions to guard them, as baffled all the attempts of the Imperial general. Spain was much more fruitful of military incidents. The horse and dragoons in the army of king Charles, headed by general Stanhope, attacked the whole cavalry of the enemy at Almennara. Stanhope charged in person, and with his own hand slew general Amessaga, who commanded the guards of Philip. The Spanish horse were entirely routed, together with nine battalions that escaped by favour of the darkness; and the main body of the army retired with precipitation to Lerida. General Starem-berg pursued them to Saragossa, where he found them drawn up in order of battle; and an engagement ensuing on the ninth day of August, the enemy were totally defeated: five thousand of their men were killed, seven thousand taken, together with all their artillery, and a great number of colours and standards. King Charles entered Saragossa in triumph, while Philip with the wreck of his army retreated to Madrid. Having sent his queen and son to Vittoria, he retired to Valladolid, in order to collect his scattered forces so as to form another army. The good fortune of Charles was of short duration. Stanhope proposed that he should immediately secure Pampeluna, the only pass by which the French king could send troops to Spain; but this salutary scheme was rejected. King Charles proceeded to Madrid, which was deserted by all the grandees; and he had the mortification to see that the Castilians were universally attached to his competitor.

BATTLE OF VILLAVICIOSA.

While his forces continued cantoned in the neighbourhood of Toleda, the king of France, at the request of Philip, sent the duke de Vendôme to take the command of the Spanish army, which was at the same time reinforced by detachments of French troops. Vendôme’s reputation was so high, and his person so beloved by the soldiery, that his presence was almost equivalent to an army. A great number of volunteers immediately assembled to signalize themselves under the eye of this renowned general. The Castilians were inspired with fresh courage, and made surprising efforts in favour of their sovereign; so that in less than three months after his defeat at Saragossa, he was in a condition to go in quest of his rival. Charles, on the other hand, was totally neglected by the courts of Vienna and Great Britain, which took no steps to supply his wants, or enable him to prosecute the advantages he had gained. In the beginning of November his army marched back to Saragossa, and was cantoned in the neighbourhood of Cifuentes, where Staremberg established his head-quarters. General Stanhope, with the British forces, was quartered in the little town of Brihuega, where, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, he found himself suddenly surrounded by the whole Spanish army. As the place was not tenable, and he had very little ammunition, he was obliged, after a short but vigorous resistance, to capitulate and surrender himself and all his forces prisoners of war, to the amount of two thousand men, including three lieutenant-generals, one major-general, one brigadier, with all the colonels and officers of the respective regiments. He was greatly censured for having allowed himself to be surprised; for if he had placed a guard upon the neighbouring hills, according to the advice of general Carpenter, he might have received notice of the enemy’s approach in time enough to retire to Cifuentes. Thither he had detached his aide-camp with an account of his situation on the appearance of the Spanish army; and Staremberg immediately assembled his forces. About eleven in the forenoon, they began to march towards Brihuega; but the roads were so bad that night overtook them before they, reached the heights in the neighbourhood of that place. Staremberg is said to have loitered away his time unnecessarily, from motives of envy to the English general, who had surrendered before his arrival. The troops lay all night on their arms near Villaviciosa, and on the twenty-ninth were attacked by the enemy, who doubled their number. Staremberg’s left wing was utterly defeated, all the infantry that composed it having been either cut in pieces or taken; but the victors instead of following up the blow began to plunder the baggage; and Staremberg with his right wing fought their left with surprising valour and perseverance till night. Then they retired in disorder, leaving him master of the field of battle and of all their artillery. Six thousand of the enemy were killed on the spot; but the allies had suffered so severely that the general could not maintain his ground. He ordered the cannon to be nailed up, and marched to Saragossa, from whence he retired to Catalonia. Thither he was pursued by the duke de Vendôme, who reduced Belaguer, in which he had left a garrison, and compelled him to take shelter under the walls of Barcelona. At this period the duke de Noailles invested Gironne, which he reduced notwithstanding the severity of the weather; so that Philip, from a fugitive, became in three months absolute master of the whole Spanish monarchy, except the province of Catalonia, and even that lay open to his incursions. Nothing of consequence was achieved on the side of Portugal, from whence the earl of Galway returned to England by the queen’s permission. The operations of the British fleet, during this summer, were so inconsiderable as scarce to deserve notice. Sir John Norris commanded in the Mediterranean, and with a view to support the Camisars, who were in arms in the Cevennois, sailed to Port Cette, within a league of Marseilles, and at the distance of fifteen from the insurgents. The place surrendered, without opposition, to about seven hundred men that landed under the command of major-general Suissan, a native of Languedoc. He likewise made himself master of the town and castle of Eyde; but the duke de Noailles advancing with a body of forces to join the duke de Roquelaire, who commanded in those parts, the English abandoned their conquests, and re-embarked with precipitation. After the battle of Poultowa the czar of Muscovy reduced all Livonia; but he and king Augustus agreed to a neutrality for Pomerania. The king of Sweden continued at Bender, and the grand seignor interested himself so much in favour of that prince, as to declare war against the emperor of Russia. Hostilities were carried on between the Swedish and Danish fleets with various success. The malcontents in Hungary sustained repeated losses during the summer; but they were encouraged to maintain the war by the rupture between the Ottoman Porte and Russia. They were flattered with hopes of auxiliaries from the Turks; and expected engineers and money from the French monarch.

{ANNE, 1701--1714}

THE WHIG MINISTRY DISGRACED.

In England, the effects of those intrigues which had been formed against the whig ministers began to appear. The trial of Sacheverel had excited a popular spirit of aversion to those who favoured the dissenters. From all parts of the kingdom addresses were presented to the queen, censuring all resistance as a rebellious doctrine, founded upon anti-monarchial and republican principles. At the same time counter-addresses were procured by the whigs, extolling the revolution and magnifying the conduct of the present parliament. The queen began to express her attachment to the tories, by mortifying the duke of Marlborough. Upon the death of the earl of Essex, she wrote to the general desiring that the regiment which had been commanded by that nobleman should be given to Mr. Hill, brother to Mrs. Masham, who had supplanted the duchess of Marlborough in the queen’s friendship, and was, in effect, the source of this political revolution. The duke represented to her majesty in person, the prejudice that would redound to the service from the promotion of such a young officer over the heads of a great many brave men, who had exhibited repeated proofs of valour and capacity. He expostulated with his sovereign on this extraordinary mark of partial regard to the brother of Mrs. Masham, which he could not help considering as a declaration against himself and his family, who had so much cause to complain of that lady’s malice and ingratitude. To this remonstrance the queen made no other reply, but that he would do well to consult his friends. The earl of Godolphin enforced his friend’s arguments, though without effect; and the duke retired in disgust to Windsor. The queen appeared at council without taking the least notice of his absence, which did not fail to alarm the whole whig faction. Several noblemen ventured to speak to her majesty on the subject, and explain the bad consequences of disobliging a man who had done such eminent services to the nation. She told them his services were still fresh in her memory; and that she retained all her former kindness for his person. Hearing, however, that a popular clamour was raised, and that the house of commons intended to pass some votes that would be disagreeable to her and her new counsellors, she ordered the earl of Godolphin to write to the duke to dispose of the regiment as he should think proper, and return to town immediately. Before he received this intimation, he had sent a letter to the queen desiring she would permit him to retire from business. In answer to this petition, she assured him his suspicions were groundless, and insisted upon his coming to council. The duchess demanded an audience of her majesty, on pretence of vindicating her own character from some aspersions. She hoped to work upon the queen’s tenderness, and retrieve the influence she had lost. She protested, argued, wept, and supplicated; but the queen was too well pleased with her own deliverance from the tyranny of the other’s friendship, to incur such slavery for the future. All the humiliation of the duchess served only to render herself the more contemptible. The queen heard her without exhibiting the least sign of emotion, and all she would vouchsafe, was a repetition of these words--“You desired no answer, and you shall have none;” alluding to an expression in a letter she had received from the duchess. As an additional mortification to the ministry, the office of lord chamberlain was transferred from the duke of Kent to the duke of Shrewsbury, who had lately voted with the tories, and maintained an intimacy of correspondence with Mr. Harley. The interest of the duke of Marlborough was not even sufficient to prevent the dismissal of his own son-in-law, the earl of Sunderland, from the post of secretary of state, in which he was succeeded by lord Dartmouth.

