BOOK VI. selves prisoners of war, to the amount of twenty1707. three entire battalions. The duke of Berwick is said to have been astonished, and scarcely to have credited the officer who brought the message. The Portuguese and part of the British cavalry, with the foot that guarded the baggage, made good their retreat to Aleira, where the broken remains of the army mournfully assembled, after sustaining a loss of 14,000 men, exclusive of 800 officers; with all the artillery, equipage, ammunition, and standards. Das Minas made an early escape with the Portuguese cavalry to Xativa; and the earl of Galway, who charged, first as genera!, at the head of the left wing, and then as a volunteer in Fabreque's regiment of dragoons, retired reluctantly from the field, after receiving a dangerous wound on the head with a sword. The day after the battle the duke of Orleans arrived to take the command of the Spanish army, which had now acquired the most decisive superiority; and though the earl of Galway did all that an active and able general could to retrieve so great a misfortune, and compensate for the error into which he had been led by the excess of his zeal, yet Arragon and Valentia were gradually evacuated, and the campaign concluded with the siege and capture of Lerida by the Shipwreck Spaniards. of Sir Cloudesley Shovel. The naval history of the present year also, from causes impossible for human wisdom to guard against, is most disastrous. From the pe- BOOK VI riod of the dismission of sir George Rooke, sir 1707. Cloudesley Shovel had commanded in the Mediterranean with high reputation-co-operating, ageeably to his orders, with the duke of Savoy in the siege of Toulon, where, by universal acknowledgment, he performed all that could be expected from a great naval officer. He made himself master of two forts at the entrance of the harbour, he kept up a tremendous bombardment on the town, and destroyed or compelled the enemy, to destroy not less than twenty ships of war lying there, eight of which were of the line of battle. On the miscarriage of this expedition he left a strong squadron under the command of sir Thomas Dilkes for the Mediterranean service, and sailed from Gibraltar with the rest of the fleet, consisting of fifteen ships of the line, for England. On the 22d of October, 1707, he had ninety fathom water in the soundings, and brought the fleet to, the weather being extremely hazy. Towards evening a fresh and apparently favourable gale springing up, he made the signal for sailing, supposing the channel to be open. But by eight o'clock signals of distress were made by several of the fleet, who found themselves, to their astonishment, upon the rocks to the westward of Scilly. The Association, in which sir Cloudesley himself hoisted his flag, 1707. BOOK VI. struck and instantly foundered with all the crew; as also the Eagle and Romney. The Royal Anne was saved by an extraordinary presence of mind and activity in sir George Byng and his men, who shifted the sails when within a ship's length of a rock to the leeward. Lord Dursley in the St. George had, if possible, a still more miraculous escape; for his ship was dashed on the same ridge of rocks with the Association: and the same wave which was perceived to be fatal to the latter, set the St. George again afloat. Sir Cloudesley Shovel's body, being the next day with many others cast on shore and found on the strand, was carried to London and interred in Westminster abbey, where a monument was erected in memory of this renowned admiral, who ranks amongst the greatest sea-commanders of that or any other age. Of undaunted resolution and intrepidity, he was at the same time eminent for generosity, frankness and integrity. Unversed in the wiles and machinations of courts, he was uniform and consistent in his zeal for the liberty, and in his attachment to the religion, of his country. This great man was the artificer of his own fortune, and by his personal merit alone, from the lowest beginnings rose to the highest station in the navy. His loss was regarded as national, and his tomb was consecrated by the tears of his country. This terrible calamity was ill compensated by the accounts which at this BOOK VI. period arrived of the total destruction of the 1707. French fisheries at Newfoundland-several frigates on that station being taken or burnt, and upwards of 300 boats demolished, with 70,000 quintals of fish.-Such are the triumphs of war! On the other hand, the French admirals Fourbin and Du Guai Trouin attacked the Portugal and West India fleets with success, and captured several line-of-battle ships of the convoy. Ireland. The affairs of Ireland, for several successive Affairs of years, afford few materials for general history; and the government of the duke of Ormond passed without any very memorable occurrence. The extreme oppression and misery endured by the lower classes of people in that country at this period are recorded in striking colours by the numerous and unavailing petitions remaining on the journals of the Irish parliament. Multiplied instances occurred every session of the tyranny practised by the civil, and the cruelties exercised by the military powers, exhibiting a complexion of manners little removed from barbarism. In the month of July, 1707, a session was held by the earl of Pembroke, in which some faint attempts appear to have been made to obtain a reform of the more flagrant existing abuses. The house of commons passed a resolution, to which the members 1707. BOOK VI. engaged individually upon their honour to adhere, in favor of the manufactures of Ireland; and the address of the commons, congratulating her majesty upon the glory which she had acquired by accomplishing the union of the British kingdoms, hinted at a more comprehensive union, which would farther redound to the strength and lustre of her crown. Happy had it been if the wisdom and liberality of the English government, at this period, had been as ready to impart the invaluable blessings of her constitution to the sisterkingdom, as Ireland appears to have been disposed with gratitude to have adopted them The first Parliament of Great Britain convened. The first parliament of Great Britain was convened on the 23d of October 1707, when all the forms usual in the beginning of a new parliament were observed, and Mr. Smith was rechosen speaker. Fresh assurances were given of the resolution of the two houses to support the queen in the vigorous prosecution of the war ; and after much fruitless investigation into the causes of the recent misfortunes in Spain, the lords and commons joined in a resolution and address," that no peace could be safe or honorable for her majesty or her allies, if Spain or the West Indies were suffered to continue in the power of the house of Bourbon." To which the queen replied," that she was fully of opinion that no peace could be safe till the entire monarchy |