CHAPTER VI
.
_The Rebels are totally defeated at Culloden..... The Duke of Cumberland takes Possession of Inverness, and afterwards encamps at Fort-Augustus..... The Prince Pretender escapes to France..... Convulsion in the Ministry..... Liberality of the Commons..... Trial of the Rebels..... Kilmarnock, Balmerino, Lovat, and Mr. Ratcliff, are beheaded on Tower- hill..... The States-general alarmed at the Progress of the French in the Netherlands..... Count Saxa subdues all Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault..... Reduces the strong Fortress of Namur, and defeats the Allied Army at Roucoux..... The French and Spaniards are compelled to abandon Piedmont and the Milanese..... Don Philip is worsted at Codogno, and afterwards at Porto Freddo..... The Austrians take Possession of Genoa..... Count Brown penetrates into Provence..... The Genoese expel the Austrians from their City..... Madras in the East Indies taken by the French..... Expedition to the Coast of Bretagne, and Attempt upon Port L’Orient..... Naval Transactions in the West-Indies..... Conferences at Breda..... Vast Supplies granted by the Commons of England..... Parliament dissolved..... The French and Allies take the Field in Flanders..... Prince of Orange elected Stadtholder, Captain-general, and Admiral of the United Provinces..... The Confederates defeated at Laffeldt..... Siege of Bergen-op-Zoom--The Austrians undertake the Siege of Genoa, which however, they abandon..... The Chevalier de Belleisle slain in the Attack of Exilles..... A French Squadron defeated and taken by the Admirals Anson and Warren..... Admiral Hawke obtains another Victory over the French at Sea..... Other Naval Transactions..... Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle..... Compliant Temper of the new Parliament..... Preliminaries signed..... Preparations for the Campaign in the Netherlands..... Siege of Maestrieht..... Cessation of Arms..... Transactions in the East and West Indies..... Conclusion of the Definitive Treaty at Aix-la-Chapelle_
THE REBELS ARE TOTALLY DEFEATED.
In the beginning of April, the duke of Cumberland began his march from Aberdeen, and on the twelfth passed the deep and rapid river Spey, without opposition from the rebels, though a detachment of them appeared on the opposite side. Why they did not dispute the passage is not easy to be conceived; But, indeed, from this instance of neglect, and their subsequent conduct, we may conclude they were under a total infatuation. His royal highness proceeded to Nairn, where he received intelligence that the enemy had advanced from Inverness to Culloden, about the distance of nine miles from the royal army, with intention to give him battle. The design of Charles was to march in the night from Culloden, and surprise the duke’s army at day-break; for this purpose the English camp had been reconnoitred; and on the night of the fifteenth the highland army began to march in two columns. Their design was to surround the enemy, and attack them at once on all quarters; but the length of the columns embarrassed the march, so that the army was obliged to make many halts: the men had been under arms during the whole preceding night, were faint with hunger and fatigue, and many of them overpowered with sleep. Some were unable to proceed; others dropped off unperceived in the dark; and the march was retarded in such a manner, that it would have been impossible to reach the duke’s camp before sun-rise. The design being thus frustrated, the prince-pretender was with great reluctance prevailed upon by his general officers to measure back his way to Culloden; at which place he had no sooner arrived, than great numbers of his followers dispersed in quest of provisions; and many, overcome with weariness and sleep, threw themselves down on the heath and along the park walls. Their repose, however, was soon interrupted in a very disagreeable manner. Their prince receiving intelligence that his enemies were in full march to attack him, resolved to hazard an engagement, and ordered his troops to be formed for that purpose. On the sixteenth day of April, the duke of Cumberland, having made the proper dispositions, decamped from Nairn early in the morning, and after a march of nine miles perceived the highlanders drawn up in order of battle, to the number of four thou-sand men, in thirteen divisions, supplied with some pieces of artillery. The royal army, which was much more numerous, the duke immediately formed into three lines, disposed in excellent order: and about one o’clock in the afternoon the cannonading began. The artillery of the rebels was ill served, and did very little execution; but that of the king’s troops made dreadful havock among the enemy. Impatient of this fire, their front line advanced to the attack, and about five hundred of the clans charged the duke’s left wing with their usual impetuosity. One regiment was disordered by the weight of this column; but two battalions advancing from the second line, sustained the first, and soon put a stop to their career, by a severe fire, that killed a great number. At the same time the dragoons under Hawley, and the Argyleshire militia, pulled down a park wall that covered their flank, and the cavalry falling in among the rebels sword in hand, completed their confusion. The French picquets on their left, covered the retreat of the highlanders by a close and regular fire; and then retired to Inverness, where they surrendered themselves prison-ers of war. An entire body of the rebels marched off the field in order, with their pipes playing, and the pre-tender’s standard displayed; the rest were routed with great slaughter; and their prince was with reluctance prevailed upon to retire. In less than thirty minutes they were totally defeated, and the field covered with the slain. The road, as far as Inverness, was strewed with dead bodies; and a great number of people, who from motives of curiosity had come to see the battle, were sacrificed to the undistinguished vengeance of the victors. Twelve hundred rebels were slain or wounded on the field, and in the pursuit. The earl of Kilmarnock was taken; and in a few days lord Balmerino surrendered to a country gentleman, at whose house he presented himself for this purpose. The glory of the victory was sullied by the barbarity of the soldiers. They had been provoked by their former disgraces to the most savage thirst of revenge. Not contented with the blood which was so profusely shed in the heat of action, they traversed the field after the battle, and massacred those miserable wretches who lay maimed and expiring: nay, some officers acted a part in this cruel scene of assassination, the triumph of low illiberal minds, uninspired by sentiment, untinctured by humanity. The vanquished adventurer rode off the field, accompanied by the duke of Perth, lord Elcho, and a few horsemen; he crossed the water at Nairn, and retired to the house of a gentleman in Strutharrick, where he conferred with old lord Lovat; then he dismissed his followers, and wandered about a wretched and solitary fugitive among the isles and mountains for the space of five months, during which he underwent such a series of dangers, hardships, and misery, as no other person ever outlived. Thus, in one short hour, all his hope vanished, and the rebellion was entirely extinguished. One would almost imagine, the conductors of this desperate enterprise had conspired their own destruction, as they certainly neglected every step that might have contributed to their safety or success. They might have opposed the duke of Cumberland at the passage of the Spey; they might, by proper conduct, have afterwards attacked his camp in the night, with a good prospect of success. As they were greatly inferior to him in number, and weakened with hunger and fatigue, they might have retired to the hills and fastnesses, where they would have found plenty of live cattle for provision, recruited their regiments, and been joined by a strong reinforcement, which was actually in full march to their assistance. But they were distracted by dissensions and jealousies; they obeyed the dictates of despair, and wilfully devoted themselves to ruin and death. When the news of the battle arrived in England, the nation was transported with joy, and extolled the duke of Cumberland as a hero and deliverer, Both houses of parliament congratulated his majesty on the auspicious event. They decreed, in the most solemn manner, their public thanks to his royal highness, which were transmitted to him by the speakers; and the commons, by bill, added five-and-twenty thousand pounds per annum to his former revenue.
[Illustration: 298.jpg CULLODEN MOOR]
THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND TAKES POSSESSION OF INVERNESS.
Immediately after the decisive action at Culloden, the duke took possession of Inverness, where six-and-thirty deserters, convicted by a court-martial, were ordered to be executed: then he detached several
## parties to ravage the country. One of these apprehended the lady
Mackintosh, who was sent prisoner to Inverness. They did not plunder her house, but drove away her cattle, though her husband was actually in the service of government. The castle of lord Lovat was destroyed. The French prisoners were sent to Carlisle and Penrith: Kilmarnock, Balmerino, Cromartie, and his son the lord Macleod, were conveyed by sea to London; and those of an inferior rank were confined in different prisons. The marquis of Tullibardine, together with a brother of the earl of Dunmore, were seized and transported to the Tower of London, to which the earl of Traquaire had been committed on suspicion: in a few months after the battle of Culloden, Murray, the pretender’s secretary, was apprehended; and the eldest son of lord Lovat, having surrendered himself, was imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh. In a word, all the gaols of Great Britain, from the capital northwards, were filled with those unfortunate captives; and great numbers of them were crowded together in the holds of ships, where they perished in the most deplorable manner, for the want of necessaries, air, and exercise. Some rebel chiefs escaped in two French frigates, which had arrived on the coast of Lochaber about the end of April, and engaged three vessels belonging to his Britannic majesty, which they obliged to retire. Others embarked on board of a ship on the coast of Buchan, and were conveyed to Norway; from thence they travelled to Sweden. In the month of May, the duke of Cumberland advanced with the army into the highlands as far as Fort-Augustus, where he encamped, and sent off detachments on all hands to hunt down the fugitives, and lay waste the country with fire and sword. The castles of Glengary and Lochiel were plundered and burned; every house, hut, or habitation, met with the same fate without distinction; all the cattle and provision were carried off; the men were either shot upon the mountains like wild beasts, or put to death in cold blood, without form of trial; the women, after having seen their husbands and fathers murdered, were subjected to brutal violation, and then turned out naked, with their children, to starve on the barren heaths. One whole family was enclosed in a barn, and consumed to ashes. Those ministers of vengeance were so alert in the execution of their office, that in a few days there was neither house, cottage, man, nor beast, to be seen in the compass of fifty miles: all was ruin, silence, and desolation.
THE PRETENDER ESCAPES TO FRANCE.