The queen was generally applauded for thus asserting her just prerogative, and setting herself free from an arbitrary cabal, by which she had been so long kept in dependence. The duke of Beaufort went to court on this occasion, and told her majesty he was extremely glad that he could now salute her queen in reality. The whole whig party were justly alarmed at these alterations. The directors of the bank represented to her majesty the prejudice that would undoubtedly accrue to public credit from a change of the ministry. The emperor and the states-general interposed in this domestic revolution. Their ministers at London presented memorials, explaining in what manner foreign affairs would be influenced by an alteration in the British ministry. The queen assured them, that, whatever changes might be made, the duke of Marlborough should be continued in his employments. In the month of August the earl of Godolphin was divested of his office, and the treasury put in commission, subjected to the direction of Harley, appointed chancellor of the exchequer and under-treasurer. The earl of Rochester was declared president of the council in the room of lord Somers; the staff of lord steward being taken from the duke of Devonshire, was given to the duke of Buckingham; and Mr. Boyle was removed from the secretary’s office to make way for Mr. Henry St. John. The lord chancellor having resigned the great seal, it was first put in commission, and afterwards given to sir Simon Harcourt. The earl of Wharton surrendered his commission of lord-lieutenant of Ireland, which the queen conferred on the duke of Ormond. The earl of Orford withdrew himself from the board of admiralty; and Mr. George Granville was appointed secretary of war in the room of Mr. Eobert Walpole. The command of the forces in Portugal was bestowed upon the earl of Portmore; the duke of Hamilton was appointed lord-lieutenant of the county palatine of Lancaster. In a word, there was not one whig left in any office of state, except the duke of Marlborough, who would have renounced his command, had not he been earnestly dissuaded by his particular friends from taking such a step as might have been prejudicial to the interests of the nation. That the triumph of the tories might be complete, the queen dissolved the whig parliament, after such precautions were taken as could not fail to influence the new election in favour of the other party.

To this end nothing so effectually contributed as did the trial of Sacheverel, who was used as an instrument and tool to wind and turn the passions of the vulgar. Having been presented to a benefice in North Wales, he went in procession to that country with all the pomp and magnificence of a sovereign prince. He was sumptuously entertained by the university of Oxford, and different noblemen, who, while they worshipped him as the idol of their faction, could not help despising the object of their adoration. He was received in several towns by the magistrates of the corporation in their formalities, and often attended by a body of a thousand horse. At Bridgenorth he was met by Mr. Creswell, at the head of four thousand horse, and the like number of persons on foot, wearing white knots edged with gold, and three leaves of gilt laurel in their hats. The hedges were for two miles dressed with garlands of flowers, and lined with people; and the steeples covered with streamers, flags, and colours. Nothing was heard but the cry of “The church and Dr. Sacheverel.” The clergy were actuated by a spirit of enthusiasm, which seemed to spread like a contagion through all ranks and degrees of people, and had such an effect upon the elections for the new parliament, that very few were returned as members but such as had distinguished themselves by their zeal against the whig administration. Now the queen had the pleasure to see all the offices of state, the lieutenancy of London, the management of corporations, and the direction of both houses of parliament, in the hands of the tories. When these met on the twenty-fifth day of November, Mr. Bromley was chosen speaker without opposition. The queen, in her speech, recommended the prosecution of the war with vigour, especially in Spain. She declared herself resolved to support the church of England; to preserve the British constitution according to the union; to maintain the indulgence by law allowed to scrupulous consciences; and to employ none but such as were heartily attached to the protestant succession in the house of Hanover. The lords, in their address, promised to concur in all reasonable measures towards procuring an honourable peace. The commons were more warm and hearty in their assurances, exhorting her majesty to discountenance all such principles and measures as had lately threatened her royal crown and dignity--measures which, whenever they might prevail, would prove fatal to the whole constitution, both in church and state. After this declaration they proceeded to consider the estimates, and cheerfully granted the supplies for the ensuing year, part of which was raised by two lotteries. In the house of peers, the earl of Scarborough moved that the thanks of the house should be returned to the duke of Marlborough; but the duke of Argyle made some objections to* the motion, and the general’s friends, dreading the consequence of putting the question, postponed the consideration of this proposal until the duke should return from the continent. The earl of Peterborough was appointed ambassador-extraordinary to the Imperial court; the earl of Rivers was sent in the same quality to Hanover; Mr. Richard Hill was nominated envoy-extraordinary to the United Provinces, as well as to the council of state appointed for the government of the Spanish Netherlands, in the room of lieutenant-general Cadogan. Meredith, Macartney, and Honey wood, were deprived of their regiments, because in their cups they had drank confusion to the enemies of the duke of Marlborough.

DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH INSULTED.

This nobleman arrived in England towards the latter end of December. He conferred about half an hour in private with the queen, and next morning assisted at a committee of the privy-council. Her majesty give him to understand that he needed not expect the thanks of the parliament as formerly; and told him she hoped he would live well with her ministers. He expressed no resentment at the alterations which had been made; but resolved to acquiesce in the queen’s pleasure, and retain the command of the army on her own terms. On the second day of January, the queen sent a message to both houses, intimating that there had been an action in Spain to the disadvantage of king Charles; that the damage having fallen

## particularly on the English forces, she had given directions for sending

and procuring troops to repair their loss, and hoped the parliament would approve her conduct. Both houses seized this opportunity of venting their spleen against the old ministry. The history of England is disgraced by the violent conduct of two turbulent factions, which, in their turn, engrossed the administration and legislative power. The parliamentary strain was quite altered. One can hardly conceive how resolutions so widely different could be taken on the same subject, with any shadow of reason and decorum. Marlborough, who but a few months before had been so highly extolled and caressed by the representatives of the people, was now become the object of parliamentary hatred and censure, though no sensible alteration had happened in his conduct or success. That hero, who had retrieved the glory of the British arms, won so many battles, subdued such a number of towns and districts, humbled the pride and checked the ambition of France, secured the liberty of Europe, and, as it were, chained victory to his chariot wheels, was in a few weeks dwindled into an object of contempt and derision. He was ridiculed in public libels, and reviled in private conversation. Instances were every where repeated of his fraud, warice, and extortion; his insolence, cruelty, ambition, and misconduct; even his courage was called in question; and this consummate general was represented as the lowest of mankind. So unstable is the popularity of every character that fluctuates between two opposite tides of faction.

INQUIRY INTO THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR IN SPAIN.

The lords, in their answer to the queen’s message, declared, that as the misfortune in Spain might have been occasioned by some preceding mismanagement, they would use their utmost endeavours to discover it, so as to prevent the like for the future. They set on foot an inquiry concerning the affairs of Spain; and the earl of Peterborough being examined before the committee, imputed all the miscarriages in the course of that war to the earl of Galway and general Stanhope. Notwithstanding the defence of Galway, which was clear and convincing, the house resolved, that the earl of Peterborough had given a faithful and honourable account of the councils of war in Valencia: that the earl of Galway, lord Tyrawley, and general Stanhope, in advising an offensive war, had been the unhappy occasion of the battle of Almanza, the source of our misfortunes in Spain, and one great cause of the disappointment of the expedition to Toulon, concerted with her majesty. They voted that the prosecution of an offensive war in Spain was approved and directed by the ministers, who were therefore justly blameable, as having contributed to all our misfortunes in Spain, and to the disappointment of the expedition against Toulon; that the earl of Peterborough, during his command in Spain, had performed many great and eminent services; and if his opinion had been followed, it might have prevented the misfortunes that ensued. Then the duke of Buckingham moved, that the thanks of the house should be given to the earl for his remarkable and eminent services; and these he actually received from the mouth of the lord-keeper Harcourt, who took this opportunity to drop some oblique reflections upon the mercenary disposition of the duke of Marlborough. The house, proceeding in the inquiry, passed another vote, importing, that the late ministry had been negligent in managing the Spanish war, to the great prejudice of the nation. Finding that the Portuguese troops were posted on the right of the English at the battle of Almanza, they re solved, that the earl of Galway, in yielding this point, had acted contrary to the honour of the imperial crown of Great Britain. These resolutions they included in an address to the queen, who had been present during the debates, which were extremely violent; and to every separate vote was attached a severe protest. These were not the proceedings of candour and national justice, but the ebullitions of party zeal and rancorous animosity.

