be binding, except ratified by her majesty and the respective parliaments of both nations; and that, unless all the heads proposed for the treaty were agreed to, no particular thing agreed on should be binding. The queen visited them in December, in order to quicken their mutual endeavours. They agreed, that the two kingdoms should be inseparably united into one monarchy, under her majesty, her heirs, and successors, and under the same limitations, according to the acts of settlement; but, when the Scottish commissioners proposed, that the rights and privileges of their company trading to Africa and the Indies, should be preserved and maintained, such a difficulty arose as could not be surmounted, and no further progress was made in this commission. The tranquillity of Ireland was not interrupted by any new commotion. That kingdom was ruled by justices whom the earl of Rochester had appointed; and the trustees for the forfeited estates maintained their authority.

§ X. While Britain was engaged in these civil transactions, her allies were not idle on the continent. The old duke of Zell, and his nephew, the elector of Brunswick, surprised the dukes of Wolfenbuttle and Saxe Gotha, whom they compelled to renounce their attachments to France, and concur in the common counsels of the empire. Thus the north of Germany was reunited to the interests of the confederates; and the princes would have been in a condition to assist them effectually, had not the neighbourhood of the war in Poland deterred them from parting with their forces. England and the states general endeavoured in vain to mediate a peace between the kings of Sweden and Poland. Charles was become enamoured of war, and

ambitious of conquest. He threatened to invade Saxony through the dominions of Prussia. Augustus retired to Cracow, while Charles penetrated to Warsaw, and even ordered the cardinal primate to summon a diet for choosing a new king. The situation of affairs at this juncture, was far from being favourable to the allies. The court of Vienna had tampered in vain with the elector of Bavaria, who made use of this negotiation to raise his terms with Lewis. His brother, the elector of Cologn, admitted French garrisons into Liege, and all his places on the Rhine. The elector of Saxony Ddd

VOL. I.

was too hard pressed by the king of Sweden, to spare his full proportion of troops to the allies: the king of Prussia was overawed by the vicinity of the Swedish conqueror: the duke of Savoy had joined his forces to those of France, and overrun the whole state of Milan; and the pope, though he professed a neutrality, evinced himself strongly biassed to the French interests.

§ XI. The war was begun in the name of the elector -palatine with the siege of Kejserswaert, which was invested in the month of April by the prince of Nassau Saarburgh, mareschal du camp to the emperor: under this officer the Dutch troops served as auxiliaries, because war had not yet been declared by the states general. The French garrisons made a desperate defence. They worsted the besiegers in divers sallies, and maintained the place until it was reduced to a heap of ashes. At length the allies made a general attack upon the counterscarp and ravelin, which they carried after a very obstinate engagement, with the loss of two thousand men. Then the garrison capitulated on honourable terms, and the fortifications were rased. During this siege, which lasted from the eighteenth day of April to the middle of June, count Tallard posted himself on the opposite side of the Rhine, from whence he supplied the town with fresh troops and ammunition, and annoyed the besiegers with his artillery; but finding it impossible to save the place, he joined the grand army, commanded by the duke of Burgundy in the Netherlands. The siege of Keiserswaert was covered by a body of Dutch troops under the earl of Athlone, who lay encamped in the dutchy of Clever. Meanwhile general Coehorn, at the head of another detachment, entered Flanders, demolished the French lines between the forts of Donat and Isabella, and laid the chatellanie of Bruges under contribution: but a considerable body of French troops advancing under the marquis de Bedmar, and the count de la Motte, he overflowed the country, and retired under the walls of Sluys. The duke of Burgundy, who had taken the command of the French army under Boufflers, encamped at Zanten, near Cleve, and laid a scheme for surprising Nimeguen; in which, however, he was baffled by the vigilance and activity of Athlone, who, guessing his design, marched thither, and encamped under the cannon of the

town.

In the beginning of June, Landau was invested by

prince Lewis of Baden; in July, the king of the Romans. arrived in the camp of the besiegers, with such pomp and magnificence as exhausted his father's treasury. On the ninth day of September, the citadel was taken by assault: and then the town surrendered.

