Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/501

A.D.1745] as that in Flanders. Don Philip and marshal Maillebois, uniting their armies, crossed the Alps. There they were joined by the count de Gages with the Spanish and Neapolitan troops, which had defeated Koblowitz at Velletri.



This powerful combined array was further swelled by ten thousand Genoese, who were smarting under the cession of Finale at the treaty of Worms. Admiral Rowley, the English commander in the Mediterranean, did his best to create a diversion in favour of Austria, by bombarding and burning the towns on the Genoese coast, but in vain. The powerful army of Spaniards, French, Neapolitans, and Genoese forced the passage of the Tanaro, and defeated the Austrians and Sardinians, under the king of Sardinia and count Schulemberg, near Bassignano. The Sardinian king retreated to his capital, and Don Philip and his allies entered Milan in triumph, having on the way received the submission of Casal, Asti, Lodi, and other towns. Don Philip already saw himself king of Northern Italy, as his brother, Don Carlos, was of the South. The French were almost everywhere triumphant this year, except on the Rhine, where the prince of Conti, weakened by the draughts made upon him for the army in Flanders, had been compelled to retreat with considerable loss by count Traun. In America, however, a body of four thousand colonists from Boston, aided by a body of marines, and by admiral Warren with ten ships of the line, had invaded and completely conquered the island of cape Breton.

CHAPTER XI.

T time for the last great conflict for the recovery of their forfeited throne in Great Britain by the Stuarts was come. The pretender had grown old and cautious, but the young prince, Charles Edward, who had been permitted by his father and encouraged by France to attempt this great