Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/313

A.D. 1712.] him any assistance by the breaking down of the bridge over the Scheldt; and he had the pain to see Albemarle beaten under his very eyes. Seventeen battalions of Albemarle's force were killed or taken. He himself and all the surviving officers were made prisoners. Five hundred wagons loaded with bread, twelve pieces of brass cannon, a large quantity of ammunition and provisions, horses and baggage, fell into the hands of the French. Villars then marched on to Merebiennes, where the stores of the allies were deposited, and took it on the 31st of July, the garrison of five thousand being sent to Valenciennes prisoners. He next advanced to Douay, where Eugene would have given him battle, but was forbidden to do so by the States, and, consequently, Douay fell into Villars' hands. This was followed by the speedy fall of Quesnoy and Bouchain, which had cost Marlborough and Eugene so much to win them.

It was now the turn of the French to triumph, and of the allies to suffer consternation. Louis, once more elate, ordered Te Deum to be sung in Notre Dame, and all Paris was full of rejoicing. He declared that God had given a direct and striking proof of the justice of his cause and of the guilty obstinacy of the allies. His plenipotentiaries assumed at Utrecht such arrogance that their very lacqueys imitated them; and those of Mesnager insulted one of the plenipotentiaries, count von Richteren, and Louis justified them against all complaints. Under such circumstances, all rational hope of obtaining peace except on the disgraceful terms accepted by England vanished.

In fact, though the allies still held out, it was useless. Bolingbroke, accompanied by Matthew Prior, had been in Paris since the beginning of August, where they were assisted also by the abbé Gualtier, determined to close the negotiations for England, whether the allies objected or not. To make this result obvious to all the world, the troops which Ormonde had brought home were disbanded with all practicable speed. The ostensible cause of Bolingbroke and Prior's visit to Paris was to settle the interests of the duke of Savoy and the elector of Bavaria; but the real one was to remove any remaining impediment to the conclusion of the treaty of peace. France and England were quite agreed; Bolingbroke returned to London, and Prior remained as resident at the court of France, as if the articles of peace were, in fact, already signed. A truce, indeed, for four months longer by land and sea was proclaimed in Paris. It was agreed that the pretender should return to Lorraine; that all hostilities should cease in Italy in consequence of the arrangement of the affairs of the duke of Savoy; and that the Austrian troops should be allowed to quit Spain and return to Naples.

The secession of the duke of Savoy only the more roused the indignation of the allies. The Dutch breathed a hotter spirit of war just as their power of carrying it on failed; and even the experienced Heinsius made an energetic oration in the States-General, declaring that all the fruits of the war would be lost if they consented to the peace proposed. But to avoid it was no longer possible. The English plenipotentiaries pressed the allies more and more zealously to come in, so much so that they were scarcely safe from the fury of the Dutch populace, who insulted the earl of Strafford and the marquis del Borgo, the minister of the duke of Savoy, when the news came that the duke had consented to the peace. Every endeavour was made to detach the different allies one by one. Mr. Thomas Harley was sent to the elector of Hanover to persuade him to co-operate with her majesty; but, notwithstanding all risk of injuring his succession to the English crown, he boldly replied—"Whenever it shall please God to call me to the throne of Britain, I hope to act as becomes me for the advantage of my people; in the meantime, speak to me as a German prince, and a prince of the empire." Similar attempts were made on the king of Prussia and other princes, and with similar results. The English ministers now began to see the obstacles they had created to the conclusion of a general peace by their base desertion of the allies. The French, rendered more than ever haughty in their demands by the successes of Villars, raised their terms as fast as any of the allies appeared disposed to close with those already offered. The Dutch, convinced at length that England would make peace without them, and were bending every energy to draw away their confederates, in October expressed themselves ready to treat, and to yield all pretensions to Douay, Valenciennes, and Mauberg, on condition that Condé and Tournay were included in their barrier; that the commercial tariffs with France should be restored to what they were in 1664; that Sicily should be yielded to Austria, and Strasburg to the empire. But the French treated these concessions with contempt, and Bolingbroke was forced to admit to Prior that they treated like pedlars, or, what was worse, like attorneys. He conjured Prior "to hide the nakedness of his country" in his intercourse with the French ministers, and to make the best of the blunders of his countrymen, admitting that they were not much better politicians than the French were poets. But the fault of Bolingbroke and his colleagues was not want of talent, it was want of honesty, and, by their selfish desire to damage their political rivals, they had brought their country into this deplorable dilemma of sacrificing all faith with their allies, of encouraging the unprincipled disposition of the French, who were certain to profit by the division of the allies, and of abandoning the glory and position of England, or confessing that the whigs, however much they had erred in entering on such enormous wars, had in truth brought them to the near prospect of a far more satisfactory conclusion than they were taking up with.

Whilst matters were in this discouraging condition, lord Lexington was sent to Spain to receive the solemn renunciation of the crown of France for Philip and his successors, in the presence of the Cortes, which accordingly took place on the 5th of November. Portugal, also, on the 7th of November, signed, at Utrecht, the suspension of arms, at the same time admitting to the allies that she did it only as a matter of absolute necessity. The Portuguese had held out firmly till the English refused to give them any assistance, when the marquis de Bay invaded the kingdom at the head of twenty thousand men, and laid siege to Campo-Major. The English troops in Spain were ordered to separate from those of the allies under count Staremberg, and were marched into Catalonia to embark at Barcelona. The people of that province beheld the English depart with sentiments of indignant contempt. England had first incited them to take up