said he, that God, who has protected and kept us hitherto, will enable us to finish it with the taking the town.' Soldiers as well as officers were convinced of the necessity of recovering it. The weather changed in his favour, and Count de la Motte made a bad defence; though he had so strong a garrison, that when they marched out and Marlborough saw their numbers and condition, he said it was astonishing they should suffer a place of such consequence to be taken at such a season with so little loss. Bruges was immediately abandoned by the enemy. Both places were of the utmost importance, for without them the allies could neither have been quiet in their winter-quarters, nor have opened the next campaign with advantage. This, said the Commander, is ended to my own heart's desire; and as the hand of the Almighty is visible in this whole matter, I hope her Majesty will think it due to Him to return public thanks.' He never failed to do so after victory, though Colonel Blackader says these things were ridiculed in the army; yet, he adds, ' Providence had been so wonderfully favourable to them in this campaign, that it was taken notice of even by the graceless.'

The pressure of this long contest was now severely felt in France, and though on the side of Germany and Savoy, the exertions of the French balanced the fortunes of the war, and in Spain the preponderance was on their side, it was plain that the course which Marlborough was pursuing, invincible as he was found to be, would, if it were continued, enable him to dictate peace at Paris. Louis therefore offered to negociate and proposed large terms, less it is to be believed with the expectation that they would be accepted than in the hope of dividing the allies, and breaking up a confederacy which was kept together by the consummate prudence of the English general alone. The Marquis de Torcy, who was sent to conduct the negociation, offered Marlborough two millions of livres if he could obtain Naples and Sicily for Philip, or Naples alone, or the preservation of Dunkirk, or of Strasburg, and if all could be obtained together with Landau, he offered him double that sum, pledging the word and honour of the king for its payment. Among the many slanders with which the memory of Marlborough has been assailed, he has been reproached for his conduct on this occasion as only not having accepted the bribe. Never was any reproach more injurious. No other statement of the fact exists than what Torcy himself has given, and from that it appears that Marlborough's conduct was exactly what might have been expected from him, dignified and prudent. He returned no answer o the proposal; changed the conversation immediately whenever was resumed, and by the manner in which he adhered to his instructions,

instructions, proved to the Marquis that it was as impossible to prevail over him by such means, as to beat him in the field. An expression of indignation was not called for. In making the offer, Torcy only obeyed the orders of his sovereign, whose money had formerly been graciously received in England both by the Prince on the throne, and the patriots in opposition: and the English government, through the agency of Marlborough himself, had been accustomed to employ the same golden arguments with the ministers of the allied powers. The offer therefore was not then, as it would be in these days, an insult. Torcy acted conformably to the times when he made it, and Marlborough conformably to himself when he received it with silent disdain, and pursued the business of their meeting with an unaltered temper.

He has been accused also by his enemies at home, and the slander has been accredited and repeated abroad from that time to this, of having obstructed the peace for the sake of his own private and personal interests. The treaty broke off because the allies required that the whole Spanish monarchy should be given up by Philip within two months, and that if he refused to do this, Louis should assist the allies in compelling him to submit to the terms of peace. Both in France and Spain a proper advantage was made of this demand, which was as impolitic as it was in every way indefensible. But wherever it originated, whether with the counsellors of the Archduke Charles whom it most concerned, and who were unwise enough, and ungenerous enough for any thing, or with the whigs in England who had not the grace of bearing their faculties meekly, certain it is that Marlborough disapproved it, and expressed his decided opinion that there was neither necessity nor utility in making such demands. He says in a confidential letter to Godolphin, I have as much mistrust for the sincerity of France as any body living can have but I shall own to you that, in my opinion, if France had delivered the towns promised by the preliminaries, and demolished Dunkirk and the other towns mentioned, they must have been at our discretion, so that if they had played tricks, so much the worse for themselves.' No man rejoiced more in the prospect of peace. During the whole war, peace and retirement had been the second wish of his heart, the first was to ensure the safety of his country by curbing the power of France. At this time he expected peace so fully, that he had commenced arrangements for paying and dismissing the foreign troops, and for the return of the army to England. But he did not cease to represent to the cabinet, that the sure and only means of obtaining the terms which they were resolved to dictate, were to provide a superior force in the Netherlands. Unfortunately his colleagues neither possessed the

same

same moderation nor the same foresight. Contrary to his opinion, they insisted upon terms which could not be accepted without a total sacrifice of honour and feeling, and they relied so fully upon obtaining their demands, that they increased his force as he required, in order to ensure success. On this point therefore, Mr. Coxe has effectually vindicated Marlborough, proving beyond all doubt that he did not direct the negociation, that he differed in many material points from the cabinet, and was guided by positive instructions which he could not venture to transgress.' Had he indeed (his biographer adds) engrossed the sole management, he would doubtless have framed such conditions as would have been accepted, or have made such preparations as would have enabled him to dictate his own terms in the heart of France.

