divulged. The Duke of Anjou was to renounce forever, for himself and his descendants, all claim to the French crown; and the crown of Spain was to descend, by the male line only, to the Duke of Anjou, and failing them, to certain princes of the Bourbon line by male descent, always excluding him who was possessed of the French crown.* Gibraltar and Minorca remained to England; Dunkirk was to be demolished; the Spanish Netherlands were to be ceded to Austria, with Naples, Milan, and Sardinia; the barrier towns were to be ceded to the Dutch, as required in 1709, with the exception of two or three places. Spain and her Indian colonies remained with the Duke of Anjou and his male heirs, as King of Spain. And thus, at the conclusion of the most glorious and successful war recorded in English history, did the English cabinet leave to France the great object of the contest--the crown of Spain placed on the head of a prince of the Bourbon race, and of its magnificent Indian colonies. With truth did Marlborough observe, in the debate on the preliminaries, "The measures pursued in England for the last year are directly contrary to her majesty's engagements with the allies, sully the triumphs and glories of her reign, and will render the English name odious to all other nations." It was all in vain. people loudly clamored for peace; the cry against the taxes was irresistible. The Tory ministry was seconded by a vast numerical majority throughout the country. The peace was

The

* The words of the treaty, which subsequent events have rendered of importance on this point, were these: Philippe V., king of Spain, renounced "à toutes pretensions, droits, et tîtres qui lui et sa postérité avaient ou pourraient avoir à l'avenir à la couronne de France. Il consentit pour lui et sa postérité que ce droit fût tenu et considéré comme passé au Duc de Berry son frère et à ses descendants et postérité male et au defaut de ce prince; et de sa postérité male, au Duc de Bourbon son cousin et á ses héritiers, et aussi successivement à tous les princes du sang de France." The Duke of Saxony and his male heirs were called to the succession, failing Philippe V. and his male heirs. This act of renunciation and entail of the crown of Spain on male heirs was ratified by the Cortes of Castile and Arragon; by the Parliament of Paris, by Great Britain and France in the sixth article of the Treaty of Utrecht.-Vide SCHOELL, Hist. de Trait., ii., 99-105, and Du. MONT, Corp. Dipl., tom. viii., p. 1, p. 339. t CoXE, vi., 205.

approved of by large majorities in both houses. Parliament was soon after prorogued; and Marlborough, seeing his public career terminated, solicited and obtained passports to go abroad, which he soon afterward did.

58. Mournful sepa ration of the

English contin

gent from the

Great was the mourning, and loud the lamentations, both in the British and allied troops, when the fatal day arrived that the former were to separate from their old companions in arms. On the 16th of July, the very day on which Quesnoy surrendered, allies. the last of their long line of triumphs, Ormond having exhausted every sort of procrastination to postpone the dreaded hour, was compelled to order the English troops to march. He in vain, however, gave a similar order to the auxiliaries in British pay. The hereditary Prince of Cassel replied, "The Hessians would gladly march if it were to fight the French." Another, "We do not serve for pay, but fame." The native English, however, were compelled to obey the order of their sovereign, and they set out, twelve thousand strong, from the camp at Cambresis. Of all the Germans in British pay, only one battalion of Holstein men, and a regiment of dragoons from Liege, accompanied them. Silent and dejected they took their way; the men kept their eyes on the ground; the officers did not venture to return the parting salute of the comrades who had so long fought and conquered by their side. Not a word was spoken on either side; the hearts of all were too full for utterance; but the averted eye, the mournful air, the blush of indignation, told the deep emotion which was every where felt. It seemed as if the allies were following to the grave, with profound affliction, the whole body of their British comrades. But when the troops reached their restingplace for the night, and the suspension of arms was proclaimed at the head of each regiment, the general indignation became so vehement, that even the bonds of military discipline were unable to restrain it. A universal cry, succeeded by a loud murmur, was heard through the camp. The British soldiers were seen tearing their hair, casting their muskets on

Сс

the ground, and rending their clothes, uttering all the while furious exclamations against the government which had so shamefully betrayed them. The officers were so overwhelmed with vexation, that they sat apart in their tents looking on tne ground, through very shame; and for several days they shrunk from the sight even of their fellow-soldiers. Many left their colors to serve with the allies; others withdrew; and whenever they thought of Marlborough and their days of glory, tears filled their eyes.*

Great difficul

ties now expe

negotiation

It soon appeared that it was not without reason that these 59. gloomy presentiments prevailed on both sides, as to the consequences of the British withdrawing rienced in the from the contest. So elated were the French by with France. this withdrawal, that they speedily lost all sense of gratitude and even honesty, and refused to give up Dunkirk to the British; and the cession was only effected with great difficulty, on the earnest entreaties of the British government. So great were the difficulties which beset the negotiation, that St. John was obliged to repair in person to Paris, where he remained incognito for a considerable time, and effected a compromise with regard to the objects still in dispute between the parties. The secession of England from the confederacy was now openly announced; and, as the allies refused to abide by her preliminaries, the separate negotiation continued between the two countries, and lingered on for nearly a year after the suspension of arms.

