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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 369, July 1846

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 369, July 1846

Author: Various


        
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                BLACKWOOD'S

                 Edinburgh

                 MAGAZINE.


                 VOL. LX.

            JULY-DECEMBER, 1846.


              [Illustration]


    WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH
                    AND
       37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.


                   1846


TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: A few obvious misprints have been corrected, but in
general the originally erratic spelling, punctuation and typesetting
conventions have been retained. Accents in foreign language poetry and
phrases are inconsistent in the original, and have not been
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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.


No. CCCLXIX. JULY, 1846. VOL. LX


CONTENTS.


    PERU,                                               1

    LETTERS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. LETTER I.,          19

    MARLBOROUGH'S DISPATCHES. 1708-1709,               22

    THE AMERICANS AND THE ABORIGINES. PART THE LAST,   45

    THE DEATH OF ZUMALACARREGUI,                       56

    NEW SCOTTISH PLAYS AND POEMS,                      62

    ELINOR TRAVIS. CHAPTER THE SECOND,                 83

    MORE ROGUES IN OUTLINE,                           101

    THE LAST RECOLLECTIONS OF NAPOLEON,               110


EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;

AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.


PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.




PERU.[1]


A clever book of travels, over ground comparatively untrodden, is in
these days a welcome rarity. No dearth is there of vapid narratives by
deluded persons, who, having leisure to travel, think they must also
have wit to write: with these we have long been surfeited, and
heartily grateful do we feel to the man who strikes out a new track,
follows it observantly, and gives to the world, in pleasant and
instructive form, the result of his observations. Such a traveller we
have had the good fortune to meet with, and now present to our
readers.

We take it that no portion of the globe's surface, of equal extent,
and comprising an equal number of civilized, or at least
semi-civilized, states, is less known to the mass of Europeans than
the continent of South America. Too distant and dangerous for the
silken tourist, to whom steam-boats and dressing-cases are
indispensable, it does not possess, in a political point of view, that
kind of importance which might induce governments to stimulate its
exploration. As a nest of mushroom republics, continually fighting
with each other and revolutionizing themselves--a land where
throat-cutting is a popular pastime, and earthquakes, fevers more or
less yellow, and vermin rather more than less venomous, are amongst
the indigenous comforts of the soil--it is notorious, and has been
pretty generally avoided. Braving these dangers and disagreeables, a
German of high reputation as a naturalist and man of letters, has
devoted four years of a life valuable to science to a residence and
travels in the most interesting district of South America; the ancient
empire of the Incas, the scene of the conquests and cruelties of
Francisco Pizarro.

"The scientific results of my travels," says Dr Tschudi in his brief
preface, "are recorded partly in my _Investigation of the Fauna
Peruana_[2] and partly in appropriate periodicals: the following
volumes are an attempt to satisfy the claim which an enlightened
public may justly make on the man who visits a country in reality but
little known."

We congratulate the doctor on the good success of his attempt. The
public, whether of Germany or of any other country into whose language
his book may be translated, will be difficult indeed if they desire a
better account of Peru than he has given them.

Bound for the port of Callao, the ship Edmond, in which Dr Tschudi
sailed from Havre-de-Grace, was driven by storms to the coast of
Chili, and first cast anchor in the bay of San Carlos, on the island
of Chiloe. Although by no means devoid of interest, we shall pass over
his account of that island, which is thinly peopled, of small
fertility, and cursed with an execrable climate; and accompany him to
Valparaiso, his next halting place. There he found much bustle and
movement. Chili was at war with the confederation of Peru and Bolivia,
and an expedition was fitting out in all haste. Sundry decrees of the
Peruvian Protector, Santa Cruz, had excited the ire of the Chilians,
especially one diminishing the harbour dues on vessels arriving direct
from Europe and discharging their cargoes in a Peruvian port. This had
damaged the commerce of Chili; and already one army under General
Blanco had been landed on the Peruvian coast to revenge the injury. It
had signally failed in its object. Outmanoeuvred and surrounded, it was
taken prisoner to a man. On this occasion the behaviour of Santa Cruz
was generous almost to quixotism. He sent back the soldiers to their
country, and actually paid for the cavalry horses, which he kept. The
Chilian government showed little gratitude for this chivalrous
conduct. The treaty of peace concluded by Blanco was not ratified; but
a second armament, far more powerful than the first, was got ready and
shipped from Valparaiso during Dr Tschudi's stay in that port. His
account of the Chilian army and navy is not very favourable. His ship
had hardly anchored when several officers of the land forces came on
board, and inquired if there were any swords to be sold, as they and
their comrades were for the most part totally unprovided with such
weapons. Swords formed no part of the cargo of the Edmond, but one of
the ship's company, acquainted, perhaps, from previous experience,
with the wants of these South American warriors, had brought out an
assortment as a private spec., and amongst them was a sort of
falchion, about five feet long, which had belonged to a cuirassier of
Napoleon's guard. The officer who bought this weapon was a puny
half-cast lad, who could hardly lift it with both hands, but who
nevertheless opined that, in case of a charge, it would play the devil
amongst the Peruvians. "Ten months later," says Dr Tschudi, "I met
this hero on the march, amongst the mountains of Peru. He had girded
on a little dirk, scarce larger than a toothpick, and behind him came
a strapping negro, laden with the falchion. I could not help inquiring
whether the latter arm had done much mischief in the then recent
battle of Yungay, and he was honest enough to confess that he had not
used it, finding it rather too heavy." The Chilian fleet, twenty-seven
transports and nine men-of-war, was, with one or two exceptions, in
bad condition; short of guns and hands, and manned in great part by
sailors who had run from English, French, or North American ships. The
officers were nearly all English. The shipment of the horses was
conducted in the most clumsy manner: many were strangled in hoisting
them up, others fell out of the slings and were drowned, and those
that were embarked were so badly cared for, that each morning previous
to the sailing of the fleet, their carcasses were thrown overboard by
dozens. The Chilian troops had no stomach for the campaign, and, in
great part, had to be embarked by force. "I stood on the landing
place," writes the doctor, "when the Santiago battalion went on board.
Ill uniformed, and bound two and two with cords, the soldiers were
actually driven into the boats." With such an army, what besides
defeat and disaster could be expected? But treachery and discord were
at work in Peru, and success awaited the reluctant invaders.

With unpardonable imprudence the captain of the Edmond had manifested
an intention of selling his ship to the Peruvians to be converted into
a man-of-war. A Yankee captain was suspected of a similar design; and
the consequence was an embargo laid upon all ships in the port of
Valparaiso, until such time as the Chilian army might be supposed to
have reached its destination and struck the first blow. A delay of
five-and-forty days was the consequence, particularly wearisome to Dr
Tschudi, as he was unable to absent himself for more than twenty-four
hours from the town, lest the embargo should be suddenly raised and
the ship sail without him. He found few resources in Valparaiso, whose
population, especially the numerous foreigners, have their time fully
occupied by commercial pursuits. The town itself, closely built and
dirty, is divided by _quebradas_ or ravines into three parts,
extending along the side of a hill, and designated by the sailors as
foretop, maintop, and mizentop. These quebradas, close to whose edge
run the badly lighted streets, are particularly dangerous in the
winter nights; and many a sailor, on shore for a "spree," finds his
grave in them. The police is good, better probably than any other
South American town; and although assassinations occasionally occur,
the perpetrators rarely escape. One curious institution is the
travelling house of correction, which consists of waggons, not unlike
those in which menagerie keepers convey their beasts. Each of these
contains sleeping accommodation for eight or ten criminals. Behind
stands a sentry, and in front of some of them is a sort of kitchen.
The prisoners draw the waggons themselves; and as they for the most
part work upon the roads, often at some distance from the city, there
is an evident gain thus in their conveying their dwelling with them.
The plan answers well in a country where there is, properly speaking,
no winter.

A common article of sale on the Valparaiso market is live condors,
which are taken in traps. A fine specimen is worth a dollar and a
half. In one court-yard, Dr Tschudi saw eight of them, fettered after
a peculiar fashion. A long narrow strip of untanned leather was run
through their nostrils, tied tight, and the other end fastened to a
post fixed in the ground. This allowed the birds liberty to move about
in a tolerably large circle, but as soon as they attempted to fly,
they were brought down by the head. Their voracity is prodigious. One
of them ate eighteen pounds of meat in the course of a day, without at
all impairing his appetite for the next morning's breakfast. Dr
Tschudi measured one, and found it fourteen English feet from tip to
tip of the wings.

Most joyfully did our traveller hail the arrival of the long-looked
for permission to sail. With a favouring breeze from the east, the
Edmond soon made the islands of Juan Fernandez, and Dr Tschudi was
indulging in pleasant recollections of Alexander Selkirk, Defoe, and
Robinson Crusoe, when the cry "a man overboard" startled him from his
reverie. Over went the hen-coops and empty casks; the ship was brought
to, and a boat lowered. It was high time, for a shark had approached
the swimmer, who defended himself with remarkable courage and presence
of mind, striking out with his fists at his voracious pursuer. So
unequal a combat could not last long, and the lookers-on thought him
lost, for the shark had already seized his leg, when the boat came up;
a rain of blows from oars and boat-hooks forced the monster to let go
his hold, and the sailor was snatched, it might truly be said, from
the jaws of death. His wounds, though deep, were not dangerous, and in
a few weeks he was convalescent. Without other incident worthy of
note, Dr Tschudi arrived in the bay of Callao. There the first news he
heard was that the Chilians had effected a landing, taken Lima by
storm, and were then besieging Callao. This magnificent fort, the last
place in South America that had held out for the Spaniards, and which
General Rodil defended for nearly eighteen months against the
patriots, had since been in great measure dismantled, and
three-fourths of the guns sold. Those that remained were now
wretchedly served by the Peruvians, whilst the fire of the besiegers,
on the other hand, did considerable damage. The siege, however, was
pushed nothing like so vigorously as it had been by the patriots. Both
the land and sea forces were too small. To the latter the Peruvians
had unfortunately no fleet to oppose. Several men-of-war had been
treacherously taken from them by the Chilians in time of peace, and
the only two remaining were sunk upon the approach of the enemy.

"One Sunday afternoon," says Dr Tschudi, "the Chilian brig-of-war,
Colocolo, sailed close in under the walls of the fort, and threw in a
few balls. The batteries immediately returned the fire with every gun
they could bring to bear; but all their shots went too high, and fell
amongst the merchantmen and other neutral vessels. Meanwhile the
Colocolo sailed to and fro in derision of the batteries. At last the
French commodore, seeing the danger of the merchant ships, sent a boat
to the fort, menacing them with a broadside if they did not instantly
cease firing. This the garrison were compelled to do, and to submit
patiently to the insults of the Chilians. Another instance of the
great prejudice which the vicinity of neutral shipping may be to
besieged or besiegers, was witnessed on the night of the 5th November
1820, in the bay of Callao, when Lord Cochrane and Captain Guise, with
a hundred and fifty men, boarded the Spanish forty-four gun corvette
Esmeralda. Between the Esmeralda and the fort lay a North American
frigate, the Macedonia, which completely hindered the castle from
covering the corvette with its guns. So enraged were the garrison at
this, that the next morning an officer of the Macedonia was murdered
with his whole boat's crew, the very instant they set foot on shore."

