Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/92

78 he would break through all his engagements, and renew the war with redoubled energy. His people were now reduced in many places to feed on nettles, and his enemies deemed it the surest policy to press him whilst in his extremity.

The Old Harbour of Barcelona.

Finding that he did not succeed in obtaining peace, he resolved to act on the defensive only in the coming campaign in every quarter except in Catalonia, where his whole fleet could co-operate with the count de Noailles, the commander of his land forces. William, who had received intelligence of this plan of the campaign, before his departure, ordered the British fleet under Russell to prevent the union of the French squadrons from Brest and Toulon. Russell was then to proceed to the Meditcrranean to drive the French from the coasts of Catalonia, and co-operate with the Spaniards on land. Meantime, the earl of Berkeley, with another detachment of the fleet, was to take on board a strong force under the command of general Tallmache, and bombard Brest in the absence of Tourville. All this was ably planned, as William's plans of his campaigns generally were; but the whole scheme was defeated, as all his schemes were defeated, by the treachery of his own courtiers and subjects: by Godolphin, his own first lord of the treasury, and by Marlborough, against whom the most damning evidence exists. Macphcrson and Dalrymple, in the state papers discovered by them at Versailles, have shown that the whole of William's plans on this occasion were communicated to James by Godolphin, Marlborough, and colonel Sackville, and have given us the strongest reasons for believing that the preparations of the fleet were purposely delayed by Caermarthen, the new duke of Leeds, Shrewsbury, Godolphin, and others, letters for that purpose being discovered addressed to them by James through the countess of Shrewsbury.

But of all the infamous persons thus plotting against the