The humane reader cannot reflect upon such a scene without grief and horror; what then must have been the sensation of the fugitive prince, when he beheld these spectacles of woe, the dismal fruit of his ambition? He was now surrounded by armed troops, that chased him from hill to dale, from rock to cavern, and from shore to shore. Sometimes he lurked in caves and cottages, without attendants, or any other support but that which the poorest peasant could supply. Sometimes he was rowed in fisher-boats from isle to isle among the Hebrides, and often in sight of his pursuers. For some days he appeared in woman’s attire, and even passed through the midst of his enemies unknown. But understanding his disguise was discovered, he assumed the habit of a travelling mountaineer, and wandered about among the woods and heaths, with a matted beard, and squalid looks, exposed to hunger, thirst, and weariness, and in continual danger of being apprehended. He was obliged to trust his life to the fidelity of above fifty individuals, and many of these were in the lowest paths of fortune. They knew that a price of thirty thousand pounds was set upon his head; and that, by betraying him, they should enjoy wealth and affluence: but they detested the thought of obtaining riches on such infamous terms, and ministered to his necessities with the utmost zeal and fidelity, even at the hazard of their own destruction. In the course of these peregrinations, he was more than once hemmed in by his pursuers in such a manner as seemed to preclude all possibility of escaping; yet he was never abandoned by his hope and recollection; he still found some expedient that saved him from captivity and death; and through the whole course of his distresses maintained the most amazing equanimity and good humour. At length a privateer of Saint Malo, hired by the young Sheridan and some other Irish adherents, arrived in Lochnannach; and on the twentieth day of September, this unfortunate prince embarked in the habit which he wore for disguise. His eye was hollow, his visage wan, and his constitution greatly impaired by famine and fatigue. He was accompanied by Cameron of Lochiel and his brother, with a few other exiles. They set sail for France, and after having passed unseen, by means of a thick fog, through a British squadron commanded by admiral Lestock, and been chased by two English ships of war, arrived in safety at Roscau, near Morlaix, in Bretagne. Perhaps he would have found it still more difficult to escape, had not the vigilance and eagerness of the government been relaxed, in consequence of a report that he had already fallen among some persons that were slain by a volley from one of the duke’s detachments.
CONVULSION IN THE MINISTRY.
Having thus explained the rise, progress, and extinction of the rebellion, it will be necessary to take a retrospective view of the proceedings in parliament. The necessary steps being taken for quieting the intestine commotions of the kingdom, the two houses began to convert their attention to the affairs of the continent. On the fourteenth day of January, the king repaired to the house of peers, and, in a speech from the throne, gave his parliament to understand that the states-general had made pressing instances for his assistance in the present conjuncture, when they were in such danger of being oppressed by the power of France in the Netherlands; that he had promised to co-operate with them towards opposing the further progress of their enemies; and even concerted measures for that purpose. He declared it was with regret that he asked any further aids of his people; he exhorted them to watch over the public credit; and expressed his entire dependence on their zeal and unanimity. He was favoured with loyal addresses, couched in the warmest terms of duty and affection; but the supplies were retarded by new convulsions in the ministry. The earl of Granville had made an effort to retrieve his influence in the cabinet, and his sovereign favoured his pretensions. The two brothers, who knew his aspiring genius, and dreaded his superior talents, refused to admit such a colleague into the administration; they even resolved to strengthen their party, by introducing fresh auxiliaries into the office of state. Some of these were personally disagreeable to his majesty, who accordingly rejected the suit by which they were recommended. The duke of Newcastle and his brother, with all their adherents, immediately resigned their employments. The earl of Granville was appointed secretary of state, and resumed the reins of administration; but, finding himself unequal to the accumulated opposition that preponderated against him; foreseeing that he should not be able to secure the supplies in parliament; and dreading the consequence of that confusion which his restoration had already produced, he, in three days, voluntarily quitted the helm; and his majesty acquiesced in the measures proposed by the opposite party. The seals were re-delivered to the duke of Newcastle and the earl of Harrington; Mr. Pel-ham, and all the rest who had resigned, were reinstated in their respective employments; and offices were conferred on several individuals who had never before been in the service of the government. William Pitt, esq., was appointed vice-treasurer of Ireland, and soon promoted to the place of paymaster-general of the forces; at the same time the king declared him a privy-counsellor. This gentleman had been originally designed for the army, in which he actually bore a commission; but fate reserved him a more important station. In point of fortune he was barely qualified to be elected member of parliament, when he obtained a seat in the house of commons, where he soon outshone all his compatriots. He displayed a surprising extent and precision of political knowledge, an irresistible energy of argument, and such power of elocution as struck his hearers with astonishment and admiration. It flashed like the lightning of heaven against the ministers and sons of corruption, blasting where it smote, and withering the nerves of opposition; but his more substantial praise was founded upon his disinterested integrity his incorruptible heart, his unconquerable spirit of independence, and his invariable attachment to the interest and liberty of his country.
The quiet of the ministry being re-established, the house of commons provided for forty thousand seamen, nearly the same number of land forces, besides fifteen regiments raised by the nobility on account of the rebellion, and about twelve thousand marines. They settled funds for the maintenance of the Dutch and Hessian troops that were in England, as well as for the subsidy to the landgrave. They granted three hundred thousand pounds to the king of Sardinia; four hundred thousand pounds to the queen of Hungary; three hundred and ten thousand pounds to defray the expense of eighteen thousand Hanoverians; about three-and-thirty thousand pounds in subsidies to the electors of Mentz and Cologn; and five hundred thousand pounds in a vote of credit and confidence to his majesty. The whole charge of the current year amounted to seven millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which was raised by the land and malt taxes, annuities on the additional duties imposed on glass and spirituous liquors, a lottery, a deduction from the sinking fund, and exchequer bills, chargeable on the first aids that should be granted in the next session of parliament.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE REBELS.
The rebellion being quelled, the legislature resolved to make examples of those who had been concerned in disturbing the peace of their country. In June, an act of attainder was passed against the principal persons who had embarked in that desperate undertaking; and courts were opened in different parts of England for the trial of the prisoners. Seventeen persons who had borne arms in the rebel army were executed at Kennington Common, in the neighbourhood of London, and suffered with great constancy under the dreadful tortures which their sentence prescribed; nine were put to death in the same manner at Carlisle; six at Brampton, seven at Penrith, eleven at York: of these a considerable number were gentlemen, and had acted as officers; about fifty had been executed as deserters in different parts of Scotland; eighty-one suffered the pains of the law as traitors. A few obtained pardons, and a considerable number were transported to the plantations. Bills of indictment for high treason were found by the county of Surrey against the earls of Kilmarnock and Cromartie, and lord Balmerino. These noblemen were tried by their peers in Westminster-hall, the lord chancellor presiding as lord high-steward for the occasion. The two earls confessed their crimes, and in pathetic speeches recommended themselves to his majesty’s mercy. Lord Balmerino pleaded not guilty; he denied his having been at Carlisle at the time specified in the indictment, but this exception was over-ruled; then he moved a point of law in arrest of judgment, and was allowed to be heard by his counsel. They might have expatiated on the hardship of being tried by an ex post facto law; and claimed the privilege of trial in the county where the act of treason was said to have been committed. The same hardship was imposed upon all the imprisoned rebels: they were dragged in captivity to a strange country, far from their friends and connexions, destitute of means to produce evidence in their favour, even if they had been innocent of the charge. Balmerino waived this plea, and submitted to the court, which pronounced sentence of death upon him and his two associates. Cromartie’s life was spared; but the other two were beheaded, in the month of August, on Tower-hill. Kilmarnock was a nobleman of fine personal accomplishments; he had been educated in revolution principles, and engaged in the rebellion partly from the desperate situation of his fortune, and partly from resentment to the government, on his being deprived of a pension which he had for some time enjoyed. He was convinced of his having acted criminally, and died with marks of penitence and contrition. Balmerino had been bred up to arms, and acted upon principle: he was gallant, brave, rough, and resolute; he eyed the implements of death with the most careless familiarity, and seemed to triumph in his sufferings. In November, Mr. Ratcliffe, the titular earl of Derwentwater, who had been taken in a ship bound for Scotland, was arraigned on a former sentence passed against him in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixteen: he refused to acknowledge the authority of the court, and pleaded that he was a subject of France, honoured with a commission in the service of his most christian majesty. The identity of his person being proved, a rule was made for his execution; and on the eighth day of December he suffered decapitation, with the most perfect composure and serenity. Lord Lovat, now turned of four-score, was impeached by the commons, and tried in Westminster-hall before the lord high-steward. John Murray, secretary to the prince-pretender, and some of his own domestics, appearing against him, he was convicted of high treason, and condemned. Notwithstanding his age, infirmities, and the recollection of his conscience, which was supposed to be not altogether void of offence, he died like an old Roman, exclaiming, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” He surveyed the crowd with attention, examined the axe, jested with the executioner, and laid his head upon the block with the utmost indifference. From this last scene of his life, one would have concluded that he had approved himself a patriot from his youth, and never deviated from the paths of virtue.
{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}
THE STATES-GENERAL ALARMED AT THE PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH.
The flame of war on the continent did not expire at the election of an emperor, and the re-establishment of peace among the princes of the empire. On the contrary, it raged with double violence in consequence of these events; for the force that was before divided being now united in one body, exerted itself with great vigour and rapidity. The states-general were overwhelmed with consternation. Notwithstanding the pains they had taken to avoid a war, and the condescension with which they had soothed and supplicated the French monarch in repeated embassies and memorials, they saw themselves striped of their barrier, and once mere in danger of being overwhelmed by that ambitious nation. The city of Brussels had been reduced during the winter; so that the enemy were in possession of all the Austrian Netherlands, except a few fortresses. Great part of the forces belonging to the republic were restricted from action by capitulations, to which they had subscribed. The states were divided in their councils between the two factions which had long subsisted. They trembled at the prospect of seeing Zealand invaded in the spring. The Orange party loudly called for an augmentation of their forces by sea and land, that they might prosecute the war with vigour. The common people, fond of novelty, dazzled by the splendour of greatness, and fully persuaded that nothing but a chief was wanting to their security, demanded the prince of Orange as a stadtholder; and even mingled menaces with their demands. The opposite faction dreaded alike the power of a stadtholder, the neighbourhood of a French army, and the seditious disposition of the populace. An ambassador was sent to London with representations of the imminent dangers which threatened the republic, and he was ordered to solicit in the most pressing terms the assistance of his Britannic majesty, that the allies might have a superiority in the Netherlands by the beginning of the campaign. The king was very well disposed to comply with their request; but the rebellion in his kingdom, and the dissensions in his cabinet, had retailed the supplies and embarrassed him so much, that he found it impossible to make those early preparations that were necessary to check the career of the enemy.
COUNT SAXE SUBDUES ALL FLANDERS, BRABANT, AND HAINAULT.