We shall not accompany Dr Tschudi through his "fragment of the modern
history of Peru;" for although lucid and interesting, it might become
less so in the compressed form which we should necessarily have to
adopt. We find at one time six self-styled presidents of Peru--each
with his share of partizans, more or less numerous, and with a force
at his command varying from one to five thousand men--oppressing the
people, levying contributions, shooting and banishing the adherents of
his five rivals. Let us examine the probable causes of such a state of
things, of the revolutions and rebellions which have now lasted for
twenty years--since the birth of the republic, in fact--and which must
finally, if a check be not put to them, bring about the depopulation
and total ruin of Peru. These causes Dr Tschudi finds in the want of
honour and common honesty exhibited by the majority of the Peruvian
officers. With the army all the revolutions have begun. As soon as an
officer reaches the rank of colonel, and if he can only reckon upon
the adherence of some fifteen hundred or two thousand soldiers, he
begins to think of deposing the president and ruling in his stead. In
so doing, he is actuated by avarice rather than by ambition. During
their short-lived power these dictators levy enormous contributions,
of which they pocket the greater part, and let the soldiers want.
After a while they abandon the helm of government, either voluntarily
or by compulsion, and take with them their ill-gotten wealth. When the
chiefs set such examples, it cannot be wondered at if, amongst their
inferiors, insubordination and mutiny are the order of the day. These,
however, are most prevalent amongst the subaltern officers, scarcely
ever originating with the soldiers, although their treatment, we are
informed, is inhumanly cruel, and their privations and sufferings of
the severest. There appears to be a great similarity in character
between the Peruvian infantry and the Spanish troops of the present
day; although the former are not of Spanish descent, but consist
chiefly of Indians from the interior and mountainous districts of
Peru. Dr Tschudi describes them as obedient, willing, and courageous;
unparalleled in their endurance of hunger and fatigue, capable of
sustaining for several days together marches of fourteen or sixteen
leagues. The officers, however, must be good, or the men are useless
in the field. If not well led, they throw away their arms and run, and
there is no possibility of rallying them. Moreover, no retrograde
movement must be made, although it be merely as a manoeuvre--the
Indians looking upon it as a signal for flight. The cavalry, for the
most part well mounted, is worthless. It consists of negroes--a race
rarely remarkable for courage. As cruel as they are cowardly, a
defeated foe meets with barbarous treatment at their hands.

With every Peruvian army march nearly as many women as it comprises
men. Unpalatable as such a following would be to European commanders,
it is encouraged and deemed indispensable by Peruvian generals. The
Indian women, as enduring and hardy as their husbands, set out two or
three hours before the troops, and precede them by about the same
time at the halting place. They immediately collect wood for fires,
and prepare the rations, which they carry with them, for their
husbands, sons, and brothers. Without them, in the more desolate and
mountainous districts, the soldiers would sometimes risk starvation.
They are no impediment to the rapid march of a column, which they, on
the contrary, accelerate, by saving the men trouble, and affording
them more time for repose. During a battle they remain in the vicinity
of the troops, but far enough off not to impede their movements; the
fight over, they seek out the wounded and take care of them. The lot
of these poor women, who go by the name of _rabonas_, is any thing but
an enviable one; for besides their many privations and hardships, they
meet with much ill usage at the hands of the soldiery, to which,
however, they submit with incredible patience.

The manner in which most of the officers treat the soldiers is
perfectly inhuman, and the slightest offences meet with terrible
chastisement. Every officer has a right, at least in war time, to
inflict, without a court-martial, any punishment he pleases. Some of
the chiefs are celebrated for the refinement of their cruelties; and
many soldiers prefer death to serving under them. During General
Gamarra's campaign against the Bolivians in 1842, several score of
soldiers sprang one day from the bridge of Oroya, to seek death in the
torrent that flows beneath it. With the scornful cry of "_Adios,
capitan!_" they took the fatal leap, and the next instant lay mangled
and expiring upon the rocks through which the stream forces its way.
"I myself have witnessed," continues Dr Tschudi, "how soldiers who on
the march were unable to keep up with the column, were shot dead upon
the spot. On the road from Tarma to Jauja, a distance of nine leagues,
I passed seven Indians who had thus lost their lives. It is true that
the commandant of that battalion, an officer whose sword was as yet
unstained with any blood save that of his own men, was accustomed to
call out when he saw a soldier straggling from fatigue--'_pegale un
tiro!_' Shoot him down! And the order was forthwith obeyed." When the
troops reach the halting-place, and the _rabonas_ learn the fate of
their sons or husbands, they mournfully retrace their weary footsteps,
and amidst tears and lamentations dig a last resting place for these
victims of military tyranny.

The sick are scarcely better treated. When they can no longer drag
themselves along, they are placed upon mules, and, through the
severest cold or most burning heat, are driven after the army. When
they die, which is most frequently the case, they are dropped at the
next village, to be buried by the alcalde.

"The major of a squadron of light cavalry," says our traveller, "once
asked me, during my stay at Tarma in the year 1842, to take charge for
a few days of his sick men. Of one hundred and twenty soldiers
composing the squadron, sixty-eight lay huddled together in a damp
dark hole, ill of the scarlet fever. Fourteen more were suffering from
the effects of punishment. What a horrible sight they presented! Their
backs were nearly bare of flesh and covered with the most frightful
wounds. A mutiny had taken place, and the major had shot six men, and
caused eighteen others to receive from one hundred to three hundred
lashes, with broad thongs of tapir hide--a punishment so severe, that
some of them died under its infliction. The survivors were compelled
immediately to mount their horses and follow the squadron. For nine
days they rode on in the most terrible agony, and during that time had
to cross the Cordilleras. Several of them refused to have their wounds
dressed; and it was necessary to use force to compel them. One man
implored me with tears to do nothing to improve his state, for that he
longed to die. Before they were nearly cured, a march was ordered, and
they again had to mount and ride. The consequences of this barbarity
were easy to foresee. Before another eight days had elapsed, the
squadron was scarcely sixty men strong."

Turn we from such horrors to a more pleasing theme. "Could I suppose,"
says Dr Tschudi, "that my readers are acquainted with the excellent
description of Lima which Stevenson gives in his Travels in South
America,[3] I would willingly abstain from any detail of the houses,
churches, squares, and streets of that capital. But as that esteemed
work was published twenty years ago, and is now almost entirely
forgotten, I may venture, without danger of repeating things
universally known, to give a sketch of the city of Lima." And
accordingly, the doctor devotes his fifth chapter to an account of the
capital of Peru--an account over which we shall pass lightly, for the
double reason, that our readers may be better acquainted with
Stevenson's work than Dr Tschudi's countrymen can be supposed to be,
and because, if we linger wherever we are tempted so to do in this
very pleasant book, our paper will run out beyond any reasonable
length. We must glance at the cathedral founded by Pizarro, and which
took ninety years in building. Its magnificence and riches are
scarcely to be surpassed by those of any other existing church. The
high altar boasts of seven silver pillars of the Ionic order, twelve
feet high, and a foot and a-half thick; the shrine is seven and a-half
feet high, carved in gold, and studded with countless diamonds and
emeralds; the silver candlesticks weigh one hundred and twelve pounds
each. In connection with the convent of San Pedro, a curious anecdote
is told. It belonged to the Jesuits, and was their "Colegio Maximo;"
it was known to possess immense wealth, for the richest plantations
and finest houses belonged to the order. In the year 1773, the king of
Spain, supported by the famous bull of the 21st June of that year,
"Dominus ac redemptor noster," sent orders to his South American
viceroys to arrest all the Jesuits in one night, ship them off to
Spain, and confiscate their wealth. The greatest secresy was observed,
and no one but the viceroy, and those in his entire confidence, was
supposed to know any thing of the plan. But the same ship which
conveyed to the viceroy the king's instructions in his own
handwriting, brought to the vicar-general of the Jesuits in Lima the
needful instructions from the general of the order at Madrid, to whom
his Majesty's designs had become known. In all silence, and with every
precaution the needful preparations were made; at ten o'clock on the
appointed night, the viceroy summoned his council, and communicated to
them the royal commands. No one was allowed to leave the room till the
blow had been struck. At midnight trusty officers were sent to arrest
the Jesuits, of whose names the viceroy had a list. It was expected
that they would be surprised in their sleep. The patrole knocked at
the door of the San Pedro convent, which was immediately opened. The
commanding officer asked to see the vicar-general, and was forthwith
conducted into the principal hall, where he found the whole of the
order assembled, waiting for him, and ready to depart. Each man had
his portmanteau packed with whatever was necessary for a long voyage.
In all the other convents of Jesuits similar preparations had been
made. The astonishment and vexation of the viceroy may be imagined. He
immediately sent off the whole fraternity to Callao, where ships were
ready to receive them. Inventories were then taken, and search made
for the Jesuits' money. But great was the surprise of the searchers
when instead of the millions which the order was known to possess, but
a few thousand dollars were to be discovered. All the keys, including
that of the strong box, were found, duly ticketed, in the
vicar-general's room. The Jesuits could hardly have taken a better
revenge for the treachery that had been used with their order.

It was supposed that the money was buried, partly in the plantations,
and partly in the convent of San Pedro. An old negro, in the service
of the convent, told how he and one of his comrades had been employed
during several nights in carrying, with bandaged eyes, heavy sacks of
money into the vaults beneath the building. Two Jesuits accompanied
them, and helped them to load and unload their burdens. The researches
hitherto made have been but superficial and imperfect; and Dr Tschudi
opines, with some naïveté, that the hidden hoard may yet be
discovered. We cannot partake his opinion. The cunning Jesuits who
concealed the treasure will have found means to recover it.

Lima was the principal seat of the Inquisition upon the west coast of
South America, and in severity the tribunal was but little surpassed
by that of Madrid itself. The building in which it was held still
exists, but was gutted by the populace when the institution was
abolished by the Cortes, and few traces of its internal arrangements
and murderous engines are now to be seen. More visible ones are yet to
be noticed in the persons of some unfortunate Limeños. "A Spaniard,"
Dr Tschudi tells us, "whose limbs were frightfully distorted, told me,
in reply to my inquiries, that he had fallen into a machine which had
thus mangled him. A few days before his death, however, he confided to
me that in his twenty-fourth year he had been brought before the
tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, and by the most horrible tortures
had been compelled to confess a crime of which he was not guilty. I
still shudder when I remember his crushed and twisted limbs, at the
thoughts of the agonies which the unhappy wretch must have endured."