While the lords were employed in this inquiry, the commons examined certain abuses which had crept into the management of the navy; and some censures were passed upon certain persons concerned in contracts for victualling the seamen. The inhabitants of St. Olave’s and other parishes presented a petition, complaining that a great number of Palatines, inhabiting one house, might produce among them a contagious distemper; and in time become a charge to the public, as they were destitute of all visible means of subsistence. This petition had been procured by the tories, that the house of commons might have another handle for attacking the late ministry. A committee was appointed to inquire upon what invitation or encouragement those Palatines had come to England. The papers relating to this affair being laid before them by the queen’s order, and perused, the house resolved, that the inviting and bringing over the poor Palatines of all religions, at the public expense, was an extravagant and unreasonable charge to the kingdom, and a scandalous misapplication of the public money, tending to the increase and oppression of the poor, and of dangerous consequence to the constitution in church and state; and that whoever advised their being brought over was an enemy to the queen and kingdom. Animated by the heat of this inquiry, they passed the bill to repeal the act for a general naturalization of all protestants; but this was rejected in the house of lords. Another bill was enacted into a law, importing, that no person should be deemed qualified for representing a county in parliament, unless he possessed an estate of six hundred pounds a-year; and restricting the qualification of burgess to half that sum. The design of this bill was to exclude trading people from the house of commons, and to lodge the legislative power with the land-holders. A third act passed, permitting the importation of French wine in neutral bottoms: a bill against which the whigs loudly exclaimed, as a national evil, and a scandalous compliment to the enemy.

HARLEY STABBED AT THE COUNCIL BOARD.

A violent party in the house of commons began to look upon Harley as a lukewarm tory, because he would not enter precipitately into all their factious measures; they even began to suspect his principles, when his credit was re-established by a very singular accident. Guiscard, the French partisan, of whom mention hath already been made, thought himself very ill rewarded for his services, with a precarious pension of four hundred pounds, which he enjoyed from the queen’s bounty. He had been renounced by St. John, the former companion of his pleasures; he had in vain endeavoured to obtain an audience of the queen, with a view to demand more considerable appointments. Harley was his enemy, and all access to her majesty was denied. Enraged at these disappointments, he attempted to make his peace with the court of France, and offered his services, in a letter to one Moreau, a banker in Paris. This packet, which he endeavoured to transmit by the way of Portugal, was intercepted, and a warrant issued out to apprehend him for high-treason. When the messenger disarmed him in St. James’s Park, he exhibited marks of guilty confusion and despair, and begged that he would kill him directly. Being conveyed to the cockpit, in a sort of frenzy, he perceived a penknife lying upon a table, and took it up without being perceived by the attendants. A committee of council was immediately summoned, and Guiscard brought before them to be examined. Finding that his correspondence with Moreau was discovered, he desired to speak in private with secretary St. John, whom in all probability he had resolved to assassinate. His request being refused, he said, “That’s hard! not one word!” St. John being out of his reach, he stepped up to Mr. Harley, and exclaiming, “Have at thee, then!” stabbed him in the breast with the penknife which he had concealed. The instrument broke upon the bone, without penetrating into the cavity; nevertheless he repeated the blow with such force that the chancellor of the exchequer fell to the ground. Secretary St. John, seeing him fall, cried out, “The villain has killed Mr. Harley!” and drew his sword. Several other members followed his example, and wounded Guiscard in several places. Yet he made a desperate defence, until he was overpowered by the messengers and servants, and conveyed from the council-chamber, which he had filled with terror, tumult, and confusion. His wounds, though dangerous, were not mortal; but he died of a gangrene occasioned by the bruises he had sustained. This attempt upon the life of Harley, by a person who wanted to establish a traitorous correspondence with France, extinguished the suspicions of those who began to doubt that minister’s integrity. The two houses of parliament, in an address to the queen, declared their belief that Mr. Harley’s fidelity to her majesty, and zeal for her service, had drawn upon him the hatred of all the abettors of popery and faction. They besought her majesty to take all possible care of her sacred person; and, for that purpose, to give directions for causing papists to be removed from the cities of London and Westminster. A proclamation was published, ordering the laws to be strictly put in execution against papists. When Harley appeared in the house of commons after his recovery, he was congratulated upon it by the speaker, in a florid and fulsome premeditated speech. An act was passed, decreeing, that an attempt upon the life of a privy-counsellor should be felony without benefit of clergy. The earl of Rochester dying, Harley became sole minister, was created baron of Wigmore, and raised to the rank of earl by the noble and ancient title of Oxford and Mortimer: to crown his prosperity, he was appointed lord-treasurer, and vested with the supreme administration of affairs.

DEATH OF THE EMPEROR JOSEPH.

The commons empowered certain persons to examine all the grants made by king William, and report the value of them, as well as the considerations upon which they were made. Upon their report a bill was formed and passed that house; but the lords rejected it at the first reading. Their next step was to examine the public accounts, with a view to fix an imputation on the earl of Godolphin. They voted that above five-and-thirty millions of the money granted by parliament remained unaccounted for. This sum, however, included some accounts in the reigns of king Charles and king William. One half of the whole was charged to Mr. Bridges, the pay-master, who had actually accounted for all the money he had received, except about three millions, though these accounts had not passed through the auditor’s office. The commons afterwards proceeded to inquire into the debts of the navy, that exceeded five millions, which, with many other debts, were thrown into one stock, amounting to nine millions four hundred and seventy-one thousand three hundred and twenty-five pounds. A fund was formed for paying an interest or annuity of six per cent, until the principal should be discharged; and with this was granted a monopoly of a projected trade in the South Sea, vested in the proprietors of navy-bills, debentures, and other public securities, which were incorporated for this purpose. Such was the origin of the South Sea Company, founded upon a chimerical supposition that the English would be permitted to trade upon the coast of Peru in the West Indies. Perhaps the new ministry hoped to obtain this permission, as an equivalent for their abandoning the interest of king Charles, with respect to his pretensions upon Spain. By this time the emperor Joseph had died of the small-pox without male issue; so that his brother’s immediate aim was to succeed him on the Imperial throne. This event was, on the twentieth day of April, communicated by a message from the queen to both houses. She told them that the states-general had concurred with her in a resolution to support the house of Austria; and that they had already taken such measures as would secure the election of Charles as head of the empire.