The king of France, with his general the count de Saxe, took the field in the latter end of April, at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand men, and advanced towards the allies, who, to the number of four-and-forty thousand, were intrenched behind the Demer under the conduct of the Austrian general Bathiani, who retired before them, and took post in the neighbourhood of Breda, the capital of Dutch Brabant. Mareschal Saxe immediately invested Antwerp, which in a few clays was surrendered. Then he appeared before the strong town of Mons in Hainault, with an irresistible train of artillery, and an immense quantity of bombs and warlike implements. He carried on his approaches with such unabating impetuosity, that, notwithstanding a very vigorous defence, the garrison was obliged to capitulate on the twenty-seventh day of June, in about eight-and-twenty days after the place had been invested. Sieges were not now carried on by the tedious method of sapping. The French king found it much more expeditious and effectual to bring into the field a prodigious train of battering cannon, and enormous mortars, that kept up such a fire as no garrison could sustain, and discharged such an incessant hail of bombs and bullets, as in a very little time reduced to ruins the place with all its fortifications. St. Guislain and Charleroy met with the fate of Mons and Antwerp; so that by the middle of July the French king was absolute master of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault.
Prince Charles of Lorraine had by this time assumed the command of the confederate army at Terheyde, which being reinforced by the Hessian troops from Scotland, and a fresh body of Austrians under count Palfi, amounted to eighty-seven thousand men, including the Dutch forces commanded by the prince of Waldeck. The generals, supposing the next storm would fall upon Namur, marched towards that place, and took post in an advantageous situation on the eighteenth day of July, in sight of the French army, which was encamped at Gemblours, Here they remained till the eighth day of August, when a detachment of the enemy, commanded by count Lowendahl, took possession of Huy, where he found a large magazine belonging to the confederates; and their communication with Maestricht was cut off. Mareschal Saxe, on the other side, took his measures so well, that they were utterly deprived of all subsistence. Then prince Charles, retiring across the Maese, abandoned Namur to the efforts of the enemy, by whom it was immediately invested. The trenches were opened on the second day of September; and the garrison, consisting of seven thousand Austrian-s, defended themselves with equal skill and resolution; but the cannonading and bombardment were so terrible, that in a few days the place was converted into a heap of rubbish; and on the twenty-third day of the month the French monarch took possession of this strong fortress, which had formerly sustained such dreadful attacks. Meanwhile the allied army encamped at Maestricht, were joined by sir John Ligonier with some British and Bavarian battalions; and prince Charles resolved to give the enemy battle. With this view he passed the Maese on the thirteenth day of September, and advanced towards mareschal Saxe, whom he found so advantageously posted at Tongres, that he thought proper to march back to Maestricht. On the twenty-sixth day of September he crossed the Jaar in his retreat; and his rear was attacked by the enemy, who were repulsed. But count Saxe being reinforced by a body of troops under the count de Clermont, determined to bring the confederates to an engagement. On the thirteenth day of the month he passed the Jaar; while they took possession of the villages of Liers, Warem, and Roucoux, drew up their forces in order of battle, and made preparations for giving him a warm reception. On the first day of October the enemy advanced in three columns; and a terrible cannonading began about noon. At two o’clock prince Waldeck on the left was charged with great fury; and, after an obstinate defence, overpowered by numbers. The villages were attacked in columns, and as one brigade was repulsed another succeeded; so that the allies were obliged to abandon these posts, and retreat towards Maestricht, with the loss of five thousand men and thirty pieces of artillery. The victory, however, cost the French general a much greater number of lives; and was attended with no solid advantage. Sir John ligonier, the earls of Crawford [301] _[See note 2 O, at the end of this Vol.]_ and Rothes, brigadier Douglas, and other officers of the British troops, distinguished themselves by their gallantry and conduct on this occasion. This action terminated the campaign. The allies passing the Maese, took up their winter-quarters in the duchies of Limeburgh and Luxembourg; while the French cantoned their troops in the places which they had newly conquered.
THE FRENCH AND SPANIARDS ABANDON PIEDMONT AND THE MILANESE.
The campaign in Italy was altogether unfavourable to the French and Spaniards. The house of Austria being no longer pressed on the side of Germany, was enabled to make the stronger efforts in this country; and the British subsidy encouraged the king of Sardinia to act with redoubled vivacity. Mareschal Maillebois occupied the greater part of Piedmont with about thirty thousand men. Don Philip and the count de Gages were at the head of a greater number in the neighbourhood of Milan; and the duke of Modena, with eight thousand, secured his own dominions. The king of Sardinia augmented his forces to six-and-thirty thousand; and the Austrian army, under the prince of Lichtenstein, amounted to a much greater number; so that the enemy were reduced to the necessity of acting on the defensive, and retired towards the Mantuan. In February, baron Leutrum, the Piedmontese general, invested and took the strong fortress of Aste. He afterwards relieved the citadel of Alexandria, which the Spaniards had blocked up in the winter, reduced Casal, recovered Valencia, and obliged Maillebois to retire to the neighbourhood of Genoa. On the other side, Don Philip and count Gages abandoned Milan, Pavia, and Parma, retreating before the Austrians with the utmost precipitation to Placentia, where they were joined on the third of June by the French forces under Maillebois.
Before this junction was effected, the Spanish general Pignatelli had passed the river Po in the night with a strong detachment, and beaten up the quarters of seven thousand Austrians posted at Codogno. Don Philip, finding himself at the head of two-and-fifty thousand men by his junction with the French general, resolved to attack the Austrians in their camp at San Lazaro, before they should be reinforced by his Sardinian majesty. Accordingly, on the fourth day of June, in the evening, he marched with equal silence and expedition, and entered the Austrian trenches about eleven, when a desperate battle ensued. The Austrians were prepared for the attack, which they sustained with great vigour till morning. Then they quitted their intrench-ments, and charged the enemy in their turn with such fury, that after an obstinate resistance the combined army was broke, and retired with precipitation to Placentia, leaving on the field fifteen thousand men killed, wounded, and taken, together with sixty colours and ten pieces of artillery. In a few weeks the Austrians were joined by the Piedmontese; the king of Sardinia assumed the chief command; and prince Lichtenstein being indisposed, his place was supplied by the marquis de Botta. Don Philip retired to the other side of the Po, and extended his conquests in the open country of the Milanese. The king of Sardinia called a council of war, in which it was determined that he should pass the river with a strong body of troops, in order to straiten the enemy on one side; while the marquis de Botta should march up the Tydone, to cut off their communication with Placentia. They forthwith quitted all the posts they had occupied between the Lambro and Adda, resolving to repass the Po and retreat to Tortona. With, this view they threw bridges of boats over that river, and began to pass on the ninth day of August in the evening. They were attacked at Rotto Freddo by a detachment of Austrians, under general Serbelloni, who maintained the engagement till ten in the morning, when Botta arrived; the battle was renewed with redoubled rage, and lasted till four in the afternoon, when the enemy retired in great disorder to Tortona, with the loss of eight thousand men, a good number of colours and standards, and eighteen pieces of cannon. This victory cost the Austrians four thousand men killed upon the spot, including the gallant general Bernclau. The victors immediately summoned Placentia to surrender; and the garrison, consisting of nine thousand men, were made prisoners of war; Don Philip continued his retreat, and of all his forces brought six-and-twenty thousand only into the territories of Genoa.
THE AUSTRIANS TAKE POSSESSION OF GENOA. COUNT BROWN ENTERS PROVENCE.
The Piedmontese and Austrians rejoining in the neighbourhood of Pavia, advanced to Tortona, of which they took possession without resistance, while the enemy sheltered themselves under the cannon of Genoa. They did not long continue in this situation; for on the twenty-second day of August they were again in motion, and retired into Provence. The court of Madrid imputing the bad success of this campaign to the misconduct of count Gages, recalled that general, and sent the marquis de las Minas to resume the command of the forces. In the meantime, the victorious confederates appeared before Genoa on the fourth day of December; and the senate of that city thinking it incapable of defence, submitted to a very mortifying capitulation, by which the gates were delivered up to the Austrians, together with all their arms, artillery, and ammunition; and the city was subjected to the most cruel contributions. The marquis de Botta being left at Genoa with sixteen thousand men, the king of Sardinia resolved to pass the Var, and pursue the French and Spaniards into Provence; but that monarch being seized with the small-pox, the conduct of this expedition was entrusted to count Brown, an Austrian general of Irish extract, who had given repeated proofs of uncommon valour and capacity. He was on this occasion assisted by vice-admiral Medley, who commanded the British squadron in the Mediterranean. The French forces had fortified the passes of the Var, under the conduct of the mareschal de Belleisle, who thought proper to abandon his posts at the approach of count Brown; and this general, at the head of fifty thousand men, passed the river without opposition, on the ninth day of November. While he advanced as far as Draguignan, laying the open country under contribution, baron Both, with four-and-twenty battalions, invested Antibes, which was at the same time bombarded on the side of the sea by the British squadron. The trenches were opened on the twentieth day of September; but Belleisle having assembled a numerous army, superior to that of the confederates, and the Genoese having expelled their Austrian guests, count Brown abandoned the enterprise, and repassed the Var, not without some damage from the enemy.
THE GENOESE EXPEL THE AUSTRIANS.
The court of Vienna, which has always patronised oppression, exacted such heavy contribution from the Genoese, and its directions were so rigorously put in execution, that the people were reduced to despair; and resolved to make a last effort for the recovery of their liberty and independence. Accordingly, they took arms in secret, seized several important posts of the city; surprised some battalions of the Austrians; surrounded others, and cut them in pieces; and, in a word, drove them out with great slaughter. The marquis de Botta acted with caution and spirit; but being overpowered by numbers, and apprehensive of the peasants in the country, who were in arms, he retreated to the pass of the Brochetta on the side of Lombardy, where he secured himself in an advantageous situation, until he could receive reinforcements. The loss he had sustained at Genoa did not hinder him from reducing Savona, a sea-port town belonging to that republic; and he afterwards made himself master of Gavi. The Genoese, on the contrary, exerted themselves with wonderful industry in fortifying their city, raising troops, and in taking other measures for a vigorous defence, in case they should again be insulted.
MADRAS TAKEN BY THE FRENCH.
