superior to the allies by five-and-thirty thousand men. The king of England, at first, looked upon this motion as a feint to cover the design upon Liege; but receiving intelligence that their whole army was in full march to attack him in his camp, he resolved to keep his ground; and immediately drew up his forces in order of battle. His general officers advised him to repass the Geete: but he chose to risk a battle, rather than expose the rear of his army in repassing that river. His right wing extended as far as Neer Winden, along the Geete, covered with hedges, hollow ways, and a small rivulet; the left reached to Neer Landen; and these two villages were joined by a slight intrenchment, which the king ordered to be thrown up in the evening. Brigadier Ramsey, with the regiments of O'Farrel, Mackay, Lauder, Leven, and Monroe, were ordered to the right of the whole army, to line some hedges and hollow ways on the farther side of the village of Lare. Six battalions of Brandenburgh were posted to the left of this village; and general Dumont, with the Hanoverian infantry, possessed the village of Neer Winden, which covered part of the camp, between the main body and the right wing of the cavalry. Neer Landen on the left, was secured by six battalions of English, Danes, and Dutch. The remaining infantry was drawn up in one line behind the intrenchment. The dragoons upon the left guarded the village of Dormal upon the brook of Beck; and from thence the left wing of horse extended to Neer Landen, where it was covered by this rivulet.

XX. The king having visited all the posts on horseback, and given the necessary orders, reposed himself about two hours in his coach; and early in the morning sent for his chaplain, whom he joined in prayer with great devotion. At sunrising the enemy appeared drawn up in order of battle; and the allies began to play their cannon with good success. About eight in the morning they

attacked the villages of Lare and Neer Winden with great fury; and twice made themselves masters of these posts, from whence they were as often repulsed. The allies still kept their ground; and the duke of Berwick was taken by. his uncle brigadier Churchill. Then the French made an attack upon the left wing of the confederates at Neer Lan

den; and after a very obstinate dispute, were obliged to give way, though they still kept possession of the avenues. The prince of Conti, however, renewed the charge with the flower of the French infantry; and the confederates being overpowered, retreated from the village, leaving the camp in that part exposed. Villeroy marching this way with a body of horse, was encountered and repulsed by the count D'Arco, general of the Bavarian cuirassiers ; and the duke de Chartres narrowly escaped being taken. Meanwhile, Luxembourg, the prince of Conti, the count de Marsin, and the marshal de Joyeuse, charged on the right, and in different parts of the line, with such impetuosity as surmounted all resistance. The camp of the confederates was immediately filled with French troops; the villages of Lare and Neer Winden were taken, after a long and desperate dispute. The Hanoverian and Dutch horse being broken, the king in person brought the English cavalry to their assistance. They fought with great gallantry, and for some time retarded the fate of the day. The infantry were rallied, and stood firm until all their ammunition was expended. In a word, they were scarce able to sustain the weight of such a superiority in point of number, when the marquis D'Harcourt joined the enemy from Huy, with twoand-twenty fresh squadrons, which immediately turned the scale in their favour. The elector of Bavaria, after having made extraordinary efforts, retreated with great difficulty over the bridge to the other side of the river, where he rallied the troops, in order to favour the retreat of those who had not passed. The king seeing the battle lost, and the whole army in confusion, retired with the infantry to Dormal on the brook of Beck, where the dragoons of the left wing were posted, and then ordered the regiments of Wyndham, Lumley, and Galway, to cover his retreat over the bridge at Neer Hespen, which he effected with great difficulty. Now all was tumult, rout, and consternation; and a great number of the fugitives threw themselves into the river, where they were drowned. This had like to have been the fate of the brave earl of Athlone; the duke of Ormond was wounded in several places, and taken prisoner by the enemy; and the count de Solmes was mortally wounded. Ptolemache brought off the greater part of the

English infantry with great gallantry and conduct; as for the baggage, it had been sent to Liege before the engagement; but the confederates lost sixty pieces of cannon, and nine mortars, a great number of standards and colours, with about seven thousand men killed and wounded in the action. It must be owned that the allies fought with great valour and perseverance; and that king William made prodigious efforts of courage and activity to retrieve the fortune of the day. He was present in all parts of the battle; he charged in person both on horseback and on foot, where the danger was most imminent. His peruke, the sleeve of his coat, and the knot of his scarf were penetrated by three, different musket bullets; and he saw a great number of soldiers fall on every side of him. ness to his extraordinary valour.