Meanwhile, Eugene, after the departure of the British, con

ineffectually besieged by Eugene, who

verse at De

60. tinued his operations, and laid siege to Landrecies, Landrecies is the last of the barrier fortresses on the road to Paris, in the end of July. But it soon appeared that Ensustains a re- gland had been the soul of the confederacy, and that it was the tutelary arm of Marlborough which had so long averted disaster, and chained victory to its standards. Nothing but defeat and misfortune attended the allies after its secession. Even the great and tried abilities of Eu

nain.

* CUNNINGHAM, ii., 342. MILNER, 356.

gene were inadequate to procure for them one single success, after the colors of England ceased to wave in their ranks. During the investment of Landrecies, Villars drew together the garrisons from the neighboring towns, no longer threatened by the English troops, and surprised at Denain a body of twelve thousand men, stationed there for the purpose of facilitating the passage of convoys to the besieging army. This body was totally defeated, with a loss of eight thousand. The blow was considerable in itself, but it was rendered doubly so by the position of Denain, a fortified post on the Scheldt, which kept up the communication between the portion of his army which was besieging Landrecies and that before Marchiennes. It cut his army in two; and Eugene had the mortification of arriving in person on the opposite side of the Scheldt at the close of the action, and witnessing the surrender of Lord Albemarle and three thousand men, without being able to render any assistance. This disaster rendered it necessary to raise the siege of Landrecies, and Villars immediately resumed the offensive. Douay was speedily invested : a fruitless effort of Eugene to retain it only exposed him to the mortification of witnessing its surrender. Not expecting so sudden a reverse of fortune, the fortresses recently taken were not provided with provisions or ammunition, and were in no condition to make any effectual resistance. Quesnoy soon fell from this cause; and Bouchain, the last trophy of Marlborough's victories, opened its gate on the 10th of October. The coalition was paralyzed; and Louis, who so lately trembled for his capital, found his armies advancing from conquest to conquest, and tearing from the allies the fruits of all their victories.*

Conclusion of

These disasters, and the evident inabiliy tof the allied armies, without the aid of the English, to keep their 61. ground in Flanders, in a manner compelled the the war beDutch, however unwilling, to follow the example of tween Austria Great Britain, in treating separately with France. Rastadt, and They became parties, accordingly, to the pacifica- Utrecht.

and France at

the Dutch at

* Mém. de Villars, ii., 396-421. CAPEFIGUE, Louis XIV., vi., 272–275.

tion at Utrecht; and Savoy also concluded peace there. But the barrier for which they had so ardently contended was, by the desertion of England, so much reduced, that it ceased to afford any effectual security against the encroachments of France. That power held the most important fortresses in Flanders which had been conquered by Louis XIV.-Cambray, Valenciennes, and Arras. Lille, the conquest on which Marlborough most prided himself, was restored by the allies, and with it Bethune, Aire, St. Venant, and many other places. The Dutch felt, in the strongest manner, the evil consequences of a treaty which thus, in a manner, left the enemy at their gates; and the irritation consequently produced against England was so violent, that it continued through the greater part of the eighteenth century. Austria, indignant at being thus deserted by all her allies, continued the contest alone through another campaign. But she was overmatched in the struggle; her resources were exhausted; and, by the advice of Eugene, conferences were opened at Rastadt, from which, as a just reward for her perfidy, England was excluded. A treaty was soon concluded on the basis of the Treaty of Ryswick. It left Charles the Low Countries, and all the Spanish territories in Italy, except Sicily; but, with Sardinia, Bavaria was restored. France retained Landau, but restored New Brisach, Fribourg, and Kehl. Thus was that great power

left in possession of the whole conquests ceded to Louis XIV. by the treaties of Aix la Chapelle, Nimeguen, and Ryswick, with the vast addition of the family alliance with a Bourbon prince, possessing Spain and the Indies. A century of repeated wars on the part of England and the European powers, with France, followed by the dreadful struggle of the Revolutionary contest, and the costly campaigns of Wellington, were the legacy bequeathed to the nation by Bolingbroke and Harley, in arresting the course of Marlborough's victories, and restoring France to a preponderance, when on the eve of being reduced to a level consistent with the independence of oth