The naval transactions of this year reflected very little honour on the British nation. Commodore Peyton, who commanded six ships of war in the East Indies, shamefully declined a decisive engagement with a French squadron of inferior force; and abandoned the important settlement of Madras on the coast of Coromandel, which was taken without opposition in the month of September by the French commodore, de la Bourdonnais. Fort St. David, and the other British factories in India, would probably have shared the same fate, had not the enemy’s naval force in that country been shattered and partly destroyed by a terrible tempest. No event of consequence happened in America, though it was a scene that seemed to promise the greatest success to the arms of England. The reduction of Cape Breton had encouraged the ministry to project the conquest of Quebec, the capital of Canada, situated upon the river St. Lawrence. Commissions were sent to the governors of the British colonies in North America, empowering them to raise companies to join the armament from England; and eight thousand troops were actually raised in consequence of these directions; while a powerful squadron and transports, having six regiments on board, were prepared at Portsmouth for this expedition. But their departure was postponed by unaccountable delays, until the season was judged too far advanced to risk the great ships on the boisterous coast of North America. That the armament, however, might not be wholly useless to the nation, it was employed in making a descent upon the coast of Bretagne, on the supposition that Port L’Orient, the repository of all the stores and ships belonging to the French East India company, might be surprised; or, that this invasion would alarm the enemy, and, by making a diversion, facilitate the operations of the Austrian general in Provence.
The naval force intended for this service consisted of sixteen great ships, and eight frigates, besides bomb-ketches and store ships, commanded by Richard Lestock, appointed admiral of the blue division. Six battalions of land troops, with a detachment of matrosses and bombardiers, were embarked in thirty transports, under the conduct of lieutenant-general Sinclair; and the whole fleet set sail from Plymouth on the fourteenth day of September. On the twentieth the troops were landed in Quimperlay-bay, at the distance of ten miles from Port L’Orient. The militia, reinforced by some detachments from different regiments, were assembled to the number of two thousand, and seemed resolved to oppose the disembarkation; but seeing the British troops determined to land at all events, they thought proper to retire. Next day general Sinclair advanced into the country, skirmishing with the enemy in his route; and arriving at the village of Plemure, within half a league from Port L’Orient, summoned that place to surrender. He was visited by a deputation from the town, which offered to admit the British forces, on condition that they should be restrained from pillaging the inhabitants, and touching the magazines; and that they should pay a just price for their provisions. These terms being rejected, the inhabitants prepared for a vigorous defence; and the English general resolved to besiege the place in form, though he had neither time, artillery, nor forces sufficient for such an enterprise. This strange resolution was owing to the declaration of the engineers, who promised to lay the place in ashes in the space of four-and-twenty hours. All his cannon amounted to no more than a few field-pieces; and he was obliged to wait for two iron guns, which the sailors dragged up from the shipping. Had he given the assault on the first night after his arrival, when the town was filled with terror and confusion, and destitute of regular troops, in all probability it would have been easily taken by scalade; but the reduction of it was rendered impracticable by his delay. The ramparts were mounted with cannon from the ships in the harbour; new works were raised with great industry; the garrison was reinforced by several bodies of regular troops; and great numbers were assembling from all parts; so that the British forces were in danger of being surrounded in an enemy’s country. Notwithstanding these discouragements, they opened a small battery against the town, which was set on fire in several places by their bombs and red-hot bullets; they likewise repulsed part of the garrison which had made a sally to destroy their works; but their cannon producing no effect upon the fortifications, the fire from the town daily increasing, the engineers owning they could not perform their promise, and admiral Lestock declaring, in repeated messages, that he could no longer expose the ships on an open coast at such a season of the year, general Sinclair abandoned the siege. Having caused the two iron pieces of cannon and the mortars to be spiked, he retreated in good order to the sea-side, where his troops were re-embarked, having sustained very inconsiderable damage since their first landing. He expected reinforcements from England, and was resolved to wait a little longer for their arrival, in hopes of being able to annoy the enemy more effectually. In the beginning of October, the fleet sailed to Quiberon-bay, where they destroyed the Ardent, a French ship of war of sixty-four guns; and a detachment of the forces being landed, took possession of a fort in the peninsula; while the little islands of Houat and Hey die were reduced by the sailors. In this situation the admiral and general continued till the seventeenth day of the month, when the forts being dismantled, and the troops re-embarked, the fleet sailed from the French coast; the admiral returned to England, and the transports with the soldiers proceeded to Ireland, where they arrived in safety.
NAVAL TRANSACTIONS in the WEST INDIES.
This expedition, weak and frivolous as it may seem, was resented by the French nation as one of the greatest insults they had ever sustained; and demonstrated the possibility of hurting France in her tenderest parts, by means of an armament of this nature, well timed, and vigorously conducted. Indeed, nothing could be more absurd or precipitate than an attempt to distress the enemy by landing a handful of troops, without draught-horses, tents, or artillery, from a fleet of ships lying on an open beach, exposed to the uncertainty of weather in the most tempestuous season of the year, so as to render the retreat and re-embarkation altogether precarious. The British squadrons in the West Indies performed no exploit of consequence in the course of this year. The commerce was but indifferently protected. Commodore Lee, stationed off Martinico, allowed a French fleet of merchant-ships, and their convoy, to pass by his squadron unmolested; and commodore Mitchel behaved scandalously in a rencontre with the French squadron, under the conduct of monsieur de Conflans, who in his return to Europe took the Severn, an English ship of fifty guns. The cruisers on all sides, English, French, and Spaniards, were extremely alert; and though the English lost the greater number of ships, this difference was more than overbalanced by the superior value of the prizes taken from the enemy. In the course of this year, two-and-twenty Spanish privateers, and sixty-six merchant vessels, including ten register ships, fell into the hands of the British cruisers; from the French they took seven ships of war, ninety privateers, and about three hundred ships of commerce. The new king of Spain* being supposed well-affected to the British nation, an effort was made to detach him from the interests of France, by means of the marquis de Tabernega, who had formerly been his favourite, and resided many years as a refugee in England.
* In the month of July, Philip king of Spain dying, in the sixty-third year of his age, was succeeded by his eldest son Ferdinand, born of Maria-Louisa Gabriela, sister to the late king of Sardinia. He espoused Donna Maria Magdalena, infanta of Portugal, but had no issue. Philip was but two days survived by his daughter, the dauphiness of France. The same month was remarkable for the death of Christian VI., king of Denmark, succeeded by his son Frederick V., who had married the princess Louisa, youngest daughter of the king of Great Britain.
This nobleman proceeded to Lisbon, where a negotiation was set on foot with the court of Madrid. But his efforts miscarried; and the influence of the queen-mother continued to predominate in the Spanish councils. The states-general had for some years endeavoured to promote a pacification by remonstrances, and even entreaties, at the court of Versailles; the French king at length discovered an inclination to peace, and in September a congress was opened at Breda, the capital of Dutch Brabant, where the plenipotentiaries of the emperor, Great Britain, France, and Holland, were assembled; but the French were so insolent in their demands, that the conferences were soon interrupted.
The parliament of Great Britain meeting in November, the king exhorted them to concert with all possible expedition the proper measures for pursuing the war with vigour, that the confederate army in the Netherlands might be seasonably augmented; he likewise gave them to understand, that the funds appropriated for the support of his civil government had for some years past fallen short of the revenue intended and granted by parliament; and said he relied on their known affection to find out some method to make good this deficiency. As all those who had conducted the opposition were now concerned in the administration, little or no objection was made to any demand or proposal of the government and its ministers. The commons having considered the estimates, voted forty thousand seamen for the service of the ensuing year, and about sixty thousand land-forces, including eleven thousand five hundred marines. They granted four hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds to the empress queen of Hungary; three hundred thousand pounds to the king of Sardinia; four hundred and ten thousand pounds for the maintenance of eighteen thousand Hanoverian auxiliaries; one hundred and sixty one thousand six hundred and seven pounds for six thousand Hessians; subsidies to the electors of Cologn, Mentz, and Bavaria; and the sum of five hundred thousand pounds to enable his majesty to prosecute the war with advantage. In a word, the supplies amounted to nine millions four hundred and twenty-five thousand two hundred and fifty-four pounds; a sum almost incredible, if we consider how the kingdom had been already drained of its treasure. It was raised by the usual taxes, reinforced with new impositions on windows, carriages, and spirituous liquors; a lottery, and a loan from the sinking-fund. The new taxes were mortgaged for four millions by transferable annuities, at an interest of four, and a premium of ten per centum. By reflecting on these enormous grants, one would imagine the ministry had been determined to impoverish the nation; but from the eagerness and expedition with which the people subscribed for the money, one would conclude that the riches of the kingdom were inexhaustible. It may not be amiss to observe, that the supplies of this year exceeded, by two millions and a half, the greatest annual sum that was raised during the reign of queen Anne, though she maintained as great a number of troops as was now in the pay of Great Britain, and her armies and fleets acquired every year fresh harvests of glory and advantage; whereas this war had proved an almost uninterrupted series of events big with disaster and dishonour. During the last two years, the naval expense of England had exceeded that of France about five millions sterling; though her fleets had not obtained one signal advantage over the enemy at sea, nor been able to protect her commerce from their depredations. She was at once a prey to her declared adversaries and professed friends. Before the end of summer, she numbered among her mercenaries two empresses, five German princes, and a powerful monarch, whom she hired to assist her in trimming the balance of Europe, in which they themselves were immediately interested, and she had no more than a secondary concern. Had these fruitless subsidies been saved; had the national revenue been applied with economy to national purposes; had it been employed in liquidating gradually the public incumbrances: in augmenting the navy, improving manufactures, encouraging and securing the colonies, and extending trade and navigation; corruption would have become altogether unnecessary, and disaffection would have vanished: the people would have been eased of their burdens, and ceased to complain; commerce would have flourished, and produced such affluence as must have raised Great Britain to the highest pinnacle of maritime power, above all rivalship of competition. She would have been dreaded by her enemies; revered by her neighbours; oppressed nations would have crept under her wings for protection; contending potentates would have appealed to her decision; and she would have shone the universal arbitress of Europe. How different is her present situation! her debts are enormous, her taxes intolerable, her people discontented, and the sinews of her government relaxed. Without conduct, confidence, or concert, she engages in blundering negotiations; she involves herself rashly in foreign quarrels, and lavishes her substance with the most dangerous precipitation; she is even deserted by her wonted vigour, steadiness, and intrepidity; she grows vain, fantastical, and pusillanimous; her arms are despised by her enemies; and her councils ridiculed through all Christendom.
PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED.