Now and then, however, the most holy ruffians of the Inquisition met
their match, as the following anecdote serves to show. The Viceroy,
Castel-Fuerte, once expressed, in presence of his confessor, certain
opinions regarding religion which the good monk did not find very
catholic, and which he accordingly, as in duty bound, reported to the
Inquisitors. The latter, confident of their omnipotence, joyfully
seized this opportunity to increase its _prestige_, by proving that
their power extended even to the punishment of a viceroy. But
Castel-Fuerte was not Philip of Spain. At the appointed hour, he
repaired to the Inquisition at the head of his body-guard and of a
company of infantry, with two pieces of artillery, which he caused to
be pointed at the building. Entering the terrible hall, he strode up
to the table, drew out his watch, and laid it before him. "Señores,"
said he, "I am ready to discuss this affair, but for one hour only. If
I am not back by that time, my officers have orders to level this
building with the ground." Astounded at his boldness, the Inquisitors
consulted together for a few moments, and then, with eager politeness,
complimented the resolute Castel-Fuerte out of the house.

Lima was founded by Pizarro in the year 1534, on the 6th of January,
known amongst Roman Catholics as the Day of the Three Kings. From this
latter circumstance it has frequently been called the City of the
Kings. Like some tropical flower, urged into premature bloom and
luxuriance by too rich a soil and too ardent a sun, its decay has been
proportionably rapid, and the capital of Peru is already but the ghost
of its former self. Some idea of its rapid growth may be formed from
the circumstance that a wall built in 1585, only fifty years after its
foundation, includes, with the exception of a small portion of the
northern extremity and the suburb of San Lazaro, the whole of a city
capable of containing one hundred thousand inhabitants, and measuring
ten English miles in circumference. The dates of foundation of the
principal public buildings further confirm the fact of Lima's rapid
arrival at the size as well as the rank of a metropolis. The number of
inhabitants, which in 1810 was estimated at eighty-seven thousand, in
1842 was reduced to fifty-three thousand. It must be observed,
however, that the manner of taking the census is loose and imperfect,
and these numbers may need rectification. At the same time, there can
be no doubt that the population has long been, and still is, daily
diminishing. Of this diminution the causes are various, and may easily
be traced to the physical and political state of the country. Terrible
earthquakes have buried thousands of persons beneath the ruins of
their dwellings; the struggle for independence also swept away its
thousands; and banishment and emigration may further account for the
decrease. Epidemics, the natural consequence of an imperfect police,
and an utter neglect of cleanliness, frequently rage in the city and
its environs; and Dr Tschudi proves, by interesting tables and
statements, that the average excess of deaths over births has been,
since the year 1826, no less than five hundred and fifty annually.
Without entering into all the causes to which this may be attributed,
he pronounces the criminal, but, in Lima, too common, practice of
causing abortion to be one of the most prominent. So large a yearly
decrease menaces the Peruvian capital with a speedy depopulation, and
already whole streets and quarters of the city are desolate,--the
houses falling in,--the gardens run to waste. To the country, not less
than to the town, many of the above facts are applicable; and the once
rich and flourishing region, that extends from the third to the
twenty-second degree of southern latitude, and which, at the time of
its conquest by Pizarro, contained an enormous population, now
possesses but one million four hundred thousand inhabitants.

One can really hardly grieve over the possible extinction of a race
which, according to Dr Tschudi's showing, is in most respects so
utterly worthless and undeserving of sympathy. We refer now more
especially to the white Creoles,[4] who constitute about a third, or
rather more, of the population of Lima, where there are comparatively
few Indians of pure blood, but, on the other hand, a large number of
half-casts of every shade, and about five thousand negroes, chiefly
slaves. These white Creoles, with few exceptions the descendants of
Spaniards, seem to have clung to, and improved upon, the vices of
their progenitors, without inheriting their good qualities. Both
physically and morally they have greatly degenerated. Weak, indolent,
and effeminate, a ten hours' ride seems to them an exploit worthy of
registration in the archives of the country. Sworn foes of any kind of
trouble, if their circumstances compel them to choose an occupation,
they set up some retail shop, which gives them little trouble, and
allows them abundance of leisure to gossip with their neighbours and
smoke their cigar. The richer class pass their time in complete
idleness,--lounging in the streets, visiting their acquaintances, and
occasionally taking a lazy ride to their plantations near the city.
The afternoon is got rid of in the café, the gaming-house, or the
cock-pit--cock-fighting being a darling diversion with the Creoles.
Their education is defective, and the majority of them are ignorant
beyond belief. Dr Tschudi tells us of a Peruvian minister of war who
knew neither the population nor the area of his country, and who
obstinately maintained that Portugal was the eastern boundary of Peru,
and could be reached by land. Another Peruvian, high in place, was
heard to give an exact account of how Frederick the Great had driven
Napoleon out of Russia. There have been some brilliant exceptions to
this general darkness, but the list of them is very brief, and may be
comprised in a few lines. In their habits the Creoles are dirty,
especially at table; and the disgusting custom of spitting is carried
to an extent that would make even a Yankee stare. Their principal good
qualities are abstinence from strong drinks, hospitality to strangers,
and benevolence to the poor.

The ladies of Lima, we learn, are in most respects far superior to the
men. Tall and well made, with regular features, magnificent eyes and
hair, beautiful teeth, and exquisitely small feet, they are spoken of
by Dr Tschudi in terms almost of enthusiasm. Their dress is very
original; one usual part of it being a silk petticoat, made so narrow
at the ankles as to prevent rapid walking, and to render their kneeling
down in church and getting up again a matter of some difficulty.
During the revolution, when Lima was held alternately by the Spaniards
and the Patriots, a party of the former, in order to ascertain the real
sentiments of the Limeños, disguised themselves as Patriots, and
approached the city. As soon as their coming was known, a crowd went
out to meet them, and in the throng were many women with these narrow
_sayas_. When sufficiently near, the disguised Spaniards drew their
swords, and cut right and left amongst the defenceless mob. The men
saved themselves by flight, but the women, impeded by their absurd
petticoats, were for the most part sabred.

The Limeñas are good mothers, but bad housekeepers. Most ladies have
an unnecessarily numerous establishment of servants and slaves, each
of whom does just what he pleases, and is rarely at hand when wanted.
Smoking is pretty general amongst Peruvian women, but is on the
decline rather than the increase. They are passionately fond of music,
and most of them sing and play the guitar or piano, although, for want
of good instruction, their performance is usually but middling. Many
of them are skilled in needle-work; but they rarely occupy themselves
in that manner--never in company or of an evening. "Happy city!"
exclaims Dr Tschudi, thinking doubtless of his own fair countrywomen
and their eternal knitting needles, "where stocking making is unknown
in the social circle!" We do not find, however, that the doctor
supports his assertion of the moral superiority of the Creole ladies
over their _worser_ halves, by any very strong proofs. That assertion,
on the contrary, is followed by the startling admissions, that they
are confirmed gluttons, and ruin their husbands by their love of
dress; that they gamble considerably, and intrigue not a few, favoured
in this latter respect by a certain convenient veil of thick silk,
called a _manto_, which entirely conceals their face, having only a
small triangular loop-hole, "through which a great fiery eye flashes
upon you." We fear that these "flashes," frequently repeated, have a
little dazzled our learned traveller, and induced him to look
leniently on the sins of the lovely Limeñas. We do not otherwise know
how to reconcile the evidence with the eulogium.

Ardent politicians, and endowed with a degree of courage not often
found in their sex, these Peruvian dames have frequently played a
prominent part in revolutions, and by their manoeuvres have even
brought about changes of government. Conspicuous amongst them was Doña
Francisca Subyaga, wife of the former president, Gamarra. When, in
1834, her cowardly and undecided husband was driven out of Lima by the
populace, and stood lamenting and irresolute what to do, Doña
Francisca snatched his sword from his side, put herself at the head of
the troops, and commanded an orderly retreat, the only means by which
to save herself and the remainder of the army. A bystander having
ventured to utter some insolent remark, she rode up to him, and
threatened that when she returned to Lima she would make a pair of
riding-gloves out of his skin. She died in exile a few months later,
or else, when her husband went back to Peru four years afterwards, at
the head of a Chilian army, she would have been likely enough to keep
her word.

So much for the Limeñas, although Dr Tschudi gives us a great deal
more information concerning them; and very amusing this part of his
book is, reminding us considerably of Madame Calderon's delightful
gossip about Mexico. "Lima," says the Spanish proverb, "is a heaven to
women, a purgatory to husbands, and a hell to jackasses." The latter
unfortunate beasts being infamously used by the negroes, who,
especially the liberated ones, are the most cruel and vicious race in
Peru. In this latter category must be included the Zambos and Chinos,
half-casts between negroes and mulattos, and negroes and Indians. We
turn a few pages and come to the carnival; during which, judging from
the account before us, we should imagine that Lima became a hell not
only to ill-treated donkeys, but to man woman, and child. The chief
sport of that festive season consists in sprinkling people with water,
concerning the purity of which the sprinklers are by no means
fastidious. From nearly every balcony, liquids of the most various
and unsavoury description are rained down upon the passers by; at the
street corners stand negroes, who seize upon all who are not of their
own cast, and roll them in the gutter, unless they prefer paying a
certain ransom, in which case they get off with a trifling baptism of
dirty water. Troops of young men force their way into the houses of
their acquaintances and attack the ladies. First they sprinkle them
with scented water, but when that is expended, the pump, and even
worse, is had recourse to, and the sport becomes brutality. The
ladies, with their clothes dripping wet, are chased from room to room,
become heated, and are frequently rendered dangerously ill. Diseases
of the lungs, and other rheumatic complaints, are the invariable
consequences of the carnival, to whose barbarous celebration many fall
victims. Besides this, every year murders occur out of revenge for
this brutal treatment. One favourite trick is to fill a sack with
fragments of glass and earthenware, and fasten it to the balcony by a
cord, the length of which is so calculated, that when let down the
sack hangs at about seven feet from the ground. The sack is kept on
the balcony till somebody passes, and is then suddenly thrown out,
but, thanks to the cord, remains at a safe distance above the heads of
those below. Although it is tolerably well known that in most streets
there is at least one of these infernal machines; yet the sudden shock
and alarm are so great, that persons have been known to fall down
senseless on the spot. Horses are thus made to shy violently, and
frequently throw their riders. The practice is each year forbidden by
the police, but the prohibition is disregarded.

Heaven preserve us from a Lima carnival! If compelled to choose we
should infinitely prefer a campaign against the Chilians, which, we
apprehend, must be mere barrack-yard duty comparatively. No wonder
that the city is becoming depopulated, when the fairer portion of its
inhabitants are annually subjected to such inhuman treatment. In some
respects the Peruvians appear to be perfect barbarians. Their
favourite diversions are of the most cruel order; cock-fighting and
bull-fights--but bull-fights, compared to which, those still in vogue
in Spain are humane exhibitions. Peru is the only country in South
America where this last amusement is kept up as a matter of regular
occurrence. Bull-fighting in Spain may be considered cruel, but in
Peru it becomes a mere torturing of beasts, without honour or credit
to the men opposed to them, who are all negroes and zambos, the very
dregs of the populace. There seems a total want of national character
about the Peruvians. They are bad copies of the Spaniards, whose
failings they imitate and out-herod till they become odious vices. Add
to what has been already shown of their cruel and sensual
propensities, the fact that their habitations, with the exception of
the two rooms in which visits are received, bear more resemblance, for
cleanliness and order, to stables than to human dwellings, and it will
be acknowledged that not a little of the savage seems to have rubbed
off upon the Peruvian.

