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  of Naples is safe. Nevertheless, this has been entirely the action of your majesty's troops, and I cannot but admit that their valour has repaired my fault, which would be unpardonable if I sought to diminish it.’ The operations of 1744 were of no special importance, but those of 1745 stand almost without parallel for boldness of conception and rapidity of execution. By astonishing marches the army under Don Philip, and a French force under De Maillebois, effected a junction with Gage near Genoa, 14 June 1745. By October all the territories of the house of Austria in Italy had been conquered. On 20 Dec. 1745 Don Philip was proclaimed king of Lombardy. The Austrians still held the citadel of Milan and Mantua. In the spring of 1746 Don Philip and Gage retired before the Austrians from the neighbourhood of Milan to Piacenza, Gage's policy being to compel the imperialists, strengthened by their recent peace with Prussia, to exhaust themselves by useless marches. The scheme was foiled by the meddlesomeness of the queen of Spain, who commanded Gage to fight at once at all risks. An attack followed on the Austrian camp at San Lazaro, twenty-two miles from Piacenza. The Austrians, again forewarned, continued the conflict during the night, and at daybreak, 4 June 1746, came out of their entrenchments and charged with such fury that the French and Spaniards were broken, and retired with a loss of six thousand killed and nine thousand wounded. Gage effected his retreat to Piacenza in good order. After this disaster Gage was superseded by the Marquis de las Minas. His name does not appear again as a military commander. He received the order of St. Januarius, and a pension of four thousand ducats from the king of Naples, in recognition of his services.

Concerning Gage personally much confusion of statement and some uncertainty prevail. Documents among the Caryll and Mackenzie Papers in British Museum Add. MSS. appear to show that he was married twice, first to Catherine, daughter of the fourth John Caryll of West Harting, secondly to the Lady Mary Herbert, daughter of the second Marquis (titular duke) Powis, who died in October 1745, granddaughter of the first Marquis Powis, who was created a duke by James II when in exile, and sister of the third marquis (titular duke), who died in March 1747. They also (British Museum Add. MS. 28238) throw doubt on the date of Gage's death, which is generally stated (as in Gent. Mag. xxiii. 144) to have occurred at Pampeluna, 31 Jan. 1753, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.



GAGE, THOMAS (d. 1656), traveller, was the second son of John Gage of Haling, Surrey, by Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Copley of Gatton in that county, and brother of Sir [q. v.] His father sent him to Spain in 1612 to study among the jesuits, hoping that he would enter that society, but the young man conceived a deadly aversion for them, and assumed the monastic habit in the order of St. Dominic at Valladolid, taking in religion the name of Thomas de Sancta Maria. In 1625 he was in the monastery at Xeres in Andalusia, when a commissary of his order inspired him with a desire to go to the Philippine Islands as a missionary. It is evident from his own narrative that wealth and pleasure supplied him with stronger motives than religious zeal. His father, who would rather have seen him a scullion in a jesuit college than general of the whole Dominican order, threatened to disinherit him, and to stir up the jesuits against him if he again set foot in England. The king had forbidden any Englishman to go to the Indies, and Gage was smuggled on board the fleet in an empty biscuit barrel. He left Cadiz on 2 July 1625 with twenty-seven of his brethren. In a skirmish at Guadaloupe the Indians killed several sailors, some jesuits, and a Dominican. The missionaries desired to return, but ultimately reached Mexico on 8 Oct. Gage remained till February 1625–6 in the monastery where missionaries were first received.

Gage was disgusted by what he learned of the Philippines, and determined to remain in Central America. The day before the missionaries were to start, he and three other Dominicans gave their companions the slip, and set out for Chiapa. Gage was kindly received by the provincial of his order, was appointed to teach Latin to the children of