The king, in order to exhibit a specimen of his desire to diminish the public expense, ordered the third and fourth troops of his life-guards to be disbanded, and reduced three regiments of horse to the quality of dragoons. The house of commons presented an address of thanks for this instance of economy, by which the annual sum of seventy thousand pounds was saved to the nation. Notwithstanding this seeming harmony between the king and the great council of the nation, his majesty resolved, with the advice of his council, to dissolve the present parliament, though the term of seven years was not yet expired since its first meeting. The ministry affected to insinuate, that the states-general were unwilling to concur with his majesty in vigorous measures against France, during the existence of a parliament which had undergone such a vicissitude of complexion. The allies of Great Britain, far from being suspicious of this assembly, which had supplied them so liberally, saw with concern that according to law it would soon be dismissed; and they doubted whether another could be procured equally agreeable to their purposes. In order to remove this doubt, the ministry resolved to surprise the kingdom with a new election, before the malcontents should be prepared to oppose the friends of the government.
{1747}
Accordingly, when the business of the session was despatched, the king having given the royal assent to the several acts they had prepared, dismissed them in the month of June, with an affectionate speech that breathed nothing but tenderness and gratitude. The parliament was immediately dissolved by proclamation, and new writs were issued for convoking another. Among the laws passed in this session, was an act abolishing the heritable jurisdictions, and taking away the tenure of wardholdings in Scotland, which were reckoned among the principal sources of those rebellions that had been excited since the revolution. In the highlands they certainly kept the common people in subjection to their chiefs, whom they implicitly followed and obeyed in all their undertakings. By this act these mountaineers were legally emancipated from slavery; but as the tenants enjoyed no leases, and were at all times liable to be ejected from their farms, they still depended on the pleasure of their lords, notwithstanding this interposition of the legislature, which granted a valuable consideration in money to every nobleman and petty baron, who was thus deprived of one part of his inheritance. The forfeited estates indeed were divided into small farms, and let by the government on leases at an under value; so that those who had the good fortune to obtain such leases tasted the sweets of independence; but the highlanders in general were left in their original indigence and incapacity, at the mercy of their superiors. Had manufactures and fisheries been established in different parts of their country, they would have seen and felt the happy consequences of industry, and in a little time been effectually detached from all their slavish connexions.
{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}
THE FRENCH AND ALLIES TAKE THE FIELD IN FLANDERS.
The operations of the campaign had been concerted in the winter at the Hague, between the duke of Cumberland and the states-general of the United Provinces, who were by this time generally convinced of France’s design to encroach upon their territories. They therefore determined to take effectual measures against that restless and ambitious neighbour. The allied powers agreed to assemble a vast army in the Netherlands; and it was resolved that the Austrians and Piedmonte so should once more penetrate into Provence. The Dutch patriots, however, were not roused into this exertion, until all their remonstrances had failed at the court of Versailles; until they had been urged by repeated memorials of the English ambassador, and stimulated by the immediate danger to which their country was exposed; for France was by this time possessed of all the Austrian Netherlands, and seemed bent upon penetrating into the territories of the United Provinces. In February, the duke of Cumberland began to assemble the allied forces; and in the latter end of March they took the field in three separate bodies. His royal highness, with the English, Hanoverians, and Hessians, fixed his head quarters at the village of Tilberg; the prince of Waldeck was posted with the Dutch troops at Breda; and mareschal Bathiani collected the Austrians and Bavarians in the neighbourhood of Venlo. The whole army amounted to one hundred and twenty thousand men, who lay inactive six weeks, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and almost destitute of forage and provisions. Count Saxe, by this time created mareschal-general of France, continued his troops within their cantonments at Bruges, Antwerp, and Brussels, declaring, that when the allied army should be weakened by sickness and mortality, he would convince the duke of Cumberland that the first duty of a general is to provide for the health and preservation of his troops. In April this fortunate commander took the field, at the head of one hundred and forty thousand men; and the count de Clermont commanded a separate body of nineteen battalions and thirty squadrons. Count Lowendahl was detached on the sixteenth of the month, with seven-and-twenty thousand men, to invade Dutch Flanders; at the same time, the French minister at the Hague presented a memorial to the states, intimating, that his master was obliged to take this step by the necessity of war; but that his troops should observe the strictest discipline, without interfering with the religion, government, or commerce of the republic; he likewise declared, that the countries and places of which he might be obliged to take possession should be detained no otherwise than as a pledge, to be restored as soon as the United Provinces should give convincing proofs that they would no longer furnish the enemies of France with succours.
THE PRINCE OF ORANGE ELECTED STADTHOLDER.
While the states deliberated upon this declaration, count Lowendahl entered Dutch Brabant, and invested the town and fortress of Sluys, the garrison of which surrendered themselves prisoners of war on the nineteenth day of April. This was likewise the fate of Sas-van-Ghent, while the marquis de Contades, with another detachment, reduced the forts Perle and Leifkenshoek, with the town of Philippine, even within hearing of the confederate army. The fort of Sandberg was vigorously defended by two English battalions; but they were overpowered, and obliged to retire to Welsthoorden; and count Lowendahl undertook the siege of Hulst, which was shamefully surrendered by La Roque the Dutch governor, though he knew that a reinforcement of nine battalions was on the march to his relief. Then the French general took possession of Axel and Terneuse, and began to prepare flat-bottomed boats for a descent on the island of Zealand. The Dutch people were now struck with consternation. They saw the enemy at their doors, and owed their immediate preservation to the British squadron stationed at the Swin, under the command of commodore Mitchel,* who, by means of his sloops, tenders, and small craft, took such measures as defeated the intention of Lowendahl. The common people in Zealand being reduced to despair, began to clamour loudly against their governors, as if they had not taken the proper measures for their security. The friends of the prince of Orange did not neglect this opportunity of promoting his interest. They encouraged their discontent, and exaggerated the danger; they reminded them of the year one thousand six hundred and seventy-two, when the French king was at the gates of Amsterdam, and the republic was saved by the choice of a stadtholder; they exhorted them to turn their eyes on the descendant of those heroes who had established the liberty and independence of the United Provinces; they extolled his virtue and ability; his generosity, his justice, his unshaken love to his country. The people in several towns, inflamed by such representations to tumult and sedition, compelled their magistrates to declare the prince of Orange stadtholder. He himself, in a letter to the states of Zealand, offered his services for the defence of the province. On the twenty-eighth day of April he was nominated captain-general and admiral of Zealand. Their example was followed by Rotterdam and the whole province of Holland; and on the second day of May, the prince of Orange was, in the assembly of the states-general, invested with the power and dignity of stadtholder, captain-general, and admiral of the United Provinces. The vigorous consequences of this resolution immediately appeared. All commerce and contracts with the French were prohibited; the peasants were armed and exercised; a resolution passed for making a considerable augmentation of the army, a council of war was established for inquiring into the conduct of the governors who had given up the frontier places; and orders were issued to commence hostilities against the French, both by sea and land.
Meanwhile the duke of Cumberland took post with his whole army between the two Nethes, to cover Bergen-op-Zoom and Maestricht; and Mareschal Saxe called in his detachments with a view to hazard a general engagement. In the latter end of May the French king arrived at Brussels, and his general resolved to undertake the siege of Maestricht. For this purpose he advanced towards Louvain; and the confederates perceiving his drift, began their march to take post between the town and the enemy. On the twentieth day of June they took possession of their ground, and were drawn up in order of battle, with their right at Bilsen, and their left extending to Wirle within a mile of Maestricht, having in the front of their left wing the village of Laffeldt, in which they posted several battalions of British infantry. The French had taken possession of the heights of Herdeeren, immediately above the allies; and both armies cannonaded each other till the evening. In the morning the enemy’s infantry marched down the hill in a prodigious column, and attacked the village of Laffeldt, which was well fortified, and defended with amazing obstinacy. The assailants suffered terribly in their approach from the cannon of the confederates, which was served with surprising dexterity and success; and they met with such a warm reception from the British musquetry as they could not withstand; but, when they were broken and dispersed, fresh brigades succeeded with astonishing perseverance. The confederates were driven out of the village; yet being sustained by three regiments, they measured back their ground, and repulsed the enemy with great slaughter. Nevertheless, count Saxe continued pouring in other battalions, and the French regained and maintained their footing in the village, after it had been three times lost and carried. The action was chiefly confined to this post, where the field exhibited a horrible scene of carnage. At noon the duke of Cumberland ordered the whole left wing to advance against the enemy, whose infantry gave way; prince Waldeck led up the centre; marshal Bathiani made a motion with the right wing towards Herdeeren, and victory seemed ready to declare for the confederates, when the fortune of the day took a sudden turn to their prejudice. Several squadrons of Dutch horse posted in the centre gave way, and flying at full gallop, overthrew five battalions of infantry that were advancing from the body of reserve. The French cavalry charged them with great impetuosity, increasing the confusion that was already produced, and penetrating through the lines of the allied army, which was thus divided about the centre. The duke of Cumberland, who exerted himself with equal courage and activity in attempting to remedy this disorder, was in danger of being taken; and the defeat would in all probability have been total, had not sir John Ligonier taken the resolution of sacrificing himself and a part of the troops to the safety of the army. At the head of three British regiments of dragoons, and some squadrons of imperial horse, he charged the whole line of the French cavalry with such intrepidity and success, that he overthrew all that opposed him, and made such a diversion as enabled the duke of Cumberland to effect an orderly retreat to Maestricht. He himself was taken by a French carabinier, after his horse had been killed; but the regiments he commanded retired with deliberation. The confederates retreated to Maestricht, without having sustained much damage from the pursuit, and even brought off all their artillery, except sixteen pieces of cannon. Their loss did not exceed six thousand men killed and taken; whereas the French general purchased the victory at a much greater expense. The common cause of the confederate powers is said to have suffered from the pride and ignorance of their generals. On the eve of the battle, when the detachment of the count de Clermont appeared on the hill of Herdeeren, marshal Bathiani asked permission of the commander-in-chief to attack them before they should be reinforced, declaring he would answer for the success of the enterprise. No regard was paid to this proposal; but the superior asked in his turn, where the marshal would be in case he should be wanted? He replied, “I shall always be found at the head of my troops,” and retired in disgust. The subsequent disposition has likewise been blamed, inasmuch as not above one half of the army could act, while the enemy exerted their whole force.