Ice is a necessary of life in Lima, and is brought from the
Cordilleras, a distance of twenty-eight leagues. So essential in that
ardent climate is this refreshment, that the lack of it for a few days
is sufficient to cause a notable ferment among the people; and in all
revolutions, therefore, the leaders cautiously abstain from applying
the mules used for its carriage, to any other purpose. The Indians hew
the ice out of the glaciers in lumps of six arrobas (150 pounds) each,
and lower it from the mountains by ropes. Other Indians receive and
carry it a couple of leagues to a depot, where it is packed upon
mules. Two lumps form a mule load, and thirty of these loads are sent
daily to Lima, where, by means of frequent relays, they arrive in
eighteen or twenty hours. During the journey the ice loses about the
third of its weight, and what remains is just sufficient to supply the
city for a day. It is chiefly used in making ices, composed for the
most part of milk or pine-apple juice.

The want of good roads, and, in many directions, of any roads at all,
renders carriage travelling in the neighbourhood of Lima exceedingly
difficult and expensive. Only southwards from the city is it possible,
at an enormous cost, to get to a distance of forty leagues. Sixty or
eighty horses are driven by the side of the carriage, and every half
hour fresh ones are harnessed, as the only means of getting the
vehicle through the sand, which is more than a foot deep. A Peruvian,
who was accustomed to send his wife every year on a visit to his
plantation, at thirty-two leagues from Lima, told Dr Tschudi that the
journey there and back cost him fourteen hundred dollars, or somewhere
about three hundred pounds sterling. In former days, during the
brilliant period of the Spanish domination, enormous sums were
frequently given for carriages and mules; and the shoes of the latter,
and tires of the wheels, were often of silver instead of iron. Even at
the present day the Peruvians expend large sums upon the equipments of
their horses, especially upon the stirrups, which are ponderous boxes
carved in wood, and lavishly decorated with silver. A friend of Dr
Tschudi's, a priest from the Sierra, had a pair made, the silver about
which weighed forty pounds! The saddle and bridle were proportionably
magnificent, and the value of the silver employed in the whole
equipment was more than 1500 dollars. Spurs are of enormous size.
According to the old usage they should contain three marks--a pound
and a half--of silver, and be richly chased and ornamented. The rowels
are one and a half to two inches in circumference. Besides the saddle,
bridle, and stirrups above described, the unfortunate Peruvian horses
are oppressed with sheepskin shabrack, saddle-bags, and various other
appliances. "At first," says our traveller, "the Peruvian
horse-trappings appear to a stranger both unwieldy and unserviceable;
but he soon becomes convinced of their suitableness, and even finds
them handsome." _We_ should not, nor, we dare be sworn, do the horses,
whose many good qualities certainly deserve a lighter load and better
treatment than they appear to get. Dr Tschudi speaks highly of their
endurance and speed, although their usual pace is an amble, at which,
however, they will outstrip many horses at full gallop. One variety of
this favourite pace, the _paso portante_, in which the two feet on the
same side of the body are thrown forward at the same time, is
particularly curious, and peculiar to the Peruvian horse. The giraffe
is the only other animal that employs it. In Peru a horse is valued
according to the goodness of his amble. Beauty of form is a secondary
consideration, and the finest trotters are thought nothing of, but are
sold cheap for carriage work. It is considered a serious defect, and
greatly depreciates a horse's value, if he has the habit of flapping
or lashing himself with his tail when spurred, or at any other time.
As this habit is found incurable, the sinews of the tail are sometimes
cut through, which, by crippling it, hinders the obnoxious flapping.

The breaking of a Peruvian horse occupies two years. The
horse-breakers are, for the most part, free negroes, of powerful
build, and they understand their business perfectly, only that they
ill-treat the animals too much, and thereby render them shy. They
teach them all sorts of ambles and manège tricks, one of the latter
consisting in the horse pirouetting upon his hind legs. This they do
when at full gallop, on the slightest signal of the rider. A
well-known Limeño, says Dr Tschudi, rode at full speed up to the city
wall, which is scarcely nine feet broad, leaped upon it, and made his
horse repeatedly perform this _volte_, the fore feet of the beast each
time describing the arc of a circle beyond the edge of the wall. He
performed this feat with every one of his horses. Further on in the
book, the doctor relates an incident that occurred to himself, proving
the more valuable qualities of these horses, their strength, courage,
and endurance. "I had occasion to go from Huacho to Lima," he says,
"and wished to accomplish this journey without halting. The distance
is twenty-eight leagues, (at least eighty-four miles,) and I left
Huacho at two in the afternoon, accompanied by a negro guide. At one
in the morning we reached the river Pasamayo, which had been greatly
swoln by the recent rains, and thundered along with a fearful uproar.
Several travellers were bivouacked upon the shore, waiting for
daylight, and perhaps for the subsiding of the waters. My negro
shrugged his shoulders, and said he had never seen the river so high;
and the travellers agreed with him, and denied the possibility of
crossing. But I had no time to lose, and made up my mind to risk the
passage on my good horse, who had often served me in similar dilemmas.
I cautiously entered the stream, which, at each step, became deeper
and stronger. My horse soon lost his footing, and, in spite of his
violent efforts, was swept down by the force of the current, until we
were both dashed against a rock in the middle of the river. Just then
the moon became clouded, and I could no longer distinguish the group
of trees on the opposite shore, which I had fixed upon to land at.
Luckily my horse had again found a footing; I turned his head, and
plunging into deep water, the noble beast swam back, with incredible
strength, to the bank whence we had come. After some search I found a
more favourable place, and my negro and I succeeded in crossing. Three
travellers, who were anxious to do the same, but did not dare venture
alone, called to us for assistance. I sent back the negro on my own
horse, and one by one he brought them over. Seven times did the good
steed achieve the dangerous passage, and then carried me without a
halt to Lima, where we arrived at the hour of noon."

Such horses as these are indeed valuable in a country where carriage
roads there are none, or next to none. The mules, whose price varies
according to their qualities, from 100 to 1000 dollars, also perform,
in spite of indifferent usage, scanty care, and frequently poor
nourishment, journeys of great length over the arid sandy plains of
Peru. They are also amblers, and often as swift as the horses. Dr
Tschudi tells us of a priest at Piura, who, when he had to read mass
at a sea-port town, fourteen leagues from his residence, mounted, at
six in the morning, a splendid mule belonging to him, and reached his
destination at nine o'clock. At four in the afternoon he set off on
his return, and was home by seven or half-past. The whole of the road,
which led across a sandflat, was gone over at an amble. The priest
refused enormous sums for this beast, which he would on no account
sell. At last Salaverry, then president of Peru, heard of the mule's
extraordinary swiftness, and sent an aide-de-camp to buy it. The
officer met with a refusal; but no sooner had he turned his back, than
the priest, who knew Salaverry's despotic and violent character, cut
off his mule's ears and tail. As he had foreseen, so it happened. The
next morning a sergeant made his appearance, bearing positive orders
to take away the animal in dispute, with or without the owner's
sanction. This was done; but when Salaverry saw the cropped condition
of poor _mulo_, he swore all the oaths in the language, and sent him
back again. The priest had attained his end, for he valued the beast
less for his beauty than for his more solid qualities.

The Peruvian _cuisine_ has, not unnaturally, a considerable similarity
with the Spanish. The puchero or olla is the basis of the dinner, and
of red pepper, capsicums, and other stimulating condiments, abundant
use is made. The Limeños have some extraordinary notions respecting
eating and drinking. They consider that every sort of food is either
heating or cooling, and is opposed to something else. The union in the
stomach of two of these contrary substances is attended, according to
their belief, with the most dangerous consequences, and may even cause
death. A Limeño, who has eaten rice at dinner, omits the customary
glass of water after the sweetmeats, because the two things _se
oponen_, are opposites. To so absurd an extent is this carried, that
servants who have eaten rice refuse to wash afterwards, and the
washer-women never eat it. "I have been asked innumerable times," says
Dr Tschudi, "by persons who had been ordered a foot-bath at night,
whether they might venture to take it, for that they had eaten rice at
dinner!"

The market at Lima was formerly held upon the Plaza Mayor, and was
renowned for the great abundance and variety of the fruits,
vegetables, and flowers brought thither for sale. But it is now on the
Plazuela de la Inquisicion, and its glory has in great measure
departed. Along the sides of the gutters sit the fish and sausage
sellers, who may be seen washing their wares in the filthy stream
before them. The butchers exhibit good meat, but only beef and mutton,
the slaughtering of young beasts being forbidden by law. On the flower
market are sold Lima nosegays--_pucheros de flores_, as they are
called. They are composed of a few specimens of the smaller tropical
fruits, esteemed either for fragrance or beauty, laid upon a banana
leaf, and tastefully intermingled with flowers. The whole is sprinkled
with lavender water and other scents, and is very pretty to look at,
but yields an overpoweringly strong perfume. The price depends on the
rarity of the flowers employed, and some of these pucheros cost seven
or eight dollars. They rank amongst the most acceptable presents that
can be offered to a Peruvian lady.

"The city of earthquakes," would be a far more appropriate name for
Lima, than the city of the kings. On an average of years,
five-and-forty shocks are annually felt, most of which occur in the
latter half of October, in November, December, January, May, and June.
January is the worst month, during which, in many years, scarcely a
day passes without convulsions of this kind. The terrible earthquakes
that play such havoc with the city, come at intervals of forty to
sixty years. Since the west coast of South America is known to
Europeans, the following are the dates:--1586, 1630, 1687, 1713, 1746,
1806; always two in a century. It is greatly to be feared that ten
more years will not elapse without Lima being visited by another of
these awful calamities. Dr Tschudi gives a brief account of the
earthquake of 1746. It was on the 28th of October, St Simon and St
Jude's day, that at 31 minutes past 10 P.M., the earth shook with a
fearful bellowing noise, and in an instant the whole of Lima was a
heap of ruins. Noise, earthquake, and destruction were all the affair
of _one_ moment. The few buildings whose strength resisted the first
shock, were thrown down by a regular horizontal motion of the earth,
which succeeded it and lasted four minutes. Out of more than three
thousand houses only twenty-one remained uninjured. Nearly all the
public buildings were overthrown. At the port of Callao the
destruction was even more complete; for scarcely was the earthquake
over, when the sea arose with a mighty rushing sound, and swallowed up
both town and inhabitants. In an instant five thousand human beings
became the prey of the waters.[5] The Spanish corvette San Fermin,
which lay at anchor in the harbour, was hurled far over the walls of
the fortress, and stranded at more than five hundred yards from the
shore. A cross marks the place where she struck. Three heavily laden
merchantmen met the same fate, and nineteen other vessels foundered.
The town had disappeared, and travellers have related how, even now,
when the sky is bright and the sea still, the houses and churches may
be dimly seen through the transparent waters. Such a tale as this is
scarce worth refuting, seeing that the houses were overturned by the
earthquake before they were overwhelmed by the sea, whose action must
long since have destroyed their every vestige. But the old sailors
along that coast love to tell how on certain days the people are seen
sitting at the doors of their houses, and standing about in the
streets, and how, in the silent watches of the night, a cock has been
heard to crow from out of the depths of the sea.