While the English government committed this double error, the French made every effort to strengthen their force in the Netherlands. Louis had said that hunger would compel his subjects to follow his bread waggons, and he was not deceived in calculating that the general distress would fill his armies with men who could find no other means of subsistence. Vendôme was removed to Spain, to retrieve, against other generals, the reputation which he had lost when opposed to Marlborough; and Villars, whom Voltaire has well characterized as lucky, braggart and brave, took the command in Flanders. The allies deceived him by their movements, so as to prevent him from throwing troops into Tournay, or properly providing it. Still the attempt at besieging it was so arduous that Villars thought it would occupy them the whole campaign. In this also he was deceived. It surrendered after a destructive siege of two months, during which Villars ineffectually attempted to relieve it. The citadel was given up on the third of September, and on the sixth, part of the allies under the Prince of Hesse, by movements effected with great skill and extraordinary rapidity, entered the French lines without opposition, and interposed between Mons, which it was intended to besiege, and the army of Villars, who was again baffled by the superior activity and talents of his antagonists. These movements led to the battle of Malplaquet, the bloodiest action of the whole war, and the best fought battle in which the French were ever defeated. Boufflers had joined the French and made a masterly retreat, after Villars had been wounded and carried senseless from the field. The numbers of the two armies seem to have been as nearly equal as may be, each having between 90 and 100,000 men. The loss was greatest on the side of the conquerors. Villars, whose great qualities were disgraced by a total disregard to truth, represents the loss of the allies at

35,000,

35,000, and his own at only 6000: a statement which, if it were true, would show that the French army must have been either struck with cowardice or with madness to quit the field when the advantage was so decidedly on their side. Colonel Blackader, who went as usual over the ground to get a preaching from the dead,' believed the loss was equal on both sides. Mr. Coxe estimates that of the allies at 20,000, and that of the French at 14,000. Blackader, who acknowledges that he did not expect to see the enemy fight so well, says it was the most deliberate, solemn and well ordered battle that he had ever seen, a noble and fine disposition, and as finely executed. Every one was at his post, and he never saw troops engage with more cheerfulness, boldness and resolution. For himself, he' never had a more pleasant day in his life.'

The great loss on the part of the conquerors arose from the impetuosity of the Prince of Orange, who made the attack contrary to his instructions, before he could be properly supported, and thus sacrificed the flower of the Dutch infantry, occasioning thereby nearly half the slaughter. The enemies of Marlborough, who were now increasing both in violence and in strength, loudly accused him of rashness in this action, and of wantonly throwing away the lives of men to gratify his personal ambition. He could not repel this cruel accusation, without throwing a censure upon the Prince of Orange, which would have produced certain mischief. He had afterwards an opportunity of shewing how he resented these black slanders, when he could fix upon the slanderer, and vindicate himself without injury to the public. At the very time when he was thus calumniated, the grief which he suffered at seeing so many brave men killed, with whom he had lived eight years, and when they thought themselves sure of peace, had actually made him ill. He was a thoroughly humane man, and that too in an age when humanity was a rare virtue. One of his first cares after the action had been to administer relief to the wounded French, of whom 3000 had been left upon the field, and to arrange means with the French marshals for conveying them away. He did not speak of the victory with exultation as he had been wont to do on his other great days, but called it a very murderous battle; and Villars, in his usual style of boasting, said to the king that if it pleased God to favour him with the loss of another such battle, his enemies would be destroyed. The vain general might have known that after such a defeat, there could be no hope of victory; that the more dearly it had been purchased, the greater was the moral value of the success. There remained no cause to palliate, no subterfuge to cover the defeat which the French had sustained. They could not impute it to

want

want of confidence in their commander, or want of skill; to want of conduct or of courage in the army, or in any part of it; nor to any disadvantages of ground, nor to any error or mishap of any kind. They had chosen their position and strengthened it. They had stood their ground well: men, officers and commander had done their best, the only blunder had been committed by their enemies, and owing to that, and to the advantage of their post, they had inflicted a loss greater by nearly one-third than what they had sustained, and yet they had been beaten. The consequence was that they never afterwards ventured to meet Marlborough in the field. Berwick was recalled from Dauphiny to co-operate in an attempt for the relief of Mons, but the attempt was not made, and the town was taken. By this conquest the great towns in Brabant and Flanders were covered, and the French were at length circumscribed within their own limits. Had Marlborough's advice been followed in 1706, Mons would have been taken without the expense of blood at Malplaquet.

At this time Marlborough committed the only indiscreet act with which he can be justly charged. Sensible that the Queen was entirely alienated from him by the intriguers to whom she had given her whole confidence, and that his enemies were every day becoming more active and more virulent, for the sake of strengthening himself while his friends were in power, he wished for a patent which should constitute him Captain-General for life: nor was he deterred from asking for it by the opinion of the Lord Chancellor Cowper, that the office had never been conferred otherwise than during pleasure. The request served only to increase the Queen's angry disposition towards him, to give his enemies an opportunity for alarming her, and to gratify both her and them by the mortification which her positive refusal inflicted upon him.

In the ensuing year the negociations were renewed, and broken off upon the same ground,-not by Marlborough's advice,—that calumny, it may be hoped, will now be no more repeated. He was no longer the moving mind in all foreign negociations. Knowing that his power was on the decline, his desire was to incur as little responsibility as possible for measures which he was not allowed to influence, and he called himself white paper, upon which the treasurer and his friends might write their directions. The campaign opened with another successful passage of the enemy's lines, a great and unexpected success. I bless God,' said Marlborough, for putting it into their heads not to defend them, for at Pont de Vendin where I passed, the Mareschal d'Artagnan was with 20,000 men, which if he had staid must have made it very doubtful. But, God be praised, we are come here without the loss of any men. The excuse the French make

is,