SIEGE OF BERGEN-OP-ZOOM.
The confederates passed the Maese and encamped in the duchy of Limburgh, so as to cover Maestricht; while the French king remained with his army in the neighbourhood of Tongres. Mareschal Saxe, having amused the allies with marches and counter-marches, at length detached count Lowendahl with six-and-thirty thousand men to besiege Bergen-op-Zoom, the strongest fortification of Dutch Brabant, the favourite work of the famous engineer Coehorn, never conquered, and generally esteemed invincible. It was secured with a garrison of three thousand men, and well provided with artillery, ammunition, and magazines. The enemy appeared before it on the twelfth day of July, and summoned the governor to surrender. The prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen was sent to its relief, with twenty battalions and fourteen squadrons of the troops that could be most conveniently assembled; he entered the lines of Bergen-op-Zooin, where he remained in expectation of a strong reinforcement from the confederate army; and the old baron Cronstrom, whom the stadtholder had appointed governor of Brabant, assumed the command of the garrison The besiegers carried on their operations with great vivacity; and the troops in the town defended it with equal vigour. The eyes of all Europe were turned upon this important siege; count Lowendahl received divers reinforcements; and a considerable body of troops was detached from the allied army, under the command of baron Schwartzenberg, to co-operate with the prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The French general lost a great number of men by the close and continual fire of the besieged; while he, in his turn, opened such a number of batteries, and plied them so warmly, that the defences began to give way. From the sixteenth day of July to the fifteenth of September, the siege produced an unintermitting scene of horror and destruction: desperate sallies were made, and mines sprung with the most dreadful effect; the works began to be shattered; the town was laid in ashes; the trenches were filled with carnage; nothing was seen but fire and smoke; nothing heard but one continued roar of bombs and cannon. But still the damage fell chiefly on the besiegers, who were slain in heaps; while the garrison suffered very little, and could be occasionally relieved or reinforced from the lines. In a word, it was generally believed that count Lowendahl would be baffled in his endeavours; and by this belief the governor of Bergen-op-Zoom seems to have been lulled into a blind security. At length, some inconsiderable breaches were made in one ravelin and two bastions, and these the French general resolved to storm, though Cronstrom believed they were impracticable; ind on that supposition presumed that the enemy would not attempt an assault. For this very reason count Lowendahl resolved to hazard the attack, before the preparations should be made for his reception. He accordingly regulated his dispositions, and at four o’clock in the morning, on the sixteenth day of September, the signal was made for the assault. A prodigious quantity of bombs being thrown into the ravelin, his troops threw themselves into the fosse, mounted the breaches, forced open a sally-port, and entered the place almost without resistance. In a word, they had time to extend themselves along the curtains, and form in order of battle, before the garrison could be assembled. Cronstrom was asleep, and the soldiers upon duty had been surprised by the suddenness and impetuosity of the attack. Though the French had taken possession of the ramparts, they did not gain the town without opposition. Two battalions of the Scottish troops, in the pay of the states-general, were assembled in the market-place, and attacked them with such fury, that they were driven from street to street, until fresh reinforcements arriving, compelled the Scots to retreat in their turn; yet they disputed every inch of ground, and fought until two thirds of them were killed upon the spot. Then they brought off the old governor, abandoning the town to the enemy; the troops that were encamped in the lines retreating with great precipitation, all the forts in the neighbourhood immediately surrendered to the victors, who now became masters of the whole navigation of the Schelde. The French king was no sooner informed of Lowendahl’s success, than he promoted him to the rank of mareschal of France; appointed count Saxe governor of the conquered Netherlands; and returned in triumph to Versailles. In a little time after this transaction, both armies were distributed into winter quarters, and the duke of Cumberland embarked for England.
In Italy, the French arms did not triumph with equal success, though the mareschal de Belleisle saw himself at the head of a powerful army in Provence. In April he passed the Var without opposition, and took possession of Nice. He met with little or no resistance in reducing Montalban, Villafranca, and Ventimiglia; while general Brown, with eight-and-twenty thousand Aus-trians, retired towards Final and Savona. In the meantime, another large body under count Schuylemberg, Who had succeeded the marquis de Botta, co-operated with fifteen thousand Piedmontese in an attempt to recover the city of Genoa. The French king had sent their supplies, succours, and engineers, with the duke de Boufflers, as ambassador to the republic, who likewise acted as commander-in-chief of the forces employed for its defence. The Austrian general assembled his troops in the Milanese, having forced the passage of the Bochetta on the thirteenth of January, he advanced into the territories of Genoa, and the Eiviera was ravaged without mercy. On the last day of March he appeared before the city at the head of forty thousand men, and summoned the revolters to lay down their arms. The answer he received was, that the republic had fifty-four thousand men in arms, two hundred and sixty cannon, thirty-four mortars, with abundance of ammunition and provision; that they would defend their liberty with their last blood, and be buried in the ruins of their capital, rather than submit to the clemency of the court of Vienna, except by an honourable capitulation, guaranteed by the kings of Great Britain and Sardinia, the republic of Venice and the United Provinces. In the beginning of May, Genoa was invested on all sides; a furious sally was made by the duke de Boufflers, who drove the besiegers from their posts; but the Austrians rallying, he was repulsed in his turn, with the loss of seven hundred men. General Schuylemberg carried on his operations with such skill, vigour, and intrepidity, that he made himself master of the suburbs of Bisagno; and in all probability would have reduced the city, had he not been obliged to desist, in consequence of the repeated remonstrances made by the king of Sardinia and count Brown, who represented the necessity of his abandoning his enterprise, and drawing off his army to cover Piedmont and Lombardy from the efforts of mareschal de Belleisle. Accordingly he raised the siege on the tenth day of June, and returned into the Milanese in order to join his Sardinian majesty; while the Genoese made an irruption into the Parmesan and Placentia, where they committed terrible outrages, in revenge for the mischiefs they had undergone.
THE CHEVALIER DE BELLEISLE SLAIN.
While the mareschal de Belleisle remained at Ventimiglia, his brother, at the head of four-and-thirty thousand French and Spaniards, attempted to penetrate into Piedmont: on the sixth day of July he arrived at the pass of Exilles, a strong fortress on the frontiers of Dauphiné, situated on the north side of the river Doria. The defence of this important post the king of Sardinia had committed to the care of the count de Brigueras, who formed an encampment behind the lines, with fourteen battalions of Piedmontese and Austrians, while divers detachments were posted along all the passes of the Alps. On the eighth day of the month the Piedmontese intrenchments were attacked by the chevalier de Belleisle, with incredible intrepidity; but the columns were repulsed with great loss in three successive attacks. Impatient of this obstinate opposition, and determined not to survive a miscarriage, this impetuous general seized a pair of colours, and advancing at the head of his troops through a prodigious fire, pitched them with his own hand on the enemy’s entrenchments. At that instant he fell dead, having received two musquet-balls and the thrust of a bayonet in his body. The assailants were so much dispirited by the death of their commander, that they forthwith gave way, and retreated with precipitation towards Sesteries, having lost near five thousand men in the attack. The mareschal was no sooner informed of his brother’s misfortune, than he retreated towards the Var to join the troops from Exilles, while the king of Sardinia, having assembled an army of seventy thousand men, threatened Dauphiné with an invasion; but the excessive rains prevented the execution of his design. General Leutrum was detached with twenty battalions, to drive the French from Ventimiglia; but Belleisle marching back, that scheme was likewise frustrated; and thus ended the campaign.
A FRENCH SQUADRON TAKEN.
In this manner was the French king baffled in his projects upon Italy; nor was he more fortunate in his naval operations. He had in the preceding year equipped an expensive armament, under the command of the duke d’Anville, for the recovery of Cape Breton; but it was rendered ineffectual by storms, distempers, and the death of the commander. Not yet discouraged by these disasters, he resolved to renew his efforts against the British colonies in North America, and their settlements in the East Indies. For these purposes two squadrons were prepared at Brest, one to be commanded by the commodore de la Jonquiere; and the other destined for India, by monsieur de St. George. The ministry of Great Britain, being apprized of these measures, resolved to intercept both squadrons, which were to set sail together. For this purpose vice-admiral Anson and rear-admiral Warren took their departure from Plymouth with a formidable fleet, and steered their course to Cape Finisterre on the coast of Gallicia. On the third day of May, they fell in with the French squadrons, commanded by la Jonquiere and St. George, consisting of six large ships of war, as many frigates, and four armed vessels equipped by their East India company, having under their convoy about thirty ships laden with merchandise. Those prepared for war immediately shortened sail, and formed a line of battle; while the rest, under the protection of the six frigates, proceeded on their voyage with all the sail they could carry. The British squadron was likewise drawn up in line of battle; but Mr. Warren, perceiving that the enemy began to sheer off, now their convoy was at a considerable distance, advised admiral Anson to haul in the signal for the line, and hoist another for giving chase and engaging, otherwise the French would, in all probability, escape by favour of the night. The proposal was embraced; and in a little time the engagement began with great fury, about four o’clock in the afternoon. The enemy sustained the battle with equal conduct and valour, until they were overpowered by numbers, and then they struck their colours. The admiral detached three ships in pursuit of the convoy, nine sail of which were taken; but the rest were saved by the intervening darkness. About seven hundred of the French were killed and wounded in this action. The English lost about five hundred; and among these captain Grenville, commander of the ship Defiance. He was nephew to the lord viscount Cobham, a youth of the most amiable character and promising genius, animated with the noblest sentiments of honour and patriotism. Eager in the pursuit of glory, he rushed into the midst of the battle, where both his legs were cut off by a cannon-ball. He submitted to his fate with the most heroic resignation, and died universally lamented and beloved. The success of the British arms in this engagement was chiefly owing to the conduct, activity, and courage of the rear-admiral. A considerable quantity of bullion was found in the prizes, which was brought to Spithead in triumph; and the treasure being landed, was conveyed in twenty waggons to the bank of London. Admiral Anson was ennobled, and Mr. Warren honoured with the order of the Bath.
ADMIRAL HAWKE OBTAINS ANOTHER VICTORY OVER THE FRENCH.
