23. It was these general Causes which overturned Marlborough 385 24. Great Violations of moral Rectitude in the Mode of their 25. What was the Danger to be guarded against in the Peace 388 26. The Result has proved the Tories were wrong in their Policy 27. Disastrous Effects and Serious Dangers to England which 29. These Dangers have arisen solely from the Spanish Alliance. 392 30. It was a Sense of this Advantage which made Napoleon en- 32. Instance of the same Political Infatuation in our Times 36. Extraordinary Coincidence in the Crisis of the two Contests 399 37. Real Causes of this Identity of Conduct of the opposite Parties 38. Excuses which existed for the Policy of the Tories at the PLANS, & c. MAP OF FRANCE AND THE NETHERLANDS, PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF RAMILLIES. PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF MALPLAQUET. THE LIFE OF MARLBOROUGH. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND EARLY HISTORY OF MARLBOROUGH.-HIS SHARE IN THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.-CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 1. JOHN CHURCHILL, afterward Duke of Marlborough, was born on the 5th of July, 1650 (new style), at Ash, in the county of Devon. His father was Sir Winston Churchill, a gallant cavalier who had drawn his Birth and ear ly life of Marl borough. sword in behalf of Charles I., and had, in consequence, been deprived of his fortune and driven into exile by Cromwell. His paternal family was very ancient, and boasted its descent from the Courcils de Poitou, who came into England with the Conqueror. His mother was Elizabeth Drake, who claimed a collateral connection with the descendants of the illustrious Sir Francis Drake, the great navigator. Young Churchill received the rudiments of his education from the parish clergyman in Devonshire, from whom he imbibed that firm attachment to the Protestant faith by which he was ever afterward distinguished, and which determined his conduct in the most important crisis of his life. He was afterward placed at the school of St. Paul's; and it was there that he "first discovered, on reading Vegetius, that his bent of mind was decidedly for the military life. "What is usually called but strong natural parts genius," says Johnson, "is nothing accidentally turned in one direction." Like many other men C destined to future distinction, he made no great figure as a scholar, a circumstance easily explained, if we recollect that it is on the knowledge of words that the reputation of a schoolboy is founded-of a man, on that of things. But the dispatches now published demonstrate that, before he attained middle life, he was a proficient in at least Latin, French, and English composition; for letters in each, written in a very pure style, are to be found in all parts of his correspondence. 2. His first ap From his first youth, young Churchill was distinguished by the elegance of his manners, and the beauty of his pearance and countenance and figure; advantages which, coupearly promotion at court. led with the known loyal principles and the sufferings of his father in the royal cause, procured for him, at the early age of fifteen, the situation of page in the household of the Duke of York, afterward James II. His inclination for arms was then so decided, that the prince procured for him a commission in one of the regiments of Guards when he was only sixteen years old. His uncommonly handsome figure then attracted no small share of notice from the beauties of the court of Charles II., and even awakened a passion in one of the royal mistresses herself. Impatient to signalize himself, however, he left their seductions, and embarked as a volunteer in the expedition against Tangiers in 1666. Thus his first essay in arms was made in actions against the Moors. Having returned to Great Britain, he attracted the notice of the Countess of Castlemaine, afterward Duchess of Cleveland, then the favorite mistress of Charles II., who had distinguish ed him by her regard before he embarked for Africa, and who made him a present of £5000, with which the young soldier bought an annuity of £500, which laid the foundation, says Chesterfield, of all his subsequent fortunes. Charles, to remove a dangerous rival in her unsteady affections, gave him a company in the Guards, and sent him to the Continent with the auxiliary force which, in those days of English hu miliation, the cabinet of St. James's furnished to Louis XIV His services under Louis XIV. and Flanders. He distin Turenne in to aid him in subduing the United Provinces. Thus, by a singular coincidence, it was under Turenne, Condé, and Vauban that the future conqueror of the Bourbons first learned the art of scientific warfare. Wellington went through the same discipline, but in the inverse order: his first campaigns were made against the French in Flanders, his next against the bastions of Tippoo and the Mahratta horse in Hindostan. Churchill had not been long in Flanders before his talents and gallantry won for him deserved distinction. 3. The campaign of 1672, which brought the French armies to the gates of Amsterdam, and placed the United Provinces within a hair's breadth of destruction, was to him fruitful in valuable lessons. guished himself afterward so much at the siege of Nimeguen, that Turenne, who constantly called him by the soubriquet of" the handsome Englishman," predicted that he would one day be a great man. In the following year he had the good fortune to save the life of his colonel, the Duke of Monmouth, and acquired so much renown at the siege of Maestricht, that Louis XIV. publicly thanked him at the head of his army, and promised him his powerful influence with Charles II. for future promotion. He little thought what a formidable cnemy he was then fostering at the court of his obsequious brother sovereign. The result of Louis XIV.'s intercession was, that Churchill was made lieutenant-colonel; and he continued to serve with the English auxiliary force in Flanders, under the French generals, till 1677, when he returned with his regiment to London. Beyond all doubt, it was these five years' service under the great masters of the military art, who then sustained the power and cast a halo round the crown of Louis XIV., which rendered Marlborough the consummate commander that he showed himself to have become, from the moment he was placed at the head of the allied armies. One of the most interesting and instructive lessons to be learned from biography is derived from observing the long steps, the vast amount of previous preparation, the numerous changes, |