Meteors frequently appear as forerunners of the earthquakes, amongst
whose consequences may be reckoned the sudden sterilizing of districts
previously fruitful, but which, after one of these convulsions of
nature, refuse for many years to put forth vegetation. No frequency of
repetition diminishes the alarm and horror occasioned by the shocks.
The inhabitants of Lima, although accustomed from their earliest
childhood to the constant recurrence of such phenomena, spring from
their beds at the first quivering of the earth, and with cries of
"misericordia!" rush out of their houses. The European, who knows
nothing of earthquakes but the name, almost wishes for the arrival of
one, and is sometimes inclined to laugh at the terror of the
Peruvians; but when he has once felt a shock, any disposition to make
merry on the subject disappears, and his dread of its recurrence is
even greater than that of the natives. The deeply unpleasant
impression left by an earthquake, is in Lima heightened by the
_plegarias_ or general prayers that succeed it. The shock has no
sooner been felt, than a signal is given from the cathedral, and
during ten minutes all the bells in the town toll with long, measured
strokes to call the inhabitants to their devotions.

A pleasant country to live in! Those who may feel tempted by the
doctor's commendation of the fascinating Limeñas--the delightful,
although not very healthy, climate--the luscious fruits, and gorgeous
flowers, and manifold wonders of Peru--to gird up their loins and
betake themselves thither, will perhaps think twice of it when they
learn that an earthquake might, and probably would, be their welcome.
Descriptions of tropical countries remind us of those pictures of
Italian festivals, where nymph-like damsels and Antinöus-looking
youths are gracefully dancing round grape-laden cars; whilst some fine
old Belisarius of a grandpapa, white bearded and benignant, sits upon
the shaft and smiles upon his descendants. One sees the graceful
forms, the classic features, the bursting grapes, and the bright
sunshine; all of which, like enough, are depicted to the life, but one
sees nothing of the filth, and nastiness, and crawling vermin, that
would awfully shock us in the originals of the picture. Not that we
mean to accuse Dr Tschudi of painting Peru in rose-colour, or
remaining silent as to its defects. He is a conscientious traveller,
and gives us things as he finds them. Besides the great nuisance of
the earthquakes, and the lesser one of dirt, already adverted to;
besides the armies of fleas, which render even the Lima theatre almost
unvisitable--not mild European fleas, but sanguinary Spanish-American
ones; besides the malaria in the swamps, the _piques_, _chinches_,
mosquitos, and other insect tormentors, he favours us with some
agreeable details touching the highwaymen who infest the whole coast
of Peru, but especially the neighbourhood of Lima and Truxillo. They
are usually runaway slaves, _simarrones_, as they are called, or else
free negroes, zambos, and mulattos. Now and then Indians are found
amongst them, who make themselves conspicuous by their cold-blooded
cruelties, and occasionally even a white man takes to this infamous
trade. In 1839 a North American, who had served on board of a
man-of-war, was shot for highway robbery. Shooting, it must be
observed, appears to be the usual way of inflicting capital punishment
in Peru. These banditti, well mounted and armed, are very bold and
numerous, and most of them belong to an extensive and well organised
band, which has branches in various directions. Sometimes they
approach the city in parties of thirty or forty men, and plunder all
travellers who leave it. They prefer attacking foreigners, and usually
spare the richer and more influential Peruvians, which may be one
cause that stronger measures are not adopted against them. Shortly
before Dr Tschudi's departure from Lima, they attacked the feeble
escort of a sum of one hundred thousand dollars, which were on their
way to the mines of Cerro de Pasco, and carried off the money. The
silver bars sent from the mines to the city they allow to pass
unmolested, as being too heavy and cumbersome. The unfortunate
peasants who come in from the mountains on jackasses, with eggs and
other produce, are marked for their particular prey, on account of the
money which they usually carry with them to make purchases in the
town. If no dollars are found on them, they are killed or terribly
maltreated. We pass over some stories of the cruelties exercised by
these bandits. Here is one of another sort. "One night that I found
myself at Chancay," says the doctor, "an Indian told me the following
anecdote: About half a mile from the village, he said, he had been met
by a negro, who approached him with carbine cocked, and ordered him to
halt. The Indian drew a large pistol, and said to the robber, 'You may
thank heaven that this is not loaded, or it would be all over with
you.' Laughing scornfully, the negro rode up and seized the Indian,
who then pulled the trigger of his pistol and shot him dead on the
spot."

When attacked by the police or military, the robbers display desperate
courage in their defence. Sometimes they take shelter in the bush or
thicket, to which, if the space of ground it covers be not too
extensive, the pursuers set fire on all sides; so that the bandits
have no choice but to perish or yield themselves prisoners. In the
latter case their trial is very short, and after they have been left
shut up with a priest for the space of twelve hours, they are brought
out and shot. They are allowed to choose their place of execution, and
must carry thither a small bench or stool upon which they sit down.
Four soldiers stand at a distance of three paces; two aim at the head
and two at the heart. A few years ago a Zambo of great daring was
sentenced to death for robbery, and he demanded to be shot upon the
Plaza de la Inquisicion. He sat down upon his bench--the soldiers
levelled and fired. When the smoke of the discharge blew away, the
Zambo had disappeared. He had watched each movement of the soldiers,
and at the very moment that they laid finger on trigger, had thrown
himself on one side and taken refuge amidst the crowd, some of whom
favoured his escape. In time of war a corps is formed composed chiefly
of these banditti, and of men who have made themselves in some way
obnoxious to the laws. They go by the name of Montoneros, and are
found very useful as spies, skirmishers, despatch-bearers, &c., but
are generally more remarkable for cruelty than courage. They wear no
uniform; and sometimes they have not even shoes, but strap their spurs
on their naked heels. In the year 1838, the Anglo-Peruvian general,
Miller, commanded a thousand of these montoneros who were in the
service of Santa Cruz. When war is at an end, these wild troops
disband themselves, and for the most part return to their former
occupation.

Abandoning Lima and its environs, Dr Tschudi takes us with him on a
visit to the various towns and villages along the coast, proceeding
first north and then south of the capital. In a coasting voyage to the
port of Huacho, he has the honour to reckon amongst his fellow
passengers, Lord Cochrane's friend, the celebrated Padre Requena, then
cura of that town. Of this ecclesiastic, of whom he, after his
arrival, saw a good deal, he draws a picture which may be taken as a
general type of the Peruvian priesthood, and is by no means creditable
to them. Requena's chief passion is coursing, and his greatest
annoyance, during Dr Tschudi's stay in Huacho, was, that ill health,
brought on by his excesses, prevented him from indulging it. He had
several magnificent horses, and a numerous pack of greyhounds, some of
which latter had cost him one hundred and fifty and two hundred
dollars a-piece. His seraglio was almost as well stocked as his
kennel, and the number of children who called him _tio_, or _uncle_,
the usual term in Peru in such cases, was quite prodigious. He took
great pride in talking of his friendship with Lord Cochrane. He died a
few weeks after his return to Huacho, and delayed so long to send for
a confessor that the Indians at last surrounded the house with
frightful menaces, and sent in a priest to render him the last offices
of the church. He had great difficulty in making up his mind to death,
or, as he expressed it, to a separation from his greyhounds and
horses. At almost the last moment, when his hands began to grow cold,
he made his negro put on them a pair of buckskin gloves.

This respectable priest was by no means singular in his love of the
chase, of which frequent examples are to be found in Peru. On reaching
Quipico, the most easterly plantation in the beautiful valley of
Huaura, Dr. Tschudi had scarcely entered the courtyard when he was
surrounded by upwards of fifty greyhounds, whilst from every quarter
others came springing towards him. They were the remains of a pack
that had belonged to one Castilla, recently the owner of the
plantation, and whose usual establishment consisted of two to three
hundred of these dogs, with which he every day went coursing. The
strictest discipline was kept up amongst this lightfooted multitude.
At stated hours a bell summoned them to their meals, and in the kennel
stood a gibbet, as a warning to the lazy or perverse. One day, when
Castilla was out hunting, an Indian came up, with an ordinary-looking
crossbred dog. In spite of his looks this dog out-stripped the whole
pack, and pulled down the roebuck. Castilla immediately purchased him
at the enormous price of three hundred and fifty dollars. A few days
afterwards he again went out with his best hounds and his new
acquisition. The leashes were slipped, and the greyhounds went off
like the wind, but the crossbreed remained quietly by the horses. The
same afternoon he was hung up to the gallows, an example to his
fellows.