The house of commons, in order to demonstrate their attachment to the church, in consequence of an address from the lower house of convocation, and a quickening message from the queen, passed a bill for building fifty new churches in the suburbs of London and Westminster, and appropriated for this purpose the duty upon coals, which had been granted for the building of St. Paul’s, now finished. This imposition was continued until it should raise the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. At the close of the session, the commons presented a remonstrance or representation to the queen, in which they told her that they had not only raised the necessary supplies, but also discharged the heavy debts of which the nation had so long and justly complained. They said that, in tracing the causes of this debt, they had discovered fraud, embezzlement, and misapplication of the public money; that they who of late years had the management of the treasury, were guilty of a notorious breach of trust and injustice to the nation, in allowing above thirty millions to remain unaccounted for; a purposed omission that looked like a design to conceal embezzlements. They begged her majesty would give immediate directions for compelling the several imprest accountants speedily to pass their accounts. They expressed their hope that such of the accountants as had neglected their duty in prosecuting their accounts, ought no longer to be intrusted with the public money. They affirmed, that from all these evil practices and worse designs of some persons, who had, by false professions of love to their country, insinuated themselves into her royal favour, irreparable mischief would have accrued to the public, had not her majesty, in her great wisdom, seasonably discovered the fatal tendency of such measures, and removed from the administration those who had so ill answered her majesty’s favourable opinion, and in so many instances grossly abused the trust reposed in them. They observed, that her people could with greater patience have suffered the manifold injuries done to themselves, by the frauds and depredations of such evil ministers, had not the same men proceeded to treat her sacred person with undutifulness and disregard. This representation being circulated through the kingdom, produced the desired effect of inflaming the minds of the people against the late ministry. Such expedients were become necessary for the execution of Oxford’s project, which was to put a speedy end to a war that had already subjected the people to grievous oppression, and even accumulated heavy burdens to be transmitted to their posterity. The nation was inspired by extravagant ideas of glory and conquest, even to a rage of war-making; so that the new ministers, in order to dispel those dangerous chimeras, were obliged to take measures for exciting their indignation and contempt against those persons whom they had formerly idolized as their heroes and patriots. On the twelfth day of June, the queen, having given the royal assent to several public and private bills, made an affectionate speech to both houses. She thanked the commons, in the warmest expressions, for having complied with all her desires; for having baffled the expectations of her enemies in finding supplies for the service of the ensuing year; in having granted greater sums than were ever given to any prince in one session; and in having settled funds for the payment of the public debts, so that the credit of the nation was restored. She expressed her earnest concern for the succession of the house of Hanover; and her fixed resolution to support and encourage the church of England as by law established. Then the parliament was prorogued.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE CONVOCATION.

Of the convocation which was assembled with the new parliament, the lower house chose Dr. Atterbury their prolocutor. He was an enterprising ecclesiastic, of extensive learning, acute talents, violently attached to tory principles, and intimately connected with the prime minister Oxford; so that he directed all the proceedings in the lower house of convocation in concert with that minister. The queen, in a letter to the archbishop, signified her hope that the consultations of the clergy might be of use to repress the attempts of loose and profane persons. She sent a license under the broad seal, empowering them to sit and do business in as ample a manner as ever had been granted since the reformation. They were ordered to lay before the queen an account of the excessive growth of infidelity and heresy, as well as of other abuses, that necessary measures might be taken for a reformation. The bishops were purposely slighted and overlooked, because they had lived in harmony with the late ministers. A committee being appointed to draw up a representation of the present state of the church and religion, Atterbury undertook the task, and composed a remonstrance that contained the most keen and severe strictures upon the administration, as it had been exercised since the time of the revolution. Another was penned by the bishops in more moderate terms; and several regulations were made, but in none of these did the two houses agree. They concurred, however, in censuring some tenets favouring Arianism, broached and supported by Mr. Whiston, mathematical professor in Cambridge. He had been expelled the university, and wrote a vindication of himself, dedicated to the convocation. The archbishop doubted whether this assembly could proceed against a man for heresy: the judges were consulted, and the majority of them gave in their opinion that the convocation had a jurisdiction. Four of them professed the contrary sentiment, which they maintained from the statutes made at the reformation. The queen, in a letter to the bishops, said, that as there was now no doubt of their jurisdiction, she expected that they would proceed in the matter before them. Fresh scruples arising, they determined to examine the book, without proceeding against the author, and this was censured accordingly. An extract of the sentence was sent to the queen; but she did not signify her pleasure on this subject, and the affair remained in suspense. Whiston published a work in four volumes, justifying his doctrine, and maintaining that the apostolical constitutions were not only canonical, but also preferable in point of authority to the epistles and the gospels.

{ANNE, 1701--1714}

THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH CONTINUES TO COMMAND THE ALLIED ARMY.

The new ministry had not yet determined to supersede the duke of Marlborough in the command of the army. This was a step which could not be taken without giving umbrage to the Dutch and other allies. He therefore set out for Holland in the month of February, after the queen had assured him that he might depend upon the punctual payment of the forces. Having conferred with the deputies of the states about the operations of the campaign, he, about the middle of April, assembled the army at Orchies, between Lisle and Douay; while mareschal de Villars drew together the French troops in the neighbourhood of Cambray and Arras. Louis had by this time depopulated as well as impoverished his kingdom; yet his subjects still flocked to his standard with surprising spirit and attachment. Under the pressure of extreme misery they uttered not one complaint of their sovereign; but imputed all their calamities to the pride and obstinacy of the allies. Exclusive of all the other impositions that were laid upon that people, they consented to pay the tenth penny of their whole substance; but all their efforts of loyalty and affection to their prince would have been ineffectual, had not the merchants of the kingdom, by the permission of Philip, undertaken repeated voyages to the South Sea, from whence they brought home immense treasures; while the allies took no steps for intercepting these supplies, though nothing could have been more easy for the English than to deprive the enemy of this great resource, and convert it to their own advantage. Had a squadron of ships been annually employed for this purpose, the subjects of France and Spain must have been literally starved, and Louis obliged to submit to such terms as the confederates might have thought proper to impose. Villars had found means to assemble a very numerous army, with which he encamped behind the river Sanset, in such an advantageous post as could not be attacked with any prospect of success. Meanwhile the duke of Marlborough passed the Scarpe, and formed his camp between Douay and Bouchain, where he was joined by prince Eugene on the twenty-third day of May. This general, however, did not long remain in the Netherlands. Understanding that detachments had been made from the army of Villars to the Rhine, and that the elector of Bavaria intended to act in the empire, the prince, by order from the court of Vienna, marched towards the upper Rhine with the Imperial and Palatine troops, to secure Germany. The Duke of Marlborough repassing the Scarpe, encamped in the plains of Lens, from whence he advanced towards Aire, as if he had intended to attack the French lines in that quarter. These lines beginning at Bouchain on the Schelde, were continued along the Sanset and the Scarpe to Arras, and thence along the Upper Scarpe to Canché. They were defended by redoubts and other works in such a manner, that Villars judged they were impregnable, and called them the _Ne plus ultra_ of Marlborough.

This nobleman advancing within two leagues of the French lines, ordered a great number of fascines to be made, declaring he would attack them the next morning; so that Villars drew all his forces on that side, in full expectations of an engagement. The duke, on the supposition that the passage of the Sanset by Arleux would be left unguarded, had ordered the generals Cadogan and Hompesch to assemble twenty battalions and seventeen squadrons from Douay and the neighbouring garrisons, to march to Arleux, where they should endeavour to pass the Sanset. Brigadier Sutton was detached with the artillery and pontoons, to lay bridges over the canal near Groulezen and over the Scarpe at Vitry, while the duke with the whole confederate army began his march for the same place about nine in the evening. He proceeded with such expedition, that by five in the morning he passed the river at Vitry. There he received intelligence that Hompesch had taken possession of the passes on the Sanset and Schelde without opposition, the enemy having withdrawn their detachments from that side just as he had imagined. He himself, with his vanguard of fifty squadrons, hastened his march towards Arleux, and before eight of the clock arrived at Bacá-Bachuel, where in two hours he was joined by the heads of the columns into which he hadj divided his infantry. Villars being certified of his intention, about two in the morning decamped with his whole army, and putting himself at the head of the king’s household troops, marched all night with such expedition, that about eleven in the forenoon he was in sight of the duke of Marlborough, who had by this time joined count Hompesch. The French general immediately retreated to the main body of his army, which had advanced to the high road between Arras and Cambray, while the allies encamped upon the Schelde, between Oisy and Estrun, after a march of ten leagues without halting, scarce to be paralleled in history. By this plan, so happily executed, the duke of Marlborough fairly outwitted Villars, and, without the loss of one man, entered the lines which he had pronounced impregnable. This stroke of the English general was extolled as a masterpiece of military skill, while Villars was exposed to the ridicule even of his own officers. The field-deputies of the states-general proposed that he should give battle to the enemy, who passed the Schelde at Crevecoeur in order to cover Bouchain; but the duke would not hazard an engagement, considering how much the army was fatigued by the long march; and that any misfortune, while they continued within the French lines, might be fatal. His intention was to besiege Bouchain; an enterprise that was deemed impracticable, inasmuch as the place was situated in a morass, strongly fortified, and defended by a numerous garrison, in the neighbourhood of an army superior in number to that of the allies. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, and the dissuasions of his own friends, he resolved to undertake the siege; and, in the meantime, despatched brigadier Sutton to England with an account of his having passed the French lines; which was not at all agreeable to his enemies. They had prognosticated that nothing would be done during this campaign, and began to insinuate that the duke could strike no stroke of importance without the assistance of prince Eugene. They now endeavoured to lessen the glory of his success; and even taxed him with having removed his camp from a convenient situation to a place where the troops were in danger of starving. Nothing could be more provoking than this scandalous malevolence to a great man who had done so much honour to his country, and was then actually exposing his life in her service.