XII. When the earl of Marlborough arrived in Holland, the earl of Athlone, in quality of veldt mareschal, insisted upon an equal command with the English general: but the States obliged him to yield this point in favour of Marlborough, whom they declared generalissimo of all their forces. In the beginning of July he repaired to the camp at Nimeguen, where he soon assembled an army of sixty thousand men, well provided with all necessaries; then he convoked a council of the general officers, to concert the operations of the campaign. On the sixteenth day of the month he passed the Maese, and encamped at Overasselt, within two leagues and a half of the enemy, who had intrenched themselves between Goch and Gedap. He afterwards repassed the river below the Grave, and removed to Gravenbroeck, where he was joined by the British train of artillery from Holland. On the second day of August, he advanced to Petit Brugel, and the French retired before him, leaving Spanish Guelderland to his discretion. He had resolved to hazard an engagement, and issued orders accordingly but he was restrained by the Dutch deputies, who were afraid of their own interest, in case the battle • should have proved unfortunate. The duke of Burgundy, finding himself obliged to retreat before the allied army, rather than expose himself longer to such a mortifying indignity, returned to Versailles, leaving the command to Boufflers, who lost the confidence of Lewis by the ill success of this campaign. The deputies of the states general having represented to the earl of Marlborough the advantages that would accrue to Holland, from his dispossessing the enemy of the places they maintained in the Spanish Guelderland, by which the navigation of the Maese was obstructed, and the important town of Maestricht in a manner blocked up, he resolved to deliver them from such a troublesome neighbourhood. He detached general Schultz with a body of troops to reduce the town and castle of Werk, which were surrendered after a slight

resistance. In the beginning of September, he undertook the siege of Venlo, which capitulated on the twenty-fifth day of the month, after fort St. Michael had been stormed and taken by lord Cutts and the English volunteers, among whom the young earl of Huntingdon distinguished himself by very extraordinary acts of valour. Then the general invested Ruremonde, which he reduced after a very obstinate defence, together with the fort of Stevensuaert, situated on the same river. Boufflers, confounded at the rapidity of Marlborough's success, retired towards Liege, in order to cover that city: but, at the approach of the confederates, he retired with precipitation to Tongeren, from whence he directed his route towards Brabant, with a view to defend such places as the allies had no design to attack. When the earl of Marlborough arrived at Liege, he found the suburbs of St. Walburgh had been set on fire by the French garrison, who had retired to the citadel and the Chartreux. The allies took immediate possession of the city; and in a few days opened the trenches against the citadel, which was taken by assault. On this occasion, the hereditary prince of Hesse Cassel charged at the head of the grenadiers, and was the first person who mounted the breach. Violani the governor, and the duke of Charost, were made prisoners. Three hundred thousand florins in gold and silver were found in the citadel, besides notes for above one million, drawn upon substantial merchants in Liege, who paid the money, Immediately after this exploit, the garrison of the Chartreux capitulated on honourable terms, and were conducted to Antwerp. By the success of this campaign, the earl of Marlborough raised his military character above all censure, and confirmed himself in the entire confidence of the states general; who, in the beginning of the season, had trembled for Nimeguen, and now saw the enemy driven back into their own domains.

§ XIII. When the army broke up in November, the general repaired to Maestricht, from whence he proposed to return to the Hague by water. Accordingly, he embarked in a large boat, with five-and-twenty soldiers, under the command of a lieutenant. Next morning he was joined at Ruremonde by Coehorn, in a large vessel, with sixty men;" and they were moreover escorted by fifty troopers, who

rode along the bank of the river. The large boat outsailed the other, and the horsemen mistook their way in the dark. A French partisan, with five-and-thirty men from Guelders, who lurked among the rushes in wait for prey, seized the rope by which the boat was drawn, hauled it ashore, discharged their small arms and hand grenades, then rushing into it secured the soldiers before they could put themselves in a posture of defence. The earl of Marlborough was accompanied by general Opdom, and mynheer Gueldermalsen, one of the deputies, who were provided with passports. The earl had neglected this precaution: but recollecting he had an old passport for his brother general Churchill, he produced it without any emotion; and the partisan was in such confusion that he never examined the date. Nevertheless, he rifled their baggage, carried off the guard as prisoners, and allowed the boat to proceed. The governor of Venlo receiving information that the earl was surprised by a party, and conveyed to Guelders, immediately marched out with his whole garrison to invest that place. The same imperfect account being transmitted to Holland, filled the whole province with consternation. The States forthwith assembling, resolved that all their forces should march immediately to Guelders, and threaten the garrison of the place with the utmost extremities, unless they would immediately deliver the general. But, before these orders could be despatched, the earl arrived at the Hague, to the inexpressible joy of the people, who already looked upon him as their saviour and protector.

§ XIV. The French arms were not quite so unfortunate on the Rhine as in Flanders. The elector of Bavaria surprised the city of Ulm in Suabia, by a stratagem, and then declared for France, which had by this time complied with all his demands. The diet of the empire assembled at Ratisbon, were so incensed at his conduct in seizing the city of Ulm by perfidy, that they presented a memorial to his Imperial majesty, requesting he would proceed against the elector, according to the constitutions of the empire. They resolved, by a plurality of voices, to declare war in the name of the empire, against the French king and the duke of Anjou, for having invaded several fiefs of the empire in Italy, the archbishopric of Cologn, and the diocese.