The whole extent of the Peruvian coast, from its northern to its
southern extremity, presents nearly the same aspect; vast deserts of
sand, varied by fruitful valleys, with their villages and plantations;
seaport towns there where nature or commerce has encouraged their
foundation; alternate insupportable heat and damp fog; scarcity of
men; crumbling monuments of a period of riches and greatness. In the
sandy plains it is no unusual occurrence for travellers to lose their
way and perish for thirst. In that fervent and unhealthy climate,
human strength rapidly gives way before want of food and water. In the
year 1823 a transport carrying a regiment of dragoons, three hundred
and twenty strong, stranded on the coast near Pisco. The soldiers got
on shore, and wandered for thirty-six hours through the sand-waste,
out of which they were unable to find their way. At the end of that
time they were met by a number of horsemen with water and food, who
had been sent out from Pisco to seek them, but already one hundred and
fifty of the unfortunates had died of thirst and weariness, and fifty
more expired upon the following day. Forty-eight hours' wandering in
those arid deserts, deprived of food and drink, is certain death to
the strongest man. Rivers are scarce, and even where the bed of a
stream is found, it is in many instances dry during the greater part
of the year. The traveller's danger is increased by the shifting
nature of the sand, which the wind raises in enormous clouds, and in
columns eighty to one hundred feet high. The _medanos_ are another
strange phenomenon of these dangerous wilds. They are sandhills in the
form of a crescent, ten to twenty feet high, and with a sharp crest.
Their base is moveable, and when impelled by a tolerably strong wind,
they wander rapidly over the desert; the smaller ones, more easily
propelled, preceding the large. The latter, however, after a time,
prevent the current of air from reaching the former--take the wind out
of their sails, it may be said--and then run over and crush them,
themselves breaking up at the same time. In a few hours, what was
previously a level, is often covered with ranges of hillocks,
hindering a view of the horizon, and bewildering the most experienced
wanderers through these perilous regions. In November the summer
begins. The scorching rays of the sun break through the grey covering
of the heavens, and threaten to consume, by their intensity, the
entire vegetable and animal creation. Not a plant finds nourishment,
nor a beast food upon the parched and glowing soil; no bird or insect
floats upon the sultry air. Only in the upper regions is seen the
majestic condor, flying towards the ocean. All life and movement is
now confined to the coast. Troops of vultures assemble around the
stranded carcases of sea monsters; otters and seals bask beneath the
cliffs; variegated lizards scamper over the sand-heaps, and busy crabs
and sea-spiders dig into the damp shore. In May the scene changes. A
thin veil of mist spreads over sea and coast, gradually thickening,
until in October the sun again dispels it. At the beginning and end of
this winter, as it is called, the fog generally rises at nine or ten
in the morning, and is again dissipated at three in the afternoon. It
is thickest in August and September, when, for weeks together, it does
not lift. It never changes into rain, but only into a fine penetrating
mist, called the _garua_. On many parts of the Peruvian coast, it
never rains, excepting after a very violent earthquake, and even then
not always. The usual height of the fog from the ground is seven or
eight hundred feet. It never exceeds a height of twelve hundred feet,
nor is found at all beyond a few miles from the coast, at which
distance it is replaced by violent rains. The boundary line between
rain and fog may be determined with almost mathematical accuracy. Dr
Tschudi visited two plantations, one about six leagues from Lima, the
other in the neighbourhood of Huacho, one half of which was annually
watered by the _garuas_, and the other half by rain. A wall was built
upon the line where one mode of irrigation ceased and the other began.

The province of Yca, whose soil is sandy, and to all appearance
incapable of producing any description of vegetation, is devoted to
the culture of the vine, which perfectly succeeds there. The young
plants are set half a foot deep in the sand, and left to themselves;
they speedily put forth leaves, and yield a luxuriant crop of grapes,
remarkable for flavour and juiciness. These are mostly used for
brandy, with which the whole of Peru and great part of Chili are
supplied from the valley of Yca. It is of excellent quality,
especially a sort made from muscatel grapes, and called _aguardiente
de Italia_. Very little wine is made, except by one planter, Don
Domingo Elias, who has attempted it after the European fashion. The
result has been a wine resembling Madeira and Teneriffe, only much
more fiery, and containing a larger proportion of alcohol. The brandy
was formerly conveyed to the coast in huge earthen _botijas_, capable
of containing one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five
pounds weight of the liquor; but these were continually broken,
chiefly by the thirsty mules across which they were slung like
panniers, and who, when rushing in crowds to the watering-places,
invariably smashed a number of them against each other. To remedy this
the brandy-growers have adopted the use of goat-skins; and the manner
in which, upon many plantations, these are prepared, is as frightful a
piece of barbarity as can well be imagined. A negro hangs up the goat,
alive, by the horns, makes a circular cut through the skin of the
neck, and strips the hide from the agonized beast, which is only
killed when completely flayed. The pretext for this execrable cruelty
is, that the skin comes off more easily, and is found more durable. It
is to be hoped that the planters will have sufficient humanity
speedily to do away with so horrible a practice.

The negro carnival, which Dr Tschudi witnessed at Yca, appears to us,
of the two, a more civilized performance than the Creole carnival at
Lima. In various of the streets large arches, tastefully decorated
with ribands, are erected; the negresses and zambas dance beneath
then; whilst the allotted task of the men is to gallop through without
being stopped. If the women succeed in checking the horse, and pulling
the rider out of the saddle, the latter has to pay a fine, and gets
laughed at to boot. It is difficult to know which to admire most; the
speed of the horses, the skill of the riders, or the daring of the
women, who throw themselves upon the horse as he comes on at full
gallop. As the horsemen approach, they are pelted with unripe oranges,
which, thrown by a strong-armed zamba, are capable of inflicting
tolerably hard knocks. Dr Tschudi saw one negro who, during a whole
hour, galloped backwards and forwards without being stopped, and
concluded by giving an extraordinary proof of muscular strength. At
the very moment that he passed under the arch, he stooped forward over
his horse's neck, caught up a negress under each arm, and rode off
with them!

Opposite to the ports of Pisco and Chincha, lie a number of small
islands, noted for their large deposits of guano, or _huanu_, as Dr
Tschudi corrects the orthography of the word. The doctor gives some
very interesting particulars concerning this efficacious manure,
which, although but recently adopted in Europe, appears to have been
used in Peru as far back as the time of the first Incas. The Peruvians
use it chiefly for the maize and potato fields; their manner of
employing it is peculiar, and but little known in Europe. A few weeks
after the seeds have begun to germinate, a small hole is made beside
each plant, filled with huanu and covered up with earth. Twelve or
fifteen hours later the whole field is laid under water, and left so
for a few hours. The effect of the process is incredibly rapid. In a
very few days the plants attain double their previous height. When the
operation is repeated, but with a smaller quantity of the huanu, the
farmer may reckon upon a crop at least threefold that which he would
obtain from an unmanured soil. Of the white huanu, which is much
stronger than the dark-coloured, less must be used, and the field must
be watered sooner, and for a longer time, or the roots will be
destroyed. When the land is tolerably good, seven hundred and fifty to
nine hundred pounds of huanu are reckoned sufficient for a surface of
fourteen thousand square feet; with poor soil a thousand to twelve
hundred pounds are required.

The waters that wash the coast of Peru swarm with fish, upon many of
which nature has amused herself in bestowing the most singular and
anomalous forms. For a period of six weeks, Dr Tschudi took up his
abode at the port of Huacho, with a view to increase his
ichthyological collection. Every morning at five o'clock he rode down
to the beach to await the return of the fishermen from their nocturnal
expeditions. From as far as they could distinguish him, the Indians
would hold up to his notice some strange and newly captured variety of
the finny race. He succeeded in getting together many hundred
specimens of about a hundred and twenty species of sea and river fish;
but ill luck attended this valuable collection. Through the negligence
of the people at the port of Callao, a cask of brandy, in which the
fish were preserved, was left for months upon the mole in the burning
sun, till its contents were completely spoiled. A second cask, in
spite of the most careful packing, arrived in Europe, after a fifteen
months' voyage, in a similar condition. This, however, was not the
only instance, during the doctor's stay in Peru, of the fruits of
great industry, and trouble, and heavy expense, being snatched from
him by untoward accidents. But nothing seems to have discouraged a man
actuated by a sincere love of science and thirst for information, and
possessed, as is made manifest by many parts of his modest and
unegotistical narrative, of great determination and perseverance.
Steadily he continued his researches, in defiance of difficulties and
sufferings that would have driven ordinary men over and over again on
board the first ship sailing for Europe.

We have as yet scarcely referred to those portions of the volume
dedicated to natural history, although the doctor rarely dismisses a
province or district without giving a brief but interesting account of
its most remarkable animals, fruits, and plants. His description of
some of these is very curious. Amongst others, he tells us of a small
bird called the _cheucau_, (Pteroptochus rubecula Kittl,) in connexion
with which the people of Chiloë, of which island it is a native,
entertain a host of superstitious fancies, foretelling good or bad
luck according to the various modulations of its song. "I was one
day," says the doctor, "out shooting with an Indian guide, when we
came upon one of these birds, sitting on a bush and piping out a
shrill _huit-huit-ru_. I had already taken aim at it, when my
companion seized my arm, and begged me not to shoot it, for that it
was singing its unlucky note. Wishing to obtain a specimen, I
disregarded his entreaty and fired. I had leaned my gun against a
tree, and was examining the little bird, when a vicious mule,
irritated probably by the report, came charging down upon us, so that
we had only just time to run behind a hedge in order to escape his
attack. Before we could find means to drive the enraged animal away,
he had thrown down my gun, bitten it furiously, and stamped on it with
his fore-feet. The Indian gravely said that it would be well if no
worse came of it, for that he had told me the bird was whistling bad
luck." There is another bird, about the size of a starling, which
passes its time, and finds its food, upon the backs of the cattle, and
chiefly of horses and jackasses, picking out the insects which there
abound. The beasts seem to feel that he is doing them a service, and
allow him to walk unmolested over their backs and heads. Of the beasts
of prey, the ounce is the most dangerous and bloodthirsty. It attains
a very large size, and Dr Tschudi saw the carcass of one that measured
eight feet and three inches from the nose to the extremity of the
tail. The tail was two feet and eight inches long. It had been killed
after a two days' hunt, during which, three negroes had been
dangerously wounded by it. Of Peruvian fruits, the most delicious is
the chirimoya. It is of a round form, sometimes heart-shaped or
pyramidal, its rind thick and tough, of a green colour streaked with
black. The inside is snow-white, soft and juicy, with black pips or
seeds. Near Lima, they are small and of inferior quality, sometimes
not larger than a man's fist; but in the interior, and especially in
the province of Huanuco, they attain their full perfection, and often
weigh fourteen or sixteen pounds. Their smell is most fragrant, and
their delicious flavour, Dr Tschudi says, he can compare to nothing,
for it is incomparable.

We perceive, on glancing over what we have written, that we have
occupied ourselves chiefly with the lighter portions of this book,
and, by so doing, may have given the reader an erroneous idea of its
value. Although, as already mentioned, the more important and
scientific results of Dr Tschudi's travels are to be found in others
of his works, the one before us must not be set down as a mere amusing
and ephemeral production. It contains a great deal of curious
information, and will be found useful as a book of reference by all
who are interested in the commerce, natural history, and general
statistics of Peru.

Notwithstanding our endeavours to "go a-head," we have got no further
than the conclusion of the first volume. In the second, which is also
the final one, the doctor abandons the coast and the city, and
penetrates into what may be termed the Peruvian back-woods, amongst
the snow-covered Cordilleras and aboriginal forests, the silver mines
and Indians. Of what he there saw and heard we shall give an account
in our next Number.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Peru. Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1838-1842._ _Von_ J. J. VON
TSCHUDI. St Gall: 1846.

[2] _Untersuchungen über die Fauna Peruana._ St Gall: 1846.

[3] An Historical and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years' Residence
in South America. Containing Travels in Arauco, Chili, Peru, and
Columbia; with an account of the Revolution, its rise, progress, and
results; by W. B. STEVENSON. London: 1825.

[4] Europeans are apt to attach the idea of some particular colour to
the word Creole. It is a vulgar error. Creole (Spanish, Criollo) is
derived from _criar_, to breed or produce, and is applied to native
Americans descended from 'Old World' parents. Thus there are black
Creoles as well as white, and a horse or a dog may be a Creole as well
as a man, so long as the European or African blood is preserved
unmixed.

[5] The day and the event strangely coincide with the passage in
Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell"--

                    "'s ist Simon und Judä
    Da rast der See und will sein Opfer haben."