BOUCHAIN REDUCED.

On the tenth day of August Bouchain was invested, and the duke of Marlborough exerted himself to the utmost extent of his vigilance and capacity, well knowing the difficulties of the undertaking, and how much his reputation would depend upon his success. Villars had taken every precaution that his skill and experience could suggest, to baffle the endeavours of the English general. He had reinforced the garrison to the number of six thousand chosen men, commanded by officers of known courage and ability. He made some efforts to raise the siege; but they were rendered ineffectual by the consummate prudence and activity of the duke of Marlborough. Then he laid a scheme for surprising Douay, which likewise miscarried. If we consider that the English general, in the execution of his plan, was obliged to form lines, erect regular forts, raise batteries, throw bridges over a river, make a causeway through a deep morass, provide for the security of convoys against a numerous army on the one side, and the garrisons of Condé and Valenciennes on the other, we must allow this was the boldest enterprise of the whole war; that it required all the fortitude, skill, and resolution of a great general, and all the valour and intrepidity of the confederate troops, who had scarce ever exhibited such amazing proofs of courage upon any other occasion as they now displayed at the siege of Bouchain. In twenty days after the trenches were opened, the garrison were obliged to surrender themselves prisoners of war; and this conquest was the last military exploit performed by the duke of Marlborough: the breaches of Bouchain were no sooner repaired than the opposite armies began to separate, and the allied forces were quartered in the frontier towns, that they might be at hand to take the field early in the spring. They were now in possession of the Maese, almost as far as the Sambre; of the Schelde from Tournay; and of the Lys as far as it is navigable. They had reduced Spanish Guelderland, Limburg, Brabant, Flanders, and the greatest part of Hainault; they were masters of the Scarpe; and by the conquest of Bouchain, they had opened to themselves a way into the very bowels of France. All these acquisitions were owing to the valour and conduct of the duke of Marlborough, who now returned to the Hague, and arrived in England about the middle of November.

DUKE OF ARGYLE COMMANDS THE BRITISH TROOPS IN SPAIN.

The queen had conferred the command of her forces in Spain upon the duke of Argyle, who was recalled from the service in Flanders for that purpose. He had long been at variance with the duke of Marlborough; a circumstance which recommended him the more strongly to the ministry. He landed at Barcelona on the twenty-ninth of May, and found the British troops in the utmost distress for want of subsistence. The treasurer had promised to supply him liberally; the commons had granted one million five hundred thousand pounds for that service. All their hopes of success were fixed on the campaign in that kingdom; and indeed the army commanded by the duke de Vendôme was in such a wretched condition, that if Staremberg had been properly supported by the allies, he might have obtained signal advantages. The duke of Argyle, having waited in vain for the promised remittances, was obliged, to borrow money on his own credit, before the British troops could take the field. At length Staremberg advanced towards the enemy, who attacked him at the pass of Prato del Key, where they were repulsed with considerable damage. After this action the duke of Argyle was seized with a violent fever, and conveyed back to Barcelona. Vendôme invested the castle of Cardona, which was vigorously defended till the end of December, when a detachment being sent to the relief of the place, defeated the besiegers, killed two thousand on the spot, and took all their artillery, ammunition, and baggage. Staremberg was unable to follow the blow; the duke of Argyle wrote pressing letters to the ministry, and loudly complained that he was altogether unsupported; but all his remonstrances were ineffectual: no remittances arrived; and he returned to England without having been able to attempt any thing of importance. In September, king Charles, leaving his queen at Barcelona, set sail for Italy, and at Milan had an interview with the duke of Savoy, where all disputes were compromised. That prince had forced his way into Savoy and penetrated as far as the Rhine; but he suddenly halted in the middle of his career, and after a short campaign repassed the mountains. Prince Eugene, at the head of the German forces, protected the electors at Frankfort from the designs of the enemy, and Charles was unanimously chosen emperor; the electors of Cologn and Bavaria having been excluded from voting, because they lay under the ban of the empire. The war between the Ottoman Porte and the Muscovites was of short duration. The czar advanced so far into Moldavia, that he was cut off from all supplies, and altogether in the power of his enemy. In this emergency, he found means to corrupt the grand vizier in private, while in public he proposed articles of peace that were accepted. The king of Sweden, who was in the Turkish army, charged the vizier with treachery, and that minister was actually disgraced. The grand seignor threatened to renew the war; but he was appeased by the czar’s surrendering Azoph.

EXPEDITION TO CANADA.

The English ministry had conceived great expectations from an expedition against Quebec and Placentia, in North America, planned by colonel Nicholson, who had taken possession of Nova Scotia, and garrisoned Porte Royal, to which he gave the name of Anapolis. He had brought four Indian chiefs to England, and represented the advantages that would redound to the nation in point of commerce, should the French be expelled from North America. The ministers relished the proposal. A body of five thousand men was embarked in transports, under the command of brigadier Hill, brother to Mrs. Masham; and they sailed from Plymouth in the beginning of May, with a strong squadron of ships commanded by sir Hovenden Walker. At Boston in New England, they were joined by two regiments of provincials; and about four thousand men, consisting of American planters, Palatines, and Indians, rendezvoused at Albany, in order to march by land into Canada, while the fleet sailed up the river of that name. On the twenty-first day of August they were exposed to a violent storm, and driven among rocks, where eight transports perished, with about eight hundred men. The admiral immediately sailed back to Spanish-river bay, where it was determined, in a council of war, that as the fleet and forces were victualled for ten weeks only, and they could not depend upon a supply of provisions from New England, they should return home without making any further attempt. Such was the issue of this paltry expedition, intrusted to the direction of an officer without talents and experience.

In the Irish parliament held during the summer, the duke of Ormond and the majority of the peers supported the tory interest, while the commons expressed the warmest attachment to revolution principles. The two houses made strenuous representations, and passed severe resolutions against each other. After the session, sir Constantine Phipps, the chancellor, and general Ingoldsby, were appointed justices in the absence of the duke of Ormond, who returned to England in the month of November. In Scotland the Jacobites made no scruple of professing their principles and attachments to the pretender. The duchess of Gordon presented the faculty of advocates with a silver medal, representing the chevalier de St. George; and on the reverse the British islands, with the motto “_Redditte._” After some debate, it was voted, by a majority of sixty-three voices against twelve, that the duchess should be thanked for this token of her regard. This task was performed by Dundas of Arnistoun, who thanked her grace for having presented them with a medal of their sovereign lord the king; hoping, and being confident, that her grace would very soon have an opportunity to compliment the faculty with a second medal, struck upon the restoration of the king and royal family, upon the finishing rebellion, usurping tyranny, and whiggery. An account of this transaction being laid before the queen, the lord-advocate was ordered to inquire into the particulars. Then the faculty were so intimidated that they disowned Dundas, and Home his accomplice. They pretended that the affair of the medal had been transacted by a party at an occasional meeting, and not by general consent; and, by a solemn act, they declared their attachment to the queen and the protestant succession. The court was satisfied with this atonement; but the resident from Hanover having presented a memorial to the queen, desiring that Dundas and his associates might be prosecuted, the government removed sir David Dalrymple from his office of lord-advocate, on pretence of his having been too remiss in prosecuting those delinquents; and no further inquiry was made into the affair.