About the middle of June, commodore Fox, with six ships of war, cruising in the latitude of Cape Ortegal in Gallicia, took above forty French ships, richly laden from St. Domingo, after they had been abandoned by their convoy. But the French king sustained another more important loss at sea, in the month of October. Rear-admiral Hawke sailed from Plymouth in the beginning of August, with fourteen ships of the line, to intercept a fleet of French merchant ships bound for the West Indies. He cruised for some time on the coast of Bretagne; and at length the French fleet sailed from the isle of Aix, under convoy of nine ships of the line, besides frigates, commanded by monsieur de Letendeur. On the fourteenth day of October, the two squadrons were in sight of each other, in the latitude of Belleisle. The French commodore immediately ordered one of his great ships, and the frigates, to proceed with the trading ships, while he formed the line of battle, and waited the attack. At eleven in the forenoon admiral Hawke displayed the signal to chase, and in half an hour both fleets were engaged. The battle lasted till night, when all the French squadron, except the Intrepide and Ton-ant, had struck to the English flag. These two capital ships escaped in the dark, and returned to Brest in a shattered condition. The French captains sustained the unequal fight with uncommon bravery and resolution; and did not yield until their ships were disabled. Their loss in men amounted to eight hundred: the number of English killed in this engagement did not exceed two hundred, including captain Saumarez, a gallant officer who had served under lord Anson in his expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Indeed it must be owned, for the honour of that nobleman, that all these officers formed under his example, and raised by his influence, approved themselves in all respects worthy of the commands to which they were preferred. Immediately after the action, admiral Hawke despatched a sloop to commodore Legge, whose squadron was stationed at the Leeward Islands, with intelligence of the French fleet of merchant ships outward-bound, that he might take the proper measures for intercepting them in their passage to Martinique and the other French islands. In consequence of this advice he redoubled his vigilance, and a good number of them fell into his hands. Admiral Hawke conducted his prizes to Spithead; and in his letter to the board of admiralty, declared that all his captains behaved like men of honour during the engagement, except Mr. Fox, whose conduct he desired might be subjected to an inquiry. That gentleman was accordingly tried by a court-martial, and suspended from his command, for having followed the advice of his officers contrary to his own better judgment; but he was soon restored, and afterwards promoted to the rank of admiral; while Mr. Matthews, whose courage never incurred suspicion, still laboured under suspension for that which had been successfully practised in both these late actions, namely, engaging the enemy without any regard to the line of battle. In the Mediterranean, vice-admiral Medley blocked up the Spanish squadron in Carthagena; assisted the Austrian general on the coast of Villafranca; and intercepted some of the succours sent from France to the assistance of the Genoese. At his death, which happened in the beginning of August, the command of that squadron devolved upon rear-admiral Byng, who proceeded on the same plan of operation. In the summer, two British ships of war, having under their convoy a fleet of merchant ships bound to North America, fell in with the Glorioso, a Spanish ship of eighty guns, in the latitude of the Western Isles. She had sailed from the Havannah with an immense treasure on board, and must have fallen a prize to the English ships had each captain done his duty. Captain Erskine, in the Warwick of sixty guns, attacked her with great intrepidity, and fought until his ship was entirely disabled; but being unsustained by his consort, he was obliged to haul off, and the Glorioso arrived in safety at Ferrol; there the silver was landed, and she proceeded on her voyage to Cadiz, which, however, she did not reach. She was encountered by the Dartmouth, a British frigate of forty guns, commanded by captain Hamilton, a gallant youth, who, notwithstanding the inequality of force, engaged her without hesitation; but in the heat of the action, his ship being set on fire by accident, was blown up, and-he perished with all his crew, except a midshipman and ten or eleven sailors, who were taken up alive by a privateer that happened to be in sight. Favourable as this accident may seem to the Glorioso, she did not escape. An English ship of eighty guns, under the command of captain Buckle, came up and obliged the Spaniards to surrender, after a short but vigorous engagement. Commodore Griffin had been sent, with a reinforcement of ships, to assume the command of the squadron in the East Indies; and although his arrival secured Fort St. David’s and the other British settlements in that country, from the insults of monsieur da la Bourdonnais, his strength was not sufficient to enable him to undertake any enterprise of importance against the enemy; the ministry of England therefore resolved to equip a fresh armament, that, when joined by the ships in India, should be in a condition to besiege Pon-dicherry, the principal settlement belonging to the French on the coast of Coromandel. For this service, a good number of independent companies was raised, and set sail, in the sequel, with a strong squadron under the conduct of rear-admiral Boscawen, an officer of unquestioned valour and capacity. In the course of this year, the British cruisers were so alert and successful, that they took six hundred and forty-four prizes from the French and Spaniards, whereas the loss of Great Britain in the same time did not exceed five hundred and fifty.
CONGRESS AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
All the belligerent powers were by this time heartily tired of a war which had consumed an immensity of treasure, had been productive of so much mischief, and in the events of which, all, in their turns, had found themselves disappointed. Immediately after the battle of Laffeldt, the king of France had, in a personal conversation with sir John Ligonier, expressed his desire of a pacification; and afterwards his minister at the Hague presented a declaration on the same subject to the deputies of the states-general. The signal success of the British arms at sea confirmed him in these sentiments, which were likewise reinforced by a variety of other considerations. His finances were almost exhausted, and his supplies from the Spanish West Indies rendered so precarious by the vigilance of the British cruisers, that he could no longer depend upon their arrival. The trading part of his subjects had sustained such losses, that his kingdom was filled with bankruptcies; and the best part of his navy now contributed to strengthen the fleets of his enemies. The election of a stadtholder had united the whole power of the states-general against him, in taking the most resolute measures for their own safety; his views in Germany were entirely frustrated by the elevation of the grand duke to the Imperial throne, and the re-establishment of peace between the houses of Austria and Bran-denburgh; the success of his arms in Italy had not at all answered his expectation; and Genoa was become an expensive ally. He had the mortification to see the commerce of Britain flourish in the midst of war, while his own people were utterly impoverished. The parliament of England granted, and the nation paid such incredible sums as enabled their sovereign not only to maintain invincible navies and formidable armies, but likewise to give subsidies to all the powers of Europe. He knew that a treaty of this kind was actually upon the anvil between his Britannic majesty and the czarina, and he began to be apprehensive of seeing an army of Russians in the Netherlands. His fears from this quarter were not without foundation. In the month of November, the earl of Hyndford, ambassador from the king of Great Britain at the court of Russia, concluded a treaty of subsidy, by which the czarina engaged to hold in readiness thirty thousand men, and forty galleys, to be employed in the service of the confederates on the first requisition. The states-general acceded to this agreement, and even consented to pay one-fourth of the subsidy. His most christian majesty, moved by these considerations, made further advances towards an accommodation both at the Plague and in London; and the contending powers agreed to another congress, which was actually opened in March at Aix-la-Chapelle, where the earl of Sandwich and sir Thomas Robinson assisted as plenipotentiaries from the king of Great Britain.
{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}
COMPLIANT TEMPER OF THE NEW PARLIAMENT.
The elections for the new parliament in England had been conducted so as fully to answer the purposes of the duke of Newcastle, and his brother Mr. Pelham, who had for some time wholly engrossed the administration. Both houses were assembled on the tenth day of November, when Mr. Onslow was unanimously reelected speaker of the commons. The session was opened as usual by a speech from the throne, congratulating them on the signal successes of the British navy, and the happy alteration in the government of the United Provinces. His majesty gave them to understand that a congress would speedily be opened at Aix-la-Chapelle, to concert the means for effecting a general pacification; and reminded them that nothing would more conduce to the success of this negotiation than the vigour and unanimity of their proceedings. He received such addresses as the ministers were pleased to dictate. Opposition now languished at their feet. The duke of Bedford was become a courtier, and in a little time appointed secretary of state, in the room of the earl of Chesterfield, who had lately executed that office, which he now resigned; and the earl of Sandwich no longer harangued against the administration. This new house of commons, in imitation of the liberality of their predecessors, readily gratified all the requests of the government. They voted forty thousand seamen, forty-nine thousand land forces, besides eleven thousand five hundred marines; the subsidies for the queen of Hungary, the czarina, the king of Sardinia, the electors of Mentz and Bavaria, the Hessians, and the duke of Wolfenbuttle; the sum of two hundred and thirty-five thousand seven hundred and forty-nine pounds, was granted to the provinces of New England, to reimburse them for the expense of reducing Cape Breton; five hundred thousand pounds were given to his majesty for the vigorous prosecution of the war; and about one hundred and fifty-two thousand pounds to the Scottish claimants, in lieu of their jurisdiction. The supplies for the ensuing year fell very little short of nine millions, of which the greater part was raised on a loan by subscription, chargeable on a new subsidy of poundage exacted from all merchandise imported into Great Britain. Immediately after the rebellion was suppressed, the legislature had established some regulations in Scotland, which were thought necessary to prevent such commotions for the future. The highlanders were disarmed, and an act passed for abolishing their peculiarity of garb, which was supposed to keep up party distinctions, to encourage their martial disposition, and preserve the memory of the exploits achieved by their ancestors. In this session a bill was brought in to enforce the execution of that law, and passed with another act for the more effectual punishment of high treason in the highlands of Scotland. The practice of insuring French and Spanish ships at London being deemed the sole circumstances that prevented a total stagnation of commerce in those countries, it was prohibited by law under severe penalties; and this step of the British parliament accelerated the conclusion of the treaty. Several other prudent measures were taken in the course of this session, for the benefit of the public; and among these we may reckon an act for encouraging the manufacture of indigo in the British plantations of North America; an article for which Great Britain used to pay two hundred thousand pounds yearly to the subjects of France.
{1748}
The session was closed on the thirteenth day of May, when the king declared to both houses that the preliminaries of a general peace were actually signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, by the ministers of Great Britain, France, and the United Provinces; and that the basis of this accommodation was a general restitution of the conquests which had been made during the war. Immediately after the prorogation of parliament his majesty set out for his German dominions, after having appointed a regency to rule the realm in his absence.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS.
