§ XLVI. In the West Indies some unsuccessful efforts were made by an English squadron, commanded by commodore Knowles. He attacked La Gueira on the coast of Caraccas, in the month of February; but met with such a warm reception, that he was obliged to desist, and make the best of his way for the Dutch island Curaçoa, where he repaired the damage he had sustained. His ships being refitted, he made another attempt upon Porto Cavallo in April, which like the former miscarried. Twelve hundred marines being landed in the neighbourhood of that place, were seized with such a panic, that it was found necessary to reembark them without delay. Then the commodore abandoned the enterprise, and sailed back to his station at the Leeward Islands, without having added much to his reputation, either as to conduct or resolution. On the continent of America the operations of the war were very inconsiderable. General Oglethorpe having received intelligence, that the Spaniards prepared for another invasion from St. Augustine, assembled a body of Indians, as a reinforcement to part of his own regiment, with the Highlanders and rangers, and in the spring began his march, in order to anticipate the enemy. He encamped for some time in the neighbourhood of St. Augustine, by way of defiance: but they did not think proper to hazard an engagement; and as he was in no condition to undertake a siege, he returned to Georgia. In October the princess Louisa, youngest daughter of his Britannic majesty, was married by proxy, at Hanover, to the prince royal of Denmark, who met her at Altena, and conducted her to Copenhagen.

it was conveyed to Reggio in Calabria, by the avarice of a broker of that place, who bought some goods at Messina. The king of Naples immediately ordered lines to be formed, together with a chain of troops which cut off all communication between that place and the rest of the continent.

BOOK II.

CHAP. VIII.

Sir

I. Debate in parliament against the Hanoverian troops. II. Supplies granted. § III. Projected invasion of Great Britain. IV. A French squadron sails up the English channel. V. The kingdom is put in a posture of defence. VI. The design of the French defeated. War between France and England. § VII. Bill against those who should correspond with the sons of the pretender. § VIII. Naval engagement off Toulon. § IX. Advances towards peace made by the emperor. § X. Treaty of Franckfort. § XI. Progress of the French king in the Netherlands. § XII. Prince Charles of Lorraine passes the Rhine. § XIII. The king of Prussia makes an irruption into Bohemia. § XIV. Campaign in Bavaria and Flanders. § XV. The king of Naples joins count Gages in Italy. § XVI. Battle of Coni. XVII. Return of commodore Anson. John Balchen perishes at sea. § XVIII. Revolution in the British ministry. Session of parliament. § XIX. Death of the emperor Charles VII. Accommodation between the queen of Hungary and the young elector of Bavaria. XX. The king of Prussia gains two successive battles at Friedberg and Sohr, over the Austrian and Saxon forces. § XXI. Treaty of Dresden. grand duke of Tuscany elected emperor of Germany. § XXII. The allies are defeated at Fontenoy. § XXIII. The king of Sardinia is almost stripped of his dominions. § XXIV. The English forces take cape Breton. § XXV. The importance of this conquest. § XXVI. Project of an insurrection in Great Britain. § XXVII. The eldest son of the chevalier de St. George lands in Scotland. XXVIII. Takes possession of Edinburgh. § XXIX. Defeats sir John Cope at Preston Pans. VOL. II. Ttt

The

§ XXX. Efforts of the friends of government in Scotland. 6 XXXI. Precautions taken in England. § XXXII. The prince pretender reduces Carlisle, and penetrates as far as Derby. Consternation of the Londoners. § XXXIII. The rebels retreat into Scotland. § XXXIV. They invest the castle of Stirling. § XXXV. The king's troops under Hawley are worsted at Falkirk. § XXXVI. The duke of Cumberland assumes the command of the forces in Scotland. § XXXVII. The rebels undertake the siege of Fort William.