NEGOTIATION BETWEEN THE COURTS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

For some time the negotiation for peace had been carried on between the court of France and the new ministers, who had a double aim in this measure; namely, to mortify the whigs and the Dutch, whom they detested, and to free their country from a ruinous war, which had all the appearance of becoming habitual to the constitution. They foresaw the risk they would run by entering into such measures, should ever the opposite faction regain the ascendency; they knew the whigs would employ all their art and influence, which was very powerful, in obstructing the peace, and in raising of popular clamour against the treaty. But their motives for treating were such as prompted them to undervalue all those difficulties and dangers. They hoped to obtain such advantages in point of commerce for the subject of Great Britain, as would silence all detraction. They did not doubt of being able to maintain the superiority which they had acquired in parliament; and perhaps some of them cherished views in favour of the pretender, whose succession to the crown would have effectually established their dominion over the opposite party. The earl of Jersey, who acted in concert with Oxford, sent a private message to the court of France, importing the queen’s desire of peace, representing the impossibility of a private negotiation, as the ministry was obliged to act with the utmost circumspection, and desiring that Louis would propose to the Dutch a renewal of the conferences, in which case the English plenipotentiaries should have such instructions that it would be impossible for the states-general to prevent the conclusion of the treaty. This intimation was delivered by one Gualtier, an obscure priest, who acted as chaplain to count Gallas the Imperial ambassador, and had been employed as a spy by the French ministry, since the commencement of hostilities. His connexion with lord Jersey was by means of that nobleman’s lady, who professed the Roman catholic religion. His message was extremely agreeable to the court of Versailles. He returned to London with a letter of compliment from the marquis de Torcy to the earl of Jersey, in which that minister assured him of his master’s sincere inclination for peace, though he was averse to a renewal of the conferences with the states-general. Gualtier wrote a letter to Versailles, desiring, in the name of the English ministry, that his most christain majesty would communicate to them his proposals for a general peace, which they would communicate to the states-general, that they might negotiate in concert with their allies. A general answer being made to this intimation, Gualtier made a second journey to Versailles, and brought over a memorial, which was immediately transmitted to Holland. In the meantime, the pensionary endeavoured to renew the conferences in Holland. Petkum wrote to the French ministry, that if his majesty would resume the negotiation, in concert with the queen of Great Britain, he should certainly have reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the Dutch deputies. This proposal Louis declined, at the desire of the English ministers.

The states-general having perused the memorial, assured queen Anne that they were ready to join with her in contributing to the conclusion of a durable peace; but they expressed a desire that the French king would communicate a more particular plan for securing the interest of the allied powers, and for settling the repose of Europe. Gualtier was once more sent to Versailles, accompanied by Mr. Prior, who had resided in France as secretary to the embassies of the earls of Portland and Jersey. This gentleman had acquired some reputation by his poetical talents; was a man of uncommon ability, and insinuating address, and perfectly devoted to the tory interest. He was empowered to communicate the preliminary demands of the English; to receive the answer of the French king; and demand whether or not king Philip had transmitted a power of treating to his grandfather. He arrived incognito at Fontainbleau, and presented the queen’s memorial, in which she demanded a barrier for the Dutch in the Netherlands, and another on the Rhine for the empire; a security for the Dutch commerce, and a general satisfaction to all her allies. She required that the strong places taken from the duke of Savoy should be restored; and that he should possess such towns and districts in Italy as had been ceded to him in treaties between him and his allies: that Louis should acknowledge queen Anne and the protestant succession; demolish the fortifications of Dunkirk; and agree to a new treaty of commerce; that Gibraltar and Port Mahon should be yielded to the crown of England; that the negro trade in America, at that time carried on by the French, should be ceded to the English, together with some towns on that continent, where the slaves might be refreshed. She expected security that her subjects trading to Spain should enjoy all advantages granted by that crown to the most favoured nation; that she should be put in possession of Newfoundland and Hudson’s Bay, either by way of restitution or cession; and that both nations should continue to enjoy whatever territories they might be possessed of in North America at the ratification of the treaties. She likewise insisted upon a security that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united on the same head. Her majesty no longer insisted upon Philip’s being expelled from the throne of Spain by the arms of his own grandfather. She now perceived that the exorbitant power of the house of Austria would be as dangerous to the liberty of Europe as ever that of the family of Bourbon had been, in the zenith of its glory. She might have remembered the excessive power, the insolence, the ambition of Charles V. and Philip II. who had enslaved so many countries, and embroiled all Europe. She was sincerely desirous of peace, from motives of humanity and compassion to her subjects and fellow-creatures; she was eagerly bent upon procuring such advantages to her people as would enable them to discharge the heavy load of debt under which they laboured, and recompense them in some measure for the blood and treasure they had so lavishly expended in the prosecution of the war. These were the sentiments of a christian princess; of an amiable and pious sovereign, who bore a share in the grievances of her subjects, and looked upon them with the eyes of maternal affection. She thought she had the better title to insist upon those advantages, as they had been already granted to her subjects in a private treaty with king Charles.

MENAGER ARRIVES PRIVATELY in ENGLAND.

As Prior’s powers were limited in such a manner that he could not negotiate, Mr. Ménager, deputy from the city of Rouen to the board of trade, accompanied the English minister to London, with full powers to settle the preliminaries of the treaty. On his arrival in London, the queen immediately commissioned the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls of Jersey, Dartmouth, Oxford, and Mr. St. John, to treat with him; and the conferences were immediately begun. After long and various disputes, they agreed upon certain preliminary articles, which, on the eighth day of October, were signed by the French minister, and by the two secretaries of state, in consequence of a written order from her majesty. Then Ménager was privately introduced to the queen at Windsor. She told him she was averse to war; that she would exert all her power to conclude a speedy peace; that she should be glad to live upon good terms with the king of France, to whom she was so nearly allied in blood; she expressed her hope that there would be a closer union after the peace between them, and between their subjects, cemented by a perfect correspondence and friendship. The earl of Strafford, who had been lately recalled from the Hague where he resided as ambassador, was now sent back to Holland, with orders to communicate to the pensionary the proposals of peace which France had made; to signify the queen’s approbation of them, and propose a place where the plenipotentiaries should assemble. The English ministers now engaged in an intimate correspondence with the court of Versailles; and mareschal Tallard being released from his confinement at Nottingham, was allowed to return to his own country on his parole. After the departure of Ménager, the preliminaries were communicated to count Gallas the emperor’s minister, who, in order to inflame the minds of the people, caused them to be translated, and inserted in one of the daily papers. This step was so much resented by the queen, that she sent a message desiring he would come no more to court; but that he might leave the kingdom as soon as he should think proper. He took the hint, and retired accordingly; but the queen gave the emperor to understand, that any other minister he should appoint would be admitted by her without hesitation.

THE FRENCH KING’S PROPOSALS DISAGREEABLE TO THE ALLIES.