LETTERS ON ENGLISH HEXAMETERS.

LETTER I.


DEAR MR EDITOR--I perceive, by your having requested a second specimen
of N.N.T.'s English hexameters, that you feel an interest in the
question, whether that form of verse can be successfully employed in
our language. Certainly the trial has never yet been made under any
moderate advantages. Sidney, and the other Elizabethans, in their
attempts, hampered themselves with Latin rules of the value of
syllables, which the English ear refuses to recognise, and which drive
them into intolerable harshness of expression and pronunciation.
Stanihurst's _Virgil_ is so laboriously ridiculous in phraseology,
that every thing belonging to it is involved in the ridicule.
Southey's _Vision_ is a poem so offensive in its scheme, that no
measure could have made it acceptable. Yet the beginning of that poem
is, as you, Mr Editor, have remarked, a very happy specimen of this
kind of verse; and would, I think, by a common English reader, be
admired, independently of classical rules and classical recollections.
Now, if we can reach this point, and at the same time give a good
English imitation of the Epic mode of narration in Homer, we shall
have a better image of Homer in our language than we yet possess. Your
contributor appears to me to have advanced a good way towards the
execution of this kind of work; and I should be glad if he, or you,
would allow me, as a reader of English hexameters, to offer a few
remarks on his first book of the _Iliad_, with a view to point out
what appear to me the dangers and difficulties of the task. I do not
say any thing of my general admiration of N.N.T.'s version, for mere
praise you would hardly think worth its room.

I should be glad to discuss with you, Mr Editor, the objections which
are usually made to English hexameters. There is one of these
objections which I will say a few words about at present. It proceeds
upon a misapprehension, now, I hope, pretty generally rectified; I
mean the objection that we cannot have hexameters, "because we have so
few spondees the language." Southey says we have but one, _Egypt_; and
gives this as a reason why the spondees of classical hexameters are
replaced by trochees in German and English. As to Southey's example,
_Egypt_ is no more a spondee than _precept_ or _rescript_; but the
fact is, that we have in English spondees in abundance; and these
spondees have tended more than any thing else to spoil our hexameters.
The universal English feeling of rhythm rejects a spondee at the end
of the verse; and if the syllables there placed are such as would, in
the natural course of pronunciation, form a spondee, we nevertheless
force upon them a trochaic character. This may be worth proving. Read,
then, the following lines of Sidney:--

  "But yet well do I find each man most wise in his _own case_."

  "And yet neither of [=u]s great [=o]r blest deemeth his _own self_."

  "Shall such morning dews be an ease to heat of a _love's fire_?"

  "Tush, tush, said Nat[=u]re, this is all but a trifle; a _man's self_
   Gives haps or mishaps, ev'n as he ord'reth his heart."

Now, here you have four endings which are naturally spondees; but the
verse compels you to pronounce them as trochees--_[=o]wn c[)a]se_,
_[=o]wn s[)e]lf_, _l[=o]ve's f[)i]re_, _m[=a]n's s[)e]lf_. If you still
doubt whether the last foot of English hexameters is necessarily a
trochee, consider this:--that if you make them rhyme, you must use
double rhymes, in order that the rhyme may include the strong syllable.
Thus take any of the examples given in _Maga_ for April last:--

  "See, O citizens! here old Ennius's image pre_sented_.
   Honour me not with your tears; by none let my death be la_mented_."

The ear would not be satisfied with a rhyme of one syllable such as
this--

  "But yet well do I find each man most wise in his own _case_:
   Wisely let each resolve, and meet the event with a calm _face_."

Now, so long as men retain the notion that the most perfect English
hexameters are those which have spondees in the classical places, they
are led to admit such verses as those just quoted; and this being
done, the common reader, and indeed every reader, is compelled to do
some violence to the language in reading. This, more than any thing
else, has made an English hexameter frequently sound forced and
unnatural. N.N.T. has a few such in his first _Iliad_.

  "Pressed on the silvery hilt as he spake was the weight of his
      _right hand_."

  "Two generations complete of the blood of articulate _mankind_."

  "Over the split wood then did the old man burn them, and _black wine_
   Pour'd."

These forms of English hexameter are to be avoided, if you would
commend the verse to the common ear. And we may exclude them with a
good conscience. Their forced and uneasy movement does not arise from
any imperfection in our English spondees; but from the spondee in
these cases being so perfect, that it cannot without some violence be
made a trochee, which the English verse requires. I do not think you
will find this bad trick in Southey. His habitual feeling of English
rhythm preserved him from it.

But there is another blemish, which Southey, forgetting his classical
rhythm too much, for it ought to have guided his English practice, has
often incurred. It is, the writing lines without a _cæsura_, so that
they divide themselves into half lines. Such as these:--

  "Washington, said the monarch, | well hast thou spoken and truly."

  "Evil they sow, and sorrow | will they reap for their harvest."

  "That its tribute of honour, | poor though it was, was witholden."

  "Pure it was and diaphanous. | It had no visible lustre."

N.N.T. has a few of these. One is the last line I quoted from him.

The essential point in English hexameters, especially while they are
imperfectly naturalized, is, that the rhythm should be _unforced_.
Without this, they will always repel and offend the English reader.
And hence, though our rhythm is to be constructed by stress, and not
by Latin rules of long and short, still, if it do not destroy it mars
the verse, to have, for short syllables, those which have long vowels,
clustered consonants, or special emphasis.

Such are the dactyls at the beginning of these lines of Southey:--

  "Th[=o]u, t[=o]o, d[)i]dst act with upright heart as befitted a
        sovereign."

  "H[=e]aven [)i]n th[)e]se things fulfilled its wise though inscrutable
        purpose."

  "He[=a]r, He[)a]v'n! [)y]e angels hear! souls of the good and the
        wicked."

Except you prefer to read it thus--

      "Hear, Heav'n! y[=e] [)a]ng[)e]ls hear!"

which is no better. Perhaps the worst of Southey's lines in this way
is this--

    "Fl[=o]w'd th[)e] l[)i]ght [=u]ncr[=e][=a]t[)e]d; l[)i]ght all
          sufficing, eternal."

And as examples of weak syllables harshly made strong, take these--

  "Fabius, [=A]trides, and Solon and Epamininondas."

  "Here, then, [=a]t the gate of Heaven we are met! said the Spirit."

  "Th[=e] desire of my heart hath been alway the good of my people."

N.N.T. has some examples of this. As a slight one, I notice at the end
of a line, _h[=a]rv[)e]stl[)e]ss ocean_. And these, which are spoiled
by the violation of emphasis:--

  "Tr[=u]ly _[)I]_ came not, for one, out of hate for the spearmen of
          Troja."

  "Mightier even than you, yet am[=o]ng _th[)e]m_ [)I] never was slighted."

Here we have an emphatic _I_ and an emphatic _them_ which are made
short in the rhythm.

N.N.T. has one dactyl which I can hardly suppose was intended--

  "Under his ch[=a]st[)i]s[)i]ng hand."

It appears to me that we shall never bring the lovers of English
poetry to like our hexameters, except we can make the verses so that
they _read themselves_. This the good ones among them do. N.N.T. has
whole passages which run off without any violence or distortion.

But the phraseology of English hexameters requires great care, as well
as the rhythm, and especially in such a work as the translation of
Homer. The measure has the great advantage of freeing us from the
habitual chain of "poetical diction." But we must take care that we
are not led, by this freedom, either into a modern prose style, or
into mean colloquialities; or in translating, into phrases which,
though expressive and lively, do not agree with the tone of the poem.
The style must be homely, but dignified, like that of our translation
of the Old Testament. Perhaps you will allow me, for the sake of
example, to notice some of N.N.T.'s expressions:--

  "Try not the engine of craft: to _come over me_ thus is _beyond thee_."

  "This the _suggestion_, _forsooth_, that thyself being safe with thy
      booty,
   I shall _sit down_ without mine."

The phrase to "_come over me_" is colloquial, and too low even for a
letter. "Your _suggestion_" is a phrase for a letter, not for an epic
poem. "_Forsooth_" would be good in construing, but not in a poem.
Again, is this passage serious English:--

  "Opposite rose Agamemnon in wrath, but before he could _open_?"

I could notice other blemishes of style, as they seem to me; and,
indeed, I could the more easily find them, on account of the very
severe standard of good English, serious and dignified, yet plain and
idiomatic, which I think the case requires. Every phrase should be the
very best that can be found both for meaning and tone. I know that
this requirement is difficult; but I think the thing may be done; and
I do not see why N.N.T. should not do it, and thus give us a better
English Homer than we have yet.

If you can find room for me, I have a few more words to say on this
same matter of English hexameters another day. It appears to me that
there are still very erroneous notions current upon the subject. In
the mean time I subscribe myself your obedient

            M. L.




MARLBOROUGH'S DISPATCHES.

1708-1709.


The fall of the external walls of Lille did not terminate the struggle
for that important fortress. Marshal Boufflers still held the citadel,
a stronghold in itself equal to most fortresses of the first order. No
sooner, however, were the Allies in possession of the town, than the
attack on the citadel commenced with all the vigour which the
exhausted state of the magazines would furnish. Detached parties were
sent into France, which levied contributions to a great extent, and
both replenished the stores of the Allies and depressed the spirits of
the French, by making them feel, in a manner not to be misunderstood,
that the war had at length approached their own doors. To divert, if
possible, Marlborough from his enterprise, the Elector of Bavaria, who
had recently returned from the Rhine, was detached by Vendôme, with
fifteen thousand men against Brussels; while he himself remained in
his intrenched camp on the Scheldt, which barred the road from Lille
to that city, at once stopping the communication, and ready to profit
by any advantage afforded by the measures which the English general
might make for its relief. The governor of Brussels, M. Paschal, who
had seven thousand men under his orders, rejected the summons to
surrender, and prepared for a vigorous defence; and meanwhile
Marlborough prepared for its relief, by one of those brilliant strokes
which, in so peculiar a manner, characterize his campaigns.

