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1719.

re-embarked for England; and thus ended an attack CHAP. by no means unattended either with honour or advantage, but hardly equal to the vaunts with which the " Important and Secret Expedition" had been ushered in to public notice. The Court of Madrid however showed great consternation at the news; the number of the English and their object were unknown; both appeared magnified through the mist of uncertainty, and it was feared that they might be only the vanguard of a large invading army. Such repeated alarms and reverses could not fail to rouse even the sluggish nature of Philip, and to shake his confidence in his baffled minister.

If from Biscay or Gallicia the eye of the King of Spain turned to Sicily and his main army, it could not even there be gladdened by any very cheering prospect. After the reduction of Messina, the Marquis de Lede had with a part of his forces undertaken the siege of Melazzo; a place well fortified and of great natural strength, built upon a narrow headland which juts out a long way into the sea.* It had withstood the Duke de Vivonne in 1675+; but it would probably have yielded to the

* The present state of Melazzo is well described by Capt. Smyth (Sicily, p. 103.); but he need hardly have told us that "the garrison is always commanded by a military officer."

+ Muratori, Annal. d'Ital. vol. xi. p. 330. Boileau prudently glides over this reverse in his ingenious letters to the Duke de Vivonne, and does not blush to make Voiture exclaim from the dead, "Nous avons içi César, Pompée, et Alexandre. Ils trou"vent tous que vous avez assez attrapé leur air dans votre "manière de combattre ! Surtout César vous trouve très

"César."

LL

X.

CHAP. persevering attack of the Spaniards, had not General Caraffa, with about 8000 Germans, come to reinforce the garrison from Naples, and, sallying forth, fought a sharp action with the enemy. Both armies then drew entrenchments opposite one another on the plain, and remained encamped all the winter without coming to any further engagement, and both suffering alike from the MALARIA of that marshy soil, and from that inaction which, as Spinola used to say, is sufficient to kill any General. But very different were the prospects of the Germans and Spaniards for the future. The former, masters of the sea by the assistance of the British squadron, were assured of constant supplies in the winter, and of large reinforcements in the spring; while the Spaniards, since the destruction of their fleet cooped up within the limits of the island, durst hope for no other succours than such as a few light ships and feluccas escaping the vigilance of the enemy occasionally brought them, and could neither improve a victory nor repair a defeat.

In the month of May the Austrian reinforcements, 10,000 foot and 3000 horse, were mustered at at Naples, and Count Mercy arrived from Vienna to take the command of the whole army. The troops sailed on the 22d from the Bay of Baiæ, and landed on the 28th in the Bay of Patti. At the news of their landing the Spaniards

1809.

See the Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 165. ed.

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1719.

immediately decamped from before Melazzo, with CHAP. so much precipitation as to leave behind them their sick, two thousand sacks of flour, and some pieces of cannon, and retreated to the inland post of Franca Villa, about thirty-two miles distant. Count Mercy, having relieved Melazzo, determined to march against them, but nearly three weeks elapsed before his preparations were completed. In that age the Austrian troops were always slow of motion, and strangely ill-supplied. Their army surgeons, for instance, were very few and unskilled; and it is observed by a contemporary, that with their soldiers there was little difference between being wounded and killed in action, except that of a lingering or a sudden death.

At length on the 27th of June Count Mercy left Melazzo at the head of 21,000 men. They had a most toilsome march for three days over rugged and dreary mountains and under a burning sun, led by unwilling guides, and harassed by the armed peasants of the country. Arriving at length on the heights of Tre Fontane they discovered the Spaniards encamped below in the plain of Franca Villa, and a shout of joy ran through the whole army at the prospect of a speedy and decisive action. The Spaniards, though in a plain, held a strong position; their front protected by the steep banks of the river Alcantara*, their wings by intrench

* The river must have been nearly dry at that season. I crossed it much lower down in the month of November, and found very little water.

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1719.

CHAP. ments, their rear by rocky ground and by the little town of Franca Villa. In advance of them, and on the other side of the stream, was a convent of Capuchins, crowning a single hill, and this De Lede had occupied with his best troops, the Royal Guards, headed by the brave Villadarias. Next morning the battle was begun by the Germans in three different places, and soon became general. The brunt of it was at the Capuchin convent, which was attacked in succession by the flower of the German forces, but which Villadarias most gallantly defended. At length Count Mercy himself, hoping to animate his troops by his presence and example, put himself at the head of another charge, but with nobetter success; his soldiers were repulsed, his horse killed under him, and himself severely wounded. At the close of day the victory had every where declared in favour of De Lede, and the Germans, though still in good order, withdrew from their attacks. They had upwards of 3000 men killed and wounded, the Spaniards not half so many; and it must, I think, be owned that the steadiness of the latter, under the forlorn and disheartening prospects of their arms in Sicily, was highly honourable to the national character, and another proof how little it can ever be daunted by

reverses.

But this victory produced only barren laurels. De Lede could not or would not pursue his advantages, and the enemy, recovering from their discomfiture, were soon enabled to undertake the siege of

Messina. The citadel made a most resolute defence, but not being relieved by the Spaniards, was compelled to surrender on the 18th of October. A further body of 6000 Germans, intended for the conquest of Sardinia, were diverted from their destination until Sicily should be quite subdued, and they sailed from Genoa to join the forces of Mercy.* A part of the army was then transported by sea to the fortress of Trapani, from whence it spread itself abroad, and reduced the cities of Mazzara and Marsala; so that at the close of 1719, De Lede, who had fixed his head-quarters at Castel Vetrano, trembled for the capital itself.

Cardinal Alberoni, on receiving intelligence of the victory of Franca Villa, availed himself of the transient gleam which it cast upon the Spanish arms to signify his consent to a peace. He was far, however, from yet yielding to the terms required by the Allies, and giving his unqualified adhesion to the Quadruple Treaty. His plan was, that the States-General should be mediators, and that Spain should not relinquish Sicily and Sardinia, unless the French were prepared to restore their conquests, and the English to yield Gibraltar and Port Mahon. With these proposals he sent his countryman, Marquis Scotti, the Envoy from Parma, directing him

• It appears that the English ministers during all the summer strongly remonstrated with the Austrian on their employing such insufficient forces. "Je n'ai cessé de le representer à M. de "Penterrieder," writes Stanhope to St. Saphorin, July 31. 1719. (Hardwicke Papers, vol. xxxix.)

CHAP.

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1719.