The states of Holland, alarmed at the preliminaries, sent over Buys, as envoy-extraordinary, to intercede with the queen that she would alter her resolutions: but she continued steady to her purpose; and the earl of Strafford demanded the immediate concurrence of the states, declaring, in the queen’s name, that she would look upon any delay, on their part, as a refusal to comply with her propositions. Intimidated by this declaration, they agreed to open the general conferences at Utrecht on the first day of January. They granted passports to the French ministers; while the queen appointed Robinson, bishop of Bristol, and the earl of Strafford, her plenipotentiaries at the congress. Charles, the new emperor, being at Milan, when he received a copy of the preliminaries, wrote circular letters to the electors and the princes of the empire, exhorting them to persist in their engagements to the grand alliance. He likewise desired the states-general to join councils with him in persuading the queen of England to reject the proposals of France, and prosecute the war; or at least to negotiate on the foundation of the first preliminaries, which had been signed by the marquis de Torcy. He wrote a letter to the same purpose to the queen of Great Britain, who received it with the most mortifying indifference. No wonder that he should zealously contend for the continuance of a war, the expense of which she and the Dutch had hitherto almost wholly defrayed. The new preliminaries were severely attacked by the whigs, who ridiculed and reviled the ministry in word and writing. Pamphlets, libels, and lampoons, were today published by one faction, and to-morrow answered by the other. They contained all the insinuations of malice and contempt, all the bitterness of reproach, and all the rancour of recrimination. In the midst of this contention, the queen despatched the earl of Rivers to Hanover, with an assurance to the elector that his succession to the crown should be effectually ascertained in the treaty. The earl brought back an answer in writing; but, at the same time, his electoral highness ordered baron de Bothmar, his envoy in England, to present a memorial to the queen, representing the pernicious consequences of Philip’s remaining in possession of Spain and the West Indies. This remonstrance the baron published, by way of appeal to the people, and the whigs extolled it with the highest encomiums; but the queen and her ministers resented this step as an officious and inflammatory interposition.

The proposals of peace made by the French king were disagreeable even to some individuals of the tory party; and certain peers, who had hitherto adhered to that interest, agreed with the whigs to make a remonstrance against the preliminary articles. The court being apprised of their intention, prorogued the parliament till the seventh day of December, in expectation of the Scottish peers, who would cast the balance in favour of the ministry. In her speech, at the opening of the session, she told them that notwithstanding the arts of those who delighted in war, the place and time were appointed for a congress; and that the states-general had expressed their entire confidence in her conduct. She declared her chief concern should be to secure the succession of the crown in the house of Hanover; to procure all the advantages to the nation which a tender and affectionate sovereign could procure for a dutiful and loyal people; and to obtain satisfaction for all her allies. She observed, that the most effectual way to procure an advantageous peace, would be to make preparations for carrying on war with vigour. She recommended unanimity, and prayed God would direct their consultations. In the house of lords, the earl of Nottingham, who had now associated himself with the whigs, inveighed against the preliminaries as captious and insufficient, and offered a clause to be inserted in the address of thanks, representing to her majesty that, in the opinion of the house, no peace could be safe or honourable to Great Britain or Europe, if Spain and the West Indies should be allotted to any branch of the house of Bourbon. A violent debate ensued, in the course of which the earl of Anglesea represented the necessity of easing the nation of the burdens incurred by an expensive war. He affirmed that a good peace might have been procured immediately after the battle of Ramillies, if it had not been prevented by some persons who prolonged the war for their own private interest. This insinuation was levelled at the duke of Marlborough, who made a long speech in his own vindication. He bowed to the place where the queen sat incognito; and appealed to her, whether, while he had the honour to serve her majesty as a general and plenipotentiary, he had not constantly informed her and her council of all the proposals of peace which had been made; and had not desired instructions for his conduct on that subject. He declared, upon his conscience, and in presence of the Supreme Being, before whom he expected soon to appear, that he was ever desirous of a safe, honourable, and lasting peace; and that he was always very far from entertaining any design of prolonging the war for his own private advantage, as his enemies had most falsely insinuated. At last the question being put, whether the earl of Nottingham’s advice should be part of the address; it was carried in the affirmative by a small majority. The address was accordingly presented, and the queen, in her answer, said she should be very sorry any one could think she would not do her utmost to recover Spain and the West Indies from the house of Bourbon. Against this advice, however, several peers protested, because there was no precedent for inserting a clause of advice in an address of thanks; and because they looked upon it as an invasion of the royal prerogative. In the address of the commons there was no such article; and, therefore, the answer they received was warm and cordial.

The duke of Hamilton claiming a seat in the house of peers, as duke of Brandon, a title he had lately received, was opposed by the anti-courtiers, who pretended to foresee great danger to the constitution from admitting into the house a greater number of Scottish peers than the act of union allowed. Counsel was heard upon the validity of his patent. They observed that no objection could be made to the queen’s prerogative in conferring honours; and that all the subjects of the united kingdom were equally capable of receiving honour. The house of lords had already decided the matter, in admitting the duke of Queensberry upon his being created duke of Dover. The debate was managed with great ability on both sides; the Scottish peers united in defence of the duke’s claim; and the court exerted its whole strength to support the patent. Nevertheless, the question being put, whether Scottish peers, created peers of Great Britain since the union, had a right to sit in that house; it was carried in the negative by a majority of five voices; though not without a protest signed by the lords in the opposition. The Scottish peers were so incensed at this decision, that they drew up a representation to the queen, complaining of it as an infringement of the union, and a mark of disgrace put upon the whole peerage of Scotland. The bill against occasional conformity was revived by the earl of Nottingham, in more moderate terms than those that had been formerly rejected; and it passed both houses by the connivance of the whigs, upon the earl’s promise, that if they would consent to this measure, he would bring over many friends to join them in matters of greater consequence. On the twenty-second day of December, the queen, being indisposed, granted a commission to the lord-keeper and some other peers to give the royal assent to this bill, and another for the land-tax. The duke of Devonshire obtained leave to bring in a bill for giving precedence over all peers to the electoral prince of Hanover, as the duke of Cambridge. An address was presented to the queen, desiring she would give instructions to her plenipotentiaries to consult with the ministers of the allies in Holland before the opening of the congress, that they might concert the necessary measures for proceeding with unanimity, the better to obtain the great ends proposed by her majesty.

{ANNE, 1701--1714}

DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH DISMISSED FROM ALL HIS EMPLOYMENTS.

The commissioners for examining the public accounts having discovered that the duke of Marlborough had received an annual present of five or six thousand pounds from the contractors of bread to the army, the queen declared in council that she thought fit to dismiss him from all his employments, that the matter might be impartially examined. This declaration was imparted to him in a letter under her own hand, in which she took occasion to complain of the treatment she had received. She probably alluded to the insolence of his duchess; the subjection in which she had been kept by the late ministry; and the pains lately taken by the whigs to depreciate her conduct, and thwart her measures with respect to the peace. The duke wrote an answer to her majesty, vindicating himself from the charge which had been brought against his character; and his two daughters, the countess of Sunderland and the lady Railton, resigned their places of ladies in the bed-chamber. The ministry, in order to ascertain a majority in the house of lords, persuaded the queen to take a measure which nothing but necessity could justify. She created twelve peers at once, [173] _[See note 2 F, at the end of this Vol.]_ and on the second of January they were introduced into the upper house without opposition. The lord-keeper delivered to the house a message from the queen, desiring they would adjourn to the fourteenth day of the month. The anti-courtiers alleged, that the queen could not send a message to any one house to adjourn, but ought to have directed it to both houses. This objection produced a debate, which was terminated in favour of the court by the weight of the twelve new peers.

PRINCE EUGENE ARRIVES IN ENGLAND.

At this period prince Eugene arrived in England with a letter to the queen from the emperor, and instructions to propose a new scheme for prosecuting the war. His errand was far from being agreeable to the ministry; and they suspected that his real aim was to manage intrigues among the discontented party who opposed the peace. Nevertheless, he was treated with that respect which was due to his quality and eminent talents. The ministers, the nobility, and officers of distinction, visited him at his arrival. He was admitted to an audience of the queen, who received him with great complacency. Having perused the letter which he delivered, she expressed her concern that her health did not permit her to speak with his highness as often as she could wish; but that she had ordered the treasurer and secretary St. John to receive his proposals, and confer with him as frequently as he should think proper. He expressed extraordinary respect for the duke of Marlborough, notwithstanding his disgrace. The lord-treasurer, while he entertained him at dinner, declared that he looked upon that day as the happiest in the whole course of his life, since he had the honour to see in his house the greatest captain of the age. The prince is said to have replied, “If I am, it is owing to your lordship.” Alluding to the disgrace of Marlborough, whom the earl’s intrigues had deprived of all military command. When bishop Burnet conversed with him about the scandalous libels that were every day published against the duke, and in

## particular mentioned one paragraph, in which the author allowed he

had been once fortunate, the prince observed, it was the greatest commendation that could be bestowed upon him, as it implied that all his other successes were owing to his courage and conduct. While the nobility of both parties vied with each other in demonstrations of respect for this noble stranger; while he was adored by the whigs, and admired by the people, who gazed at him in crowds when he appeared in public; even in the midst of all these caresses, party riots were excited to insult his person, and some scandalous reflections upon his mother were inserted in one of the public papers. The queen treated him with distinguished marks of regard; and, on her birth-day, presented him with a sword worth five thousand pounds. Nevertheless, she looked upon him as a patron and friend of that turbulent faction to which she owed so much disquiet. She knew he had been pressed to come over by the whig noblemen, who hoped his presence would inflame the people to some desperate attempt upon the new ministry; she was not ignorant that he held private conferences with the duke of Marlborough, the earl of Sunderland, the lord Somers, Halifax, and all the chiefs of that party; and that he entered into a close connexion with the baron de Bothmar, the Hanoverian envoy, who had been very active in fomenting the disturbances of the people.

