Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/293

A.D. 1711] campaign, to carry the war to the very gates of Louis's capital. Such a triumph, however, the malice of the tories had determined that this country and the world should not witness. After the capture of Bouchain, the allied armies went into quarters in the frontier towns, ready for the campaign of the spring; and in the middle of November Marlborough returned to England.

In Spain, whither the duke of Argy11 had been sent to command the English forces, nothing had been done, from the want of everything to carry on the war. Argyll had been chosen for this service, chiefly because he had long been at variance with the duke of Marlborough, and one million five hundred thousand pounds had been voted for that service; but when Argyll landed at Barcelona he found the army in the utmost distress from want of mere subsistence. It was in vain that he urged the dispatch of supplies; none came, and Argyll was at length compelled to borrow money on his own credit. The army of the duke de Vendome was in a condition little better, and a well equipped and maintained force might at least have done some brilliant service, though it could never recover Spain. Staremberg, the imperial general, advanced against Vendome to the pass of Prato del Key, where there was some fighting. The duke of Argyll was there seized with a violent fever, and was conveyed back to Barcelona. Vendome after this invested the castle of Cardona, whence Staremberg attacked him, killed two thousand of his troops, and took a great quantity of artillery, baggage, and ammunition. Staremberg, however, was unable to follow up this success, being ill-supplied himself, and unsupported by the English, the duke of Argyll still being left, in spite of all his remonstrances, without remittances. In despair he, therefore, returned to England, having been unable to accomplish anything from the utter neglect of government, which was too much occupied in domestic intrigues, and endeavours to obtain a peace which should render barren all the laurels of Marlborough.

Meantime the expedition of the miserably-incompetent Jack Hill to Quebec had met with the fate which might have been expected. This expedition had been planned by colonel Nicholson, who had taken possession of Nova Scotia, and garrisoned Porte Royal. He had brought to England four American Indians to excite attention, and represented the great advantages which would accrue from the conquest of Canada, and the expulsion of the French from that part of the world. The idea was excellent, and, had it been carried out with ability, might have anticipated the policy of lord Chatham and the victory of Wolfe; but the ministers were not hearty in the cause. Harley is said to have been utterly averse to it, and St. John to have advocated it because he saw that it would gratify Mrs. Masham. In an ill-advised hour, therefore, the command of this important expedition was confided to a man against whose total unfitness for command of every sort Marlborough so earnestly warned them.

At Boston, in New England, the expedition was joined by two regiments of colonists and about four thousand men, consisting of American planters, palatines, and Indians, encamped at Albany, in order to march by land into Canada, whilst the fleet advanced up the river St. Lawrence. The squadron had already entered the river, when, on the 21st of August, it was assailed by a violent tempest. Eight transports were driven aground and wrecked, and eight hundred men perished, some by drowning, others by the tomahawks of the Indians and the muskets of the French colonists. The damage, however, was of no important extent to a really able commander; but the poor, witless Hill, thrust into responsibility by favouritism, was utterly confounded. The fleet put back to Spanish River Bay, where a council was held; and, as the forces were only victualled for six weeks, it was determined to return home The poor general Hill, less to blame than those who sent him out, returned ignominiously to Portsmouth, where he landed in October, and was scarcely on shore when the admiral's ship, a fine seventy-four, blew up with every sailor on board. To increase the popular indignation at this disgraceful business, there were loud demands for an account of the money which had been issued from the treasury for this expedition, but none was ever given; and such was the general corruption of the court, that none of the impudent embezzlers of the cash were ever brought to justice.

Nothing of consequence took place in Savoy or Germany, except that king Charles went from Barcelona to Savoy to make a reconciliation with the duke, which he effected; and that prince Eugene lay at Frankfort to protect the electors assembled from interruption by the French whilst they deliberated on the choice of an emperor, Joseph I. being dead; and Charles, so-called king of Spain, was elected to that dignity.

But whilst Marlborough had been ably preparing the way in Flanders for finishing the war in triumph, and compelling the king of France to make such a peace as should secure the peace of Europe and indemnify England for all that she had suffered and expended for that object, the tory ministers and the queen had been as busy undermining and rendering abortive all his plans and exertions. They were determined to make peace at any cost, so that the whigs should receive nothing but reproaches from the nation for having led it into so long and bloody a war without any real results. The tories were to render the war useless, and the whigs to bear the blame of it.

St. John was clearly ready to admit the pretender instead of the house of Hanover, and had been in close correspondence with the court of St. Germains; and there is every reason to believe that it was with the cognizance and approval of the queen, who hated the house of Hanover. But Harley was bent on maintaining the protestant succession, whilst he was equally determined on the achievement of a peace damaging to the whigs. He knew too well that, however the queen might lean towards the restoration of her brother the pretender, the nation would never submit to it. He therefore entered into a secret negotiation with France on another basis to that of St. John.

Nothing is more certain than that the queen was strongly inclined to admit the claims of her brother, James Stuart, the so-called pretender, if he could be brought to renounce the Catholic religion, and that she entered into a correspondence on this head. It is true that she continued to express doubts of his being really her brother, yet she every now