1. THE discontents of England were artfully inflamed by antiministerial writers, who not only exaggerated the burdens of the people, and drew frightful pictures of the distress and misery which, they said, impended over the nation, but also employed the arts of calumny and misrepresentation, to excite a jealousy and national quarrel between the English and Hanoverians. They affirmed that in the last campaign the British general had been neglected and despised; while the counsels of foreign officers, greatly inferior to him in capacity, quality and reputation, had been followed, to the prejudice of the common cause that the British troops sustained daily insults from their own mercenaries who were indulged with particular marks of royal favour: that the sovereign himself appeared at Dettingen in a Hanoverian scarf; and that his electoral troops were of very little service in that engagement. Though the most material of these assertions were certainly false, they made a strong impression on the minds of the people, already irritated by the enormous expense of a continental war maintained for the interest of Germany. When the parliament met in the beginning of December, a motion was made in the house of peers by the earl of Sandwich, for an address beseeching his majesty to discontinue the Hanoverian troops in British pay, in order to remove the popular discontent, and stop the murmurs of the English troops abroad. He was supported by the duke of Bedford, the earl of Chesterfield, and all the leaders in the opposition, who did not fail to enumerate, and insist upon all the circumstances we have mentioned. They moreover observed, that better troops might be hired at a smaller

expense; that it would be a vain and endless task to ex haust the national treasure, in enriching a hungry and barren electorate; that the popular dissatisfaction against these mercenaries was so general, and raised to such violence, as nothing but their dismission could appease that if such hirelings should be thus continued from year to year, they might at last become a burden entailed upon the nation, and be made subservient, under some ambitious prince, to purposes destructive of the British liberty. These were the suggestions of spleen and animosity; for, granting the necessity of a land war, the Hanoverians were the most natural allies and auxiliaries which Great Britain could engage and employ. How insolent soever some few individual generals of that electorate might have been in their private deportment, certain it is, their troops behaved with great sobriety, discipline, and decorum; and in the day of battle did their duty with as much courage and alacrity as any body of men ever displayed on the like occasion. The motion was rejected by the majority; but, when the term for keeping them in the British pay was nearly expired, and the estimates for their being continued the ensuing year were laid before the house, the earl of Sandwich renewed his motion. The lord chancellor, as speaker of the house, interposing, declared, that by their rules a question once rejected could not be revived during the same session. A debate ensued, and the second motion was overruled. The Hanoverian troops were voted in the house of commons; nevertheless, the same nobleman moved in the upper house that the continuing sixteen thousand Hanowverians in British pay was prejudicial to his majesty's true interest, useless to the common cause, and dangerous to the welfare and tranquillity of the nation. He was seconded by the duke of Marlborough, who had resigned his commission in disgust: and the proposal gave birth to another warm dispute: but victory declared, as usual, for the ministry.

II. In the house of commons they sustained divers attacks. A motion was made for laying a duty of eight shillings in the pound on all places and pensions. Mr. Grenville moved for an address, to beseech his majesty, that he would not engage the British nation any further in

the war on the continent, without the concurrence of the states general on certain stipulated proportions of force and expense, as in the late war. These proposals begat vigor

ous debates, in which the country party were always foiled by dint of superior numbers. Such was the credit and influence of the ministry in parliament, that although the national debt was increased by above six millions since the commencement of the war, the commons indulged them with an enormous sum for the expense of the ensuing year. The grants specified in the votes amounted to six millions and a half: to this sum were added three millions and a half paid to the sinking fund in perpetual taxes; so that this year's expense rose to ten millions. The funds established for the annual charge were the land and malt taxes: one million paid by the East India company for the renewal of their charter, twelve hundred thousand pounds by annuities, one million from the sinking fund, six-andthirty thousand pounds from the coinage, and six hundred thousand pounds by a lottery; an expedient which for some time had been annually repeated: and which, in a great measure, contributed to debauch the morals of the public, by introducing a spirit of gaming, destructive of all industry and virtue.

III. The dissensions of the British parliament were suddenly suspended by an event that seemed to unite both parties in the prosecution of the same measures. This was the intelligence of an intended invasion. By the parliamentary disputes, the loud clamours, and the general dissatisfaction of the people in Great Britain, the French ministry were persuaded that the nation was ripe for a revolt. This belief was corroborated by the assertions of their emissaries in different parts of Great Britain and Ireland. These were papists and jacobites of strong prejudices and warm imaginations, who saw things through the medium of passion and party, and spoke rather from extravagant zeal than from sober conviction. They gave the court of Versailles to understand, that if the chevalier de St. George, or his eldest son, Charles Edward, should appear at the head of a French army in Great Britain, a revolution would instantly follow in his favour. This intimation was agreeable to cardinal de Tencin, who, since