WALPOLE EXPELLED.

Her majesty, who had been for some time afflicted with the gout, sent a message to both houses on the seventeenth day of January, signifying that the plenipotentiaries were arrived at Utrecht; and that she was employed in making preparations for an early campaign; she hoped, therefore, that the commons would proceed in giving the necessary despatch to the supplies. The lord-treasurer, in order to demonstrate his attachment to the protestant succession, brought in a bill which had been proposed by the duke of Devonshire, giving precedence to the whole electoral family, as children and nephews of the crown; and, when it was passed into an act, he sent it over to Hanover by Mr. Thomas Harley. The sixteen peers for Scotland were prevailed upon, by promise of satisfaction, to resume their seats in the upper house, from which they had absented themselves since the decision against the patent of the duke of Hamilton; but whatever pecuniary recompence they might have obtained from the court, on which they were meanly dependent, they received no satisfaction from the parliament. The commons, finding Mr. Walpole very troublesome in their house, by his talents, activity, and zealous attachment to the whig interest, found means to discover some clandestine practices in which he was concerned as secretary at war, with regard to the forage-contract in Scotland. The contractors, rather than admit into their partnership a person whom he had recommended for that purpose, chose to present his friend with five hundred pounds. Their bill was addressed to Mr. Walpole, who endorsed it, and his friend touched the money. [174] _[See note 2 G, at the end of this Vol.]_ This transaction was interpreted into a bribe. Mr. Walpole was voted guilty of corruption, imprisoned in the Tower, and expelled the house. Being afterwards re-chosen by the same borough of Lynn-Begis, which he had before represented, a petition was lodged against him, and the commons voted him incapable of being elected a member to serve in the present parliament.

Their next attack was upon the duke of Marlborough, who was found to have received a yearly sum from sir Solomon Medina, a Jew, concerned in the contract for furnishing the army with bread; to have been gratified by the queen with ten thousand pounds a-year to defray the expenses of intelligence; and to have pocketed a deduction of two and a half per cent, from the pay of the foreign troops maintained by England. It was alleged, in his justification, that the present from the Jew was a customary perquisite, which had always been enjoyed by the general of the Dutch army; that the deduction of two and a half per cent, was granted to him by an express warrant from her majesty; that all the articles of the charge joined together did not exceed thirty thousand pounds, a sum much inferior to that which had been allowed to king William for contingencies; that the money was expended in procuring intelligence, which was so exact that the duke was never surprised; that none of his parties were ever intercepted or cut off; and all the designs were by these means so well concerted, that he never once miscarried. Notwithstanding these representations, the majority voted that his practices had been unwarrantable and illegal; and that the deduction was to be accounted for as public money. These resolutions were communicated to the queen, who ordered the attorney-general to prosecute the duke for the money he had deducted by virtue of her own warrant. Such practices were certainly mean and mercenary, and greatly tarnished the glory which the duke had acquired by his military talents, and other shining qualities.

RESOLUTIONS AGAINST THE BARRIER-TREATY AND THE DUTCH.

The commons now directed the stream of their resentment against the Dutch, who had certainly exerted all their endeavours to overwhelm the new ministry, and retard the negotiations for peace. They maintained an intimate correspondence with the whigs of England. They diffused the most invidious reports against Oxford and secretary St. John. Buys, their envoy at London, acted the part of an incendiary, in suggesting violent measures to the malcontents, and caballing against the government. The ministers, by way of reprisal, influenced the house of commons to pass some acrimonious resolutions against the states-general. They alleged that the states had been deficient in their proportion of troops, both in Spain and in the Netherlands, during the whole course of the war; and that the queen had paid above three millions of crowns in subsidies, above what she was obliged to advance by her engagements. They attacked the barrier-treaty, which had been concluded with the states by lord Townshend after the conferences at Gertruydenburgh. By this agreement, England guaranteed a barrier in the Netherlands to the Dutch; and the states bound themselves to maintain, with their whole force, the queen’s title and the protestant succession. The tories affirmed that England was disgraced by engaging any other state to defend a succession which the nation might see cause to alter; that, by this treaty, the states were authorized to interpose in British councils; that, being possessed of all those strong towns, they might exclude the English from trading to them, and interfere with the manufactures of Great Britain. The house of commons voted, that in the barrier-treaty there were several articles destructive to the trade and interest of Great Britain, and therefore highly dishonourable to her majesty; that the lord viscount Townshend was not authorized to conclude several articles in that treaty; that he and all those who had advised its being ratified were enemies to the queen and kingdom. All their votes were digested into a long representation presented to the queen, in which they averred that England, during the war, had been overcharged nineteen millions; a circumstance that implied mismanagement or fraud in the old ministry. The states, alarmed at these resolutions, wrote a respectful letter to the queen, representing the necessity of a barrier for the mutual security of England and the United Provinces. They afterwards drew up a large memorial in vindication of their proceedings during the war; and it was published in one of the English papers. The commons immediately voted it a false, scandalous, and malicious libel, reflecting upon the resolutions of the house; and the printer and publisher were taken into custody, as guilty of a breach of privilege.

ACTS UNFAVOURABLE TO THE PRESBYTERIAN DISCIPLINE IN SCOTLAND.

They now repealed the naturalization act. They passed a bill granting a toleration to the episcopal clergy in Scotland, without paying the least regard to a representation from the general assembly to the queen, declaring that the act for securing the presbyterian government was an essential and fundamental condition of the treaty of union. The house, notwithstanding this remonstrance, proceeded with the bill, and inserted a clause prohibiting civil magistrates from executing the sentences of the kirk-judicatories. The episcopal, as well as the presbyterian clergy, were required to take the oaths of abjuration, that they might be upon an equal footing in case of disobedience; for the commons well knew that this condition would be rejected by both from very different motives. In order to exasperate the presbyterians with further provocations, another act was passed for discontinuing the courts of judicature during the Christmas holidays, which had never been kept by persons of that persuasion. When this bill was read for the third time, sir David Dalrymple said, “Since the house is resolved to make no toleration on the body of this bill, I acquiesce; and only desire it may be intituled, A bill for establishing jacobitism and immorality.” The chagrin of the Scottish presbyterians was completed by a third bill, restoring the right of patronage, which had been taken away when the discipline of the kirk was last established. Prince Eugene having presented a memorial to the queen touching the conduct of the emperor during the war, and containing a proposal with relation to the affairs of Spain, the queen communicated the scheme to the house of commons, who treated it with the most contemptuous neglect. The prince, finding all his efforts ineffectual, retired to the continent, as much displeased with the ministry, as he had reason to be satisfied with the people of England. The commons having settled the funds for the supplies of the year, amounting to six millions, the treasurer formed the plan of a bill appointing commissioners to examine the value and consideration of all the grants made since the revolution. His design was to make a general resumption; but, as the interest of so many noblemen was concerned, the bill met with a very warm opposition; notwithstanding which it would have certainly passed, had not the duke of Buckingham and the earl of Strafford absented themselves from the house during the debate.

##