The articles might have been made much less unfavourable to Great Britain and her allies, had the ministry made a proper use of the treaty with the czarina; and if the confederates had acted with more vigour and expedition in the beginning of the campaign. The Russian auxiliaries might have been transported by sea to Lubeck before the end of the preceding summer’, in their own galleys, which had been lying ready for use since the month of July. Had this expedient been used, the Russian troops would have joined the confederate army before the conclusion of the last campaign. But this easy and expeditious method of conveyance was rejected for a march by land, of incredible length and difficulty, which could not be begun before the month of January, nor accomplished till Midsummer. The operations of the campaign had been concerted at the Hague in January, by the respective ministers of the allies, who resolved to bring an army of one hundred and ninety thousand men into the Netherlands, in order to compel the French to abandon the barrier which they had conquered, The towns of Holland became the scenes of tumult and insurrection. The populace plundered the farmers of the revenue, abolished the taxes, and insulted the magistrates; so that the states-general, seeing their country on the brink of anarchy and confusion, authorized the prince of Orange to make such alterations as he should see convenient. They presented him with a diploma, by which he was constituted hereditary stadtholder and captain-general of Dutch Brabant, Flanders, and the upper quarter of Guelderland; and the East India company appointed him director and governor-general of their commerce and settlements in the Indies. Thus invested with authority unknown to his ancestors, he exerted himself with equal industry and discretion in new modelling, augmenting, and assembling the troops of the republic. The confederates knew that the count de Saxe had a design upon Maestricht: the Austrian general Bathiani made repeated remonstrances to the British ministry, entreating them to take speedy measures for the preservation of that fortress. He, in the month of January, proposed that the duke of Cumberland should cross the sea, and confer with the prince of Orange on this subject; he undertook, at the peril of his head, to cover Maastricht with seventy thousand men, from all attacks of the enemy: but his representations seemed to have made very little impression on those to whom they were addressed. The duke of Cumberland did not depart from England till towards the latter end of February; part of March was elapsed before the transports sailed from the Nore with the additional troops and artillery; and the last drafts from the foot-guards were not embarked till the middle of August.
SIEGE OF MAESTRICHT. FORMS A CESSATION.
The different bodies of the confederate forces joined each other and encamped in the neighbourhood of Euremond, to the number of one hundred and ten thousand men; and the French army invested Maestricht, without opposition, on the third day of April. The garrison consisted of Imperial and Dutch troops, under the conduct of the governor, baron de Aylva, who defended the place with extraordinary skill and resolution. He annoyed the besiegers in repeated sallies; but they were determined to surmount all opposition, and prosecuted their approaches with incredible ardour. They assaulted the covered way, and there effected a lodgement, after an obstinate dispute, in which they lost two thousand of their best troops; but next day they were entirely dislodged by the gallantry of the garrison. These hostilities were suddenly suspended, in consequence of the preliminaries signed at Aix-la-Chapelle. The plenipotentiaries agreed, that, for the glory of his christian majesty’s arms, the town of Maestricht should be surrendered to his general, on condition that it should be restored with all the magazines and artillery. He accordingly took possession of it on the third day of May, when the garrison marched out with all the honours of war; and a cessation of arms immediately ensued. By this time the Russian auxiliaries, to the number of thirty-seven thousand, commanded by prince Repnin, had arrived in Moravia, where they were reviewed by their imperial majesties; then they proceeded to the confines of Franconia, where they were ordered to halt, after they had marched seven hundred miles since the beginning of the year. The French king declared, that should they advance farther, he would demolish the fortifications of Maestricht and Bergen-op-Zoom. This dispute was referred to the plenipotentiaries, who, in the beginning of August, concluded a convention, importing that the Russian troops should return to their own country; and that the French king should disband an equal number of his forces. The season being far advanced, the Russians were provided with winter-quarters in Bohemia and Moravia, where they continued till the spring, when they marched back to Livonia. In the meantime seven-and-thirty thousand French troops were withdrawn from Flanders into Picardy, and the two armies remained quiet till the conclusion of the definitive treaty. The suspension of arms was proclaimed at London, and in all the capitals of the contracting powers; orders were sent to the respective admirals in different parts of the world, to refrain from hostilities; and a communication of trade and intelligence was again opened between the nations which had been at variance. No material transaction distinguished the campaign in Italy. The French and Spanish troops, who had joined the Genoese in the territories of the republic, amounted to thirty thousand men, under the direction of the duke de Richlieu, who was sent from France to assume that command on the death of the duke de Boufflers; while mareschal de Belleisle, at the head of fifty thousand men, covered the western Eiviera, which was threatened with an invasion by forty thousand Austrians and Piedmontese, under general Leutrum. At the same time general Brown, with a more numerous army, prepared to re-enter the eastern Eiviera, and recommence the siege of Genoa. But these intended operations were prevented by an armistice, which took place as soon as the belligerent powers had acceded to the preliminaries.
TRANSACTIONS IN THE EAST AND WEST INDIES.
In the East Indies, rear-admiral Boscawen undertook the siege of Pondicherry, which in the month of August he blocked up by sea with his squadron, and invested by land with a small army of four thousand Europeans, and about two thousand natives of that country. He prosecuted the enterprise with great spirit, and took the fort of Area Coupan, at the distance of three miles from the town; then he made his approaches to the place, against which he opened batteries, while it was bombarded and cannonaded by the shipping. But the fortifications were so strong, the garrison so numerous, and the engineers of the enemy so expert in their profession, that he made very little progress, and sustained considerable damage. At length, his army being diminished by sickness, and the rainy season approaching, he ordered the artillery and stores to be re-embarked; and raising the siege on the sixth day of October, returned to fort St. David, after having lost about a thousand men in this expedition. In the sequel, several ships of his squadron, and above twelve hundred sailors, perished in a hurricane. The naval force of Great Britain was more successful in the West Indies. Bear-admiral Knowles, with a squadron of eight ships, attacked fort Louis, on the South side of Hispaniola, which after a warm action of three hours was surrendered on capitulation, and dismantled. Then he made an abortive attempt upon St. Jago de Cuba, and returned to Jamaica, extremely chagrined at his disappointment, which he imputed to the misconduct of captain Dent, who was tried in England by a court-martial, and honourably acquitted. On the first of October, the same admiral, cruising in the neighbourhood of the Havannah with eight ships of the line, encountered a Spanish squadron of nearly the same strength, under the command of the admirals Beggio and Spinola. The engagement began between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, and continued with intervals till eight in the evening, when the enemy retired to the Havannah, with the loss of two ships; one of which struck to the British admiral, and the other was two days after set on fire by her own commander, that she might not fall into the hands of the English. Mr. Knowles taxed some of his captains with misbehaviour, and they recriminated on his conduct. On their return to England, a court-martial was the consequence of the mutual accusations. Those who adhered to the commander, and the others whom he impeached, were inflamed against each other with the most rancorous resentment. The admiral himself did not escape uncensured; two of his captains were reprimanded; but captain Holmes, who had displayed uncommon courage, was honourably acquitted. Their animosities did not end with the court-martial. A bloodless encounter happened between the admiral and captain Powlet; but captain Innes and captain Clarke, meeting by appointment in Hyde-Park with pistols, the former was mortally wounded, and died next morning; the latter was tried, and condemned for murder, but indulged with his majesty’s pardon. No naval transaction of any consequence happened in the European seas during the course of this summer. In January, indeed, the Magnanime, a French ship of the line, was taken in the channel by two English cruisers, after an obstinate engagement; and the privateers took a considerable number of merchant ships from the enemy.
CONCLUSION OF THE DEFINITIVE TREATY AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
The plenipotentiaries still continued at Aix-la-Cha-pelle, discussing all the articles of the definitive treaty, which was at length concluded and signed on the seventh of October. It was founded on former treaties, which were now expressly confirmed, from that of Westphalia to the last concluded at London and Vienna. The contracting parties agreed, that all prisoners on each side should be mutually released, without ransom, and all conquests restored; that the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, should be ceded as a settlement to the infant don Philip, and the heirs male of his body; but in case of his ascending the throne of Spain, or of the two Sicilies, or his dying without male issue, that they should revert to the house of Austria; that the king of Great Britain should, immediately after the ratification of this treaty, send two persons of rank and distinction, to reside in France, as hostages, until restitution should be made of Cape Breton, and all the other conquests which his Britannic majesty should have achieved in the East or West Indies, before or after the preliminaries were signed; that the assiento contract, with the article of the annual ship, should be confirmed for four years, during which the enjoyment of that privilege was suspended since the commencement of the present war; that Dunkirk should remain fortified on the land side, and towards the sea continue on the footing of former treaties. All the contracting powers became guarantees to the king of Prussia for the duchy of Silesia and the county of Glatz, as he at present possessed them; and they likewise engaged to secure the empress-queen of Hungary and Bohemia in possession of her hereditary dominions, according to the pragmatic sanction. The other articles regulated the forms and times fixed for this mutual restitution, as well as for the termination of hostilities in different parts of the world. But the right of English subjects to navigate in the American seas, without being subject to search, was not once mentioned, though this claim was the original source of the differences between Great Britain and Spain; nor were the limits of Acadia ascertained. This and all other disputes were left to the discussion of commissaries. We have already observed, that after the troubles of the empire began, the war was no longer maintained on British principles. It became a continental contest, and was prosecuted on the side of the allies without conduct, spirit, or unanimity. In the Netherlands they were outnumbered, and outwitted by the enemy. They never hazarded a battle without sustaining a defeat. Their vast armies, paid by Great Britain, lay inactive, and beheld one fortress reduced after another until the whole country was subdued; and as their generals fought, their plenipotentiaries negotiated. At a time when their affairs began to wear the most promising aspect, when the arrival of the Russian auxiliaries would have secured an undoubted superiority in the field; when the British fleets had trampled on the naval power of France and Spain, intercepted their supplies of treasure, and cut off all their resources of commerce; the British ministers seemed to treat, without the least regard to the honour and advantage of their country. They left her most valuable and necessary rights of trade unowned and undecided; they subscribed to the insolent demand of sending the nobles of the realm to grace the court and adorn the triumphs of her enemy; and they tamely gave up her conquests in North America, of more consequence to her traffic than all the other dominions for which the powers at war contended; they gave up the important isle of Cape Breton, in exchange for a petty factory in the East Indies, belonging to a private company, whose existence had been deemed prejudicial to the commonwealth. What then were the fruits which Britain reaped from this long and desperate war? A dreadful expense of blood and treasure, [310] _[See note 2 P, at the end of this Vol.]_ disgrace upon disgrace, an additional load of grievous impositions, and the national debt accumulated to the enormous sum of eighty millions sterling.
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