Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/406

 arisen in his absence. The infantry continued to gain advantages. Their opponents, beaten in detail, would not return to the charge. But Berwick’s vastly superior numbers enabled him to bring up fresh regiments to the fight. Thus the exhausted infantry, unsupported by cavalry, were overpowered.

Complete as was the defeat, and dreadful the slaughter, the great disaster was not the loss of the battle, but the surrender of our surviving infantry next day. The Annalist says, that the victory would have given the enemy comparatively little reason for boasting, “had the infantry that retired to the hills of Caudete marched off in the night, as they might securely have done. But Count Dhona and Major-General Shrimpton, upon a false report that the enemy were surrounding them, sent Majors Alexander and Petit to the enemy’s camp, with a proposal to surrender themselves prisoners at discretion, which the Duke of Berwick readily accepted. Don Emanuel, brother to the Count de Atalaja would have no share in so dishonourable a capitulation, and (to show how easily it might have been avoided) retired with a few Portuguese Horse; as also did a Serjeant of Visonse’s Regiment with about eighty men.”

Lord Galway sent the following despatch to Lord Sunderland:—

“, April 27. — My Lord, your lordship will have heard by my letters, as well as by Mr. Stanhope’s, that in all the councils held at Valencia this winter, it was resolved we should march to clear this frontier, ruin the enemy’s magazines, and destroy the country between them and us, in case they retired, thereby to secure this kingdom [Valencia] and our march into Arragon; but that if the enemy did assemble upon this frontier, we should fight them. Accordingly, our forces removed from their garrisons the 6th instant: we were all joined the 10th. We marched to Yecla, and from thence to Montealegre, the enemy’s troops retiring before us. We consumed and destroyed their magazines in both these places. We afterwards marched to Villena; the enemy in the meantime joined all their force and marched to Almanza. All the generals were of opinion to attack them there, our army being then in a better condition than it would be any time during the campaign, for it daily weakened by sickness. So we marched the 25th, and fought the enemy close to Almanza.

“I am under deep concern to be obliged to tell your lordship we were entirely defeated. Both our wings were broke, and let in the enemy’s horse, which surrounded our foot, so that none could get off. I received a cut in the forehead in the first charge. The enemy did not pursue their advantage, so that all the baggage got off. Major-General Shrimpton, Count Dhona, and some other officers got into the mountains with a body of English, Dutch, and Portuguese foot, where they surrendered the day after the battle, being, I suppose, surrounded by the enemy’s horse. I have sent a trumpet to enquire after the prisoners.

“I cannot, my Lord, but look upon the affairs of Spain as lost by this bad disaster: our foot, which was our main strength, being gone, and the horse we have left being chiefly Portuguese, which is not good at all. Most of our English horse that got off were of the two new-raised regiments of dragoons, who did not do their duty. All the generals here are of opinion that we cannot continue in this kingdom (Valencia), so I have desired Sir George Byng to take on board again the recruits he had just landed at Alicante, and to call at Denia or Valencia (city) for our sick, wounded, and baggage, and have sent all to Tortosa, where we shall march with the remnant of our horse. — I am, &c,

“.”

Major-General Stanhope, being at Barcelona with King Charles’ court, wrote to Marlborough on the 3rd of May:—

“My Lord, — It is with the greatest affliction imaginable that I am obliged to give your Grace an account of the melancholy state of our affairs here by the defeat of our army on the 25th of last month at Almanza. The enclosed paper is the copy of what my Lord Galway writes to me. By other advices more fresh, we hear that Count Dhona, with the body of men he had got together with Major-General Shrimpton, has been forced to surrender; so that I cannot learn that five hundred men are escaped out of the whole body of foot, which consisted of forty-three battalions, whereof I know not whether sixteen or seventeen were English, nineteen Portuguese, and the remainder Dutch. Of our horse about 3,500 are come off, but very few English and Dutch. . . . There was not at the army one horse or foot soldier of this king’s [Charles III.]. My Lord Galway was wounded with a sword over the eye, at the beginning of the action, charging with the horse. This accident contributed much to the confusion that followed. Our foot is by everybody said to have done wonders, which makes the loss of it so much the more sensible Count Noyelles is for dispersing up and down in holes the poor remainders we have left, where they must be lost as soon as the enemy think fit to show themselves.”

As to Lord Galway’s personal behaviour in the fight, it was (as usual) most brave and spirited. The flight of the Portuguese horse during his enforced absence had put everything in great confusion, and the Marquis das Minas very soon quitted the field. This Lord Galway was most earnestly averse to do; the battle under his