The enemy bore witThe prince of Conti, in a letter to his princess, which was intercepted, declared that he saw the prince of Orange exposing himself to the greatest dangers; and that such valour richly deserved the peaceable possession of the crown he wore. Yet, here, as in every other battle he fought, his conduct and disposition were severely censured. Luxembourg having observed the nature of his situation immediately before the engagement, is said to have exclaimed, "Now, I believe Waldeck is "really dead;" alluding to that general's known sagacity in choosing ground for an encampment, Be that as it will, he paid dear for his victory. His loss in officers and men exceeded that of the allies; and he reaped no solid advantage from the battle. He remained fifteen days inactive at Waren, while king William, recalling the duke of Wirtemberg, and drafting troops from Liege and other garrisons, was in a few days able to hazard another engagement.

§ XXI. Nothing remarkable happened during the remaining part of the campaign, until Luxembourg, being rejoined by Boufflers with a strong reinforcement from the Rhine, invested Charleroy. He had taken his measures with such caution and dexterity, that the allies could not frustrate hi operations, without attacking his lines at a great disadvantage. The king detached the elector of

c The duke of Luxembourg sent such a number of standards and ensigns to Paris, during the course of this war, that the prince of Conti called him the upholsterer of Notre Dame, a church in which those trophies were displayed.

Bavaria and the duke of Wirtemberg, with thirty battalions and forty squadrons, to make a diversion in Flanders; but they returned in a few days, without having attempted any thing of consequence. The garrison of Charleroy defended the place with surprising valour, from the tenth of September to the eleventh of October, during which period they had repulsed the assailants in several attacks; but, at length, despairing of relief, the governor capitulated on the most honourable conditions; the reduction of the place was celebrated with a Te Deum, and other rejoicings at Paris. Lewis, however, in the midst of all his glory, was extremely mortified when he reflected upon the little advantage he had reaped from all his late victories. The allies had been defeated successively at Flerus, Steenkerke, and Landen; yet in a fortnight after each of those battles, William was always in a condition to risk another engagement. Formerly, Lewis had conquered half of Holland, Flanders, and Franche Compté, without a battle; whereas, now he could not with his utmost efforts, and after the most signal victories, pass the frontiers of the United Provinces. The conquest of Charleroy concluded the campaign in the Netherlands, and both armies went into winter quarters.

§ XXII. The French army on the Rhine, under de Lorges, passed that river in the month of May at Philipsburgh, and invested the city of Heidelberg, which they took, plundered, and reduced to ashes. This general committed numberless barbarities in the Palatinate, which he ravaged without even sparing the tombs of the dead. The French soldiers, on this occasion, seem to have been actuated by the most brutal inhumanity. They butchered the inhabitants, violated the women, plundered the houses, rifled the churches, and murdered the priests at the altar. They broke open the electoral vault, and scattered the ashes of that illustrious family about the streets. They set fire to different quarters of the city; they stripped about fifteen thousand of the inhabitants, without distinction of age or sex, and drove them naked into the castle, that the garrison might be the sooner induced to capitulate. There they remained like cattle in the open air, without food or covering, tortured between the horrors of their

When they were

fate and the terrors of a bombardment. set at liberty, in consequence of the fort's being surrendered, a great number of them died along the banks of the Neckar, from cold, hunger, anguish, and despair. These enormous cruelties, which would have disgraced the arms of a Tartarian freebooter, were acted by the express command of Lewis XIV. of France, who has been celebrated by so many venal pens, not only as the greatest monarch, but also as the most polished prince of christendom. De Lorges advanced towards the Neckar against the prince of Baden, who lay encamped on the other side of the river; but in attempting to pass, he was twice repulsed with considerable damage. The dauphin joining the army, which now amounted to seventy thousand men, crossed without opposition: but found the Germans so advantageously posted, that he would not hazard an attack: having, therefore, repassed the river, he secured Stutgard with a garrison, sent detachments into Flanders and Piedmont, and returned in August to Versailles. In Piedmont the allies

were still more unfortunate. The duke of Savoy and his confederates seemed bent upon driving the French from Casal and Pignerol. The first of these places was blocked up, and the other actually invested. The fort of St. Bridget, that covered the place, was taken and the town bombarded. Meanwhile Catinat being reinforced, descended into the plains. The duke was so apprehensive of Turin, that he abandoned the siege of Pignerol, after having blown up the fort, and marched in quest of the enemy to the plain of Marsaglia, in the neighbourhood of his capital. On the fourth day of October, the French advanced upon them from the hills, between Orbasson and Prosasque; and a desperate engagement ensued. The enemy charged the left wing of the confederates sword in hand with incredible fury though they were once repulsed, they renewed the attack with such impetuosity, that the Neapolitan and Milanese horse were obliged to give way and disordered the German cavalry. These falling upon the foot, threw the whole wing into confusion. Meanwhile, the main. body and the other wing sustained the charge without flinching, until they were exposed in flank by the defeat of the cavalry; then the whole front gave way. In vain the VOL. I.

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