encamped on the Escaillon, ready to succour any point which might be attacked. the СНАР. IX. 1712. 61. Villars de stroys the at Denain, July 24. On this state of matters, Villars conceived and executed, with great ability, a project attended with most important effects on the issue of the war. He detachment drew together the garrisons from the neighbouring towns no longer threatened by the English troops, and suddenly passing the Scheldt, 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 men. 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 Eugene's 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. Douai 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 resist"The effects," says Marshal Saxe, "of this affair were inconceivable; it made the difference of above one hundred battalions to the two armies. Eugene was obliged to throw garrisons into the towns which were ance. CHAP. IX. 1712. threatened; and Villars, seeing that his own fortresses were no longer threatened, drew out their garrisons, and augmented his army by above fifty battalions, which so increased his army that the Prince, no longer venturing to keep the field, was obliged to throw all his cannon into Quesnoy, when it was taken on the 4th October." Villars, ii. Bouchain, the last trophy of Marlborough's victories, Capefigue, opened its gates on the 10th October. The coalition Louis XIV. was paralysed; 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.1 1 Mém. de 396-421. Hist. de 272-275. Hist. de Marlb. iii. 430-443. 62. of the war between Dutch at These disasters, and the evident inability of the Allied Conclusion armies, without the aid of the English, to keep their ground in Flanders, in a manner compelled the Dutch, however unwilling, to follow the example of Great Britain, in treating separately with France. They became parties, accordingly, to the pacification 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. England, by CHAP. IX. 1712. 213, 214, her inconceivable defection and base desertion of her allies, lost the confidence of the European powers; and Austria, in particular, became so alienated that she formed the coalition against England and Prussia with- 1 Coxe, vi. out difficulty in 1756. It required all the dangers, 238. Swift's sufferings, and glories of the Revolutionary War, to xvii. 335. restore England to the place she had attained in general broke's Corestimation by the victories of Marlborough, or wipe out 298. the disgrace she had incurred by the Treaty of Utrecht.1 Works, Boling resp. iii. tinues the and makes Rastadt. Austria, indignant at being thus deserted by all her 63. Allies, continued the contest alone through another Austria concampaign. But she was overmatched in the struggle; struggle, her resources were exhausted; and, by the advice of peace at 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 Mr Pitt contest, and the costly campaigns of Wellington, were Keene, the legacy bequeathed to the nation by Bolingbroke and House Harley, in arresting the course of Marlborough's victo- 57. Coxe's ries, and restoring France to a preponderance,2 when on 238. the eve of being reduced to a level consistent with the 2 to Sir B. Coxe's Bourbon, c. Marlb. vi. IX. CHAP. independence of other states. Well might Mr Pitt style the Treaty of Utrecht "the indelible reproach of the age;" and bitterly did England suffer for her guilt in concluding such a pacification. 1712. 64. Increased of the libels virulence against Marlborough. While Marlborough had been vainly endeavouring, by his weight and influence, to save the nation from a peace which should deprive it of the whole fruits of his victories, and leave it exposed to the whole dangers from which he had rescued it, the Government, and the base libellers whom they employed, were leaving nothing undone which would lessen his reputation or add to his chagrin. Every agent of political intrigue was employed, every malignant passion roused, every mercenary scribbler of the press encouraged to throw odium on the fallen general. The only anxiety was, who should traduce him most effectually. His whole previous life was passed in review; his early irregularities at the gay court of Charles II. were ostentatiously brought to light; the scurrilous pen of the author of the New Atalantis was rewarded for the propagation of the scandal; and even his subsequent life, so marked by regularity and decorum, was made the subject of invective; and his friendships and intimacies were construed into political intrigues, or stigmatised as crimes. His military conduct even was called in question; doubts were thrown upon the courage of the bravest of the brave. The object of encouraging this extraordinary and almost unparalleled outbreak of the malignant passions was very evident. One crime necessitates another. Ministers having, in order to 1 Hist. de disarm the mighty hero who might have thwarted or impeded the negotiation for a separate peace, upon which 219, 220. they had staked their existence, dismissed him from all Marlb. iii. 445-447. Coxe, vi. his employments,1 had no alternative but to justify the act of ingratitude by words of calumny; and this is the history of the whole persecutions of Marlborough. CHAP. IX. 1712. persecution against him in pecuniary affairs. Not content with assailing his reputation, and defacing 65. the fair fame of the hero who had raised his country to Renewed such a pitch of greatness, the Ministry proceeded to substantial acts of aggression. The first of these was a suit for the recovery of £15,000 a-year, arising from the 2 per cent on foreign subsidies, which has been already mentioned, and respecting which Marlborough's vindication had been so complete. The manner in which this ungracious and unfounded suit was received in the courts of law, proved that Government was determined to exert all its influence to get his plea in defence overruled, and a judgment in any event secured. The next was the encouragement of actions against the Duke, to the amount of £30,000, for arrears due to the workmen and contractors at Blenheim. The customary payments made by the Treasury to carry on this noble and deserved monument of national gratitude, had, as already noticed, been discontinued since Marlborough had incurred the displeasure of Government by refusing to support the peace; and four commissioners had been appointed to examine into the accounts. The Lord-Treasurer gave frequent promises to obtain warrants from the Queen for payment of the arrears; but the thing was never done and in the course of the year 1711, all that was got was a small sum, barely adequate to covering the unfinished part of the building from the inclemencies of the weather. Marlborough and the Duchess steadily adhered to their wise plan of refusing to pay any part of these accounts, lest they should be held as the employers, and rendered responsible for the whole. The result was, that the contractors, growing desperate, |