Giving out that he was going to separate his army into
winter-quarters, he dispatched the field artillery towards Menin, and
he himself set out with his staff in rather an ostentatious way for
Courtray. But no sooner had he lulled the vigilance of the enemy by
these steps, than, wheeling suddenly round, he advanced with the bulk
of his forces towards the Scheldt, and directed them against that part
of the French general's lines where he knew them to be weakest. The
army, upon seeing these movements, anticipated the bloodiest battle,
on the day following, they had yet had during the war. But the skill
of the English general rendered resistance hopeless, and gained his
object with wonderfully little loss. The passage of the river was
rapidly effected at three points; the French corps stationed at
Oudenarde, vigorously assailed and driven back on Grammont with the
loss of twelve hundred men, so as to leave the road uncovered, and
restore the communication with Brussels. Having thus cleared the way
of the enemy, Marlborough sent back Eugene to resume the siege of the
citadel of Lille; while he himself, with the greater part of his
forces, proceeded on to Brussels, which he entered in triumph on the
29th November. The Elector of Bavaria was too happy to escape, leaving
his guns and wounded behind; and the citadel of Lille, despairing now
of succour, capitulated on the 11th December. Thus was this memorable
campaign terminated by the capture of the strongest frontier fortress
of France, under the eyes of its best general and most powerful
army.[6]

But Marlborough, like the hero in antiquity, deemed nothing done while
any thing remained to do. Though his troops were exhausted by marching
and fighting almost without intermission for five months, and he
himself was labouring under severe illness in consequence of his
fatigues, he resolved in the depth of winter to make an attempt for
the recovery of Ghent, the loss of which in the early part of the
campaign had been the subject of deep mortification. The enemy, after
the citadel of Lille capitulated, having naturally broken up their
army into cantonments, under the belief that the campaign was
concluded, he suddenly collected his forces, and drew round Ghent on
the 18th December. Eugene formed the covering force with the corps
lately employed in the reduction of Lille. The garrison was very
strong, consisting of no less than thirty battalions and nineteen
squadrons, mustering eighteen thousand combatants.[7] The governor had
been instructed by Vendôme to defend this important stronghold to the
last extremity; but he was inadequately supplied with provisions and
forage, and this event signally belied the expectations formed of his
resistance. The approaches were vigorously pushed. On the 24th the
trenches were opened; on the 25th a sortie was repulsed; on the 28th
December, the fire began with great vigour from the breaching and
mortar batteries; and at noon, the governor sent a flag of truce,
offering to capitulate if not relieved before the 2d January. This was
agreed to; and on the latter day, as no friendly force approached, the
garrison surrendered the gates and marched out, in such strength that
they were defiling incessantly from ten in the morning till seven at
night! Bruges immediately followed the example; the garrison
capitulated, and the town again hoisted the Austrian flag. The minor
forts of Plassendall and Leffinghen were immediately evacuated by the
enemy. With such expedition were these important operations conducted,
that before Vendôme could even assemble a force adequate to interrupt
the besiegers' operations, both towns were taken, and the French were
entirely dispossessed of all the important strongholds they had gained
in the early part of the campaign in the heart of Brabant. Having
closed his labours with these glorious successes, Marlborough put the
army into now secure winter-quarters on the Flemish frontiers, and
himself repaired to the Hague to resume the eternal contest with the
timidity and selfishness of his Dutch allies.[8]

Such was the memorable campaign of 1708--one of the most glorious in
the military annals of England, and the one in which the extraordinary
capacity of the British general perhaps shone forth with the brightest
lustre. The vigour and talent of Vendôme, joined to the secret
communication which he had with those disaffected to the Austrian
government in Ghent and Bruges, procured for him, in the commencement
of the campaign, a great, and what, if opposed by less ability, might
have proved a decisive advantage. By the acquisition of these towns,
he gained the immense advantage of obtaining the entire command of the
water communication of Brabant, and establishing himself in a solid
manner in the heart of the enemy's territory. The entire expulsion of
the Allies from Austrian Flanders seemed the unavoidable result of
such a success, by so enterprising a general at the head of a hundred
thousand combatants. But Marlborough was not discouraged; on the
contrary, he built on the enemy's early successes a course of
manoeuvres, which in the end wrested all his conquests from him, and
inflicted a series of disasters greater than could possibly have been
anticipated from a campaign of unbroken success. Boldly assuming the
lead, he struck such a blow at Oudenarde as resounded from one end of
Europe to the other, struck a terror into the enemy which they never
recovered for the remainder of the campaign, paralysed Vendôme in the
midst of his success, and reduced him from a vigorous offensive to a
painful defensive struggle. While the cabinet of Versailles were
dreaming of expelling the Allies from Flanders, and detaching Holland,
partly by intrigue, partly by force of arms, from the coalition, he
boldly entered the territory of the Grand Monarque, and laid siege to
its chief frontier fortress, under the eyes of its greatest army and
best general. In vain was the water communication of the Netherlands
interrupted by the enemy's possession of Ghent and Bruges; with
incredible activity he got together, and with matchless skill
conducted to the besiegers' lines before Lille, a huge convoy eighteen
miles long, drawn by sixteen thousand horses, in the very teeth of
Vendôme at the head of an hundred and twenty thousand men. Lille
captured, Ghent and Bruges recovered, the allied standards solidly
planted on the walls of the strongest fortress of France, terminated
a campaign in which the British, over-matched and surrounded by
lukewarm or disaffected friends, had wellnigh lost at the outset by
foreign treachery all the fruits of the victory of Ramilies.

The glorious termination of this campaign, and, above all, the
addition made to the immediate security of Holland by the recovery of
Ghent and Bruges, sensibly augmented Marlborough's influence at the
Hague, and at length overcame the timidity and vacillation of the
Dutch government. When the English general repaired there in the
beginning of 1709, he quickly overawed the adherents of France,
regained his wonted influence over the mind of the Pensionary
Heinsius, and at length succeeded in persuading the government and the
States to augment their forces by six thousand men. This, though by no
means so great an accession of numbers as was required to meet the
vast efforts which France was making, was still a considerable
addition; and by the influence of Prince Eugene, who was well aware
that the principal effort of the enemy in the next campaign would be
made in the Netherlands, he obtained a promise that the Imperial
troops should winter there, and be recruited, so as to compensate
their losses in the preceding campaign. Great difficulties were
experienced with the court of Turin, which had conceived the most
extravagant hopes from the project of an invasion of France on the
side both of Lyons and Franche Comté, and for this purpose required a
large subsidy in money, and the aid of fifty thousand men under Prince
Eugene on the Upper Rhine. Marlborough was too well aware, by
experience, of the little reliance to be placed on any military
operations in which the Emperor and the Italian powers were to be
placed in co-operation, to be sanguine of success from this design;
but as it was material to keep the court of Turin in good-humour, he
gave the proposal the most respectful attention, and sent General
Palmer on a special mission to the Duke of Savoy, to arrange the plan
of the proposed irruption into the Lyonnois. With the cabinet of
Berlin the difficulties were greater than ever, and in fact had become
so urgent, that nothing but the presence of the English General, or an
immediate agent from him, could prevent Prussia from seceding
altogether from the alliance. General Grumbkow was sent there
accordingly in March, and found the king in such ill-humour at the
repeated disappointments he had experienced from the Emperor and the
Dutch, that he declared he could only spare _three battalions_ for the
approaching campaign.[9] By great exertions, however, and the aid of
Marlborough's letters and influence, the king was at length prevailed
on to continue his present troops in the Low Countries, and increase
them by fourteen squadrons of horse.[10]

But it was not on the Continent only that open enemies or lukewarm and
treacherous friends were striving to arrest the course of
Marlborough's victories. His difficulties at home, both with his own
party and his opponents, were hourly increasing; and it was already
foreseen, that they had become so formidable that they would cause, at
no very remote period, his fall. Though he was publicly thanked, as
well he might, by both houses of parliament, when he came to London on
1st March 1709, yet he received no mark of favour from the Queen, and
was treated with studied coldness at court.[11] Envy, the inseparable
attendant on exalted merit--ingratitude, the usual result of
irrequitable services, had completely alienated the Queen from him.
Mrs Masham omitted nothing which could alienate her royal mistress
from so formidable a rival; and it was hard to say whether she was
most cordially aided in her efforts by the open Opposition, or the
half Tory-Whigs who formed the administration. Both Godolphin and the
Duke speedily found that they were tolerated in office merely: while,
in order to weaken their influence with the people, every effort was
made to depreciate even the glorious victories which had shed such
imperishable lustre over the British cause. Deeply mortified by this
ingratitude, Marlborough gladly embraced an offer which was made to
him by the government, in order to remove him from court, to conduct
the negotiation now pending at the Hague with Louis XIV. for the
conclusion of a general peace.[12]

The pride of the French monarch was now so much humbled that he sent
the President Rouillé to Holland, with public instructions to offer
terms to the Allies, and private directions to do every thing possible
to sow dissension among them, and, if possible, detach Holland from
the alliance. His proposals were to give up Spain, the Indies, and the
Milanese to King Charles; and cede the Italian islands, reserving
Naples and Sicily for his grandson. In the Netherlands and Germany, he
offered to restore matters to the state they were at the peace of
Ryswick; and though he was very reluctant to give up Lille, he offered
to cede Menin in its place. These terms being communicated to the
court of London, they returned an answer insisting that the whole
Spanish monarchy should be restored to the house of Austria, the title
of Queen Anne to the Crown of England, and the Protestant succession
acknowledged, the Pretender removed, the harbour of Dunkirk destroyed,
and an adequate barrier secured for the Dutch. In their ideas upon
this barrier, however, they went much beyond what Marlborough was
disposed to sanction, and therefore he maintained a prudent reserve on
the subject. As the French plenipotentiary could not agree to these
terms, Marlborough returned to England, and Lord Townsend was
associated with him as plenipotentiary. They were instructed to insist
that Furmes, Ipres, Menin, Lille, Tournay, Condé, Valenciennes, and
Maubeuge, should be given up to form a barrier, and that Newfoundland
and Hudson's Bay should be restored. Alarmed at the exaction of such
rigorous terms, Louis sent M. de Torcy, who made large concessions;
and Marlborough, who was seriously desirous of bringing the war to a
conclusion, exerted all his influence with the States to induce them
to accept the barrier offered. He so far succeeded, that on the very
day after his return to the Hague, he wrote both to Lord Godolphin and
the Duchess of Marlborough, that he had prevailed on the Dutch
commissioners to accede to the principal articles, and that he had no
doubt the negotiation would terminate in an honourable peace.[13]

These flattering prospects, however, were soon overcast. The Dutch
renewed their demand of having their barrier strengthened _at the
expense of Austria_, and insisted that the Flemish fortresses of
Dendermonde and Ghent, forming part of the _Imperial_ dominions,
should be included in it. To this both Eugene and Marlborough
objected, and the Dutch, in spite, refused to stipulate for the
demolition of Dunkirk. So violent an altercation took place on the
subject between the Pensionary Heinsius and Marlborough, that it had
wellnigh produced a schism in the grand alliance. M. de Torcy at first
endeavoured to mitigate the demands of the Dutch government; but
finding them altogether immovable, he addressed himself privately to
Marlborough, offering him enormous bribes if he could procure more
favourable terms for France. The offers were 2,000,000 livres
(£80,000) if he could secure Naples and Sicily, or even Naples alone,
for the grandson of the King of France; and 4,000,000 livres
(£160,000) if, in addition to this, he could save Strasburg, Dunkirk,
and Landau, for France. Marlborough turned away from the disgraceful
proposal with coldness and contempt;[14] but enforced in the most
earnest manner on the French king, the prudence and even necessity of
yielding to the proffered terms, if he would save his country from
dismemberment, and himself from ruin. His efforts, however, to bring
matters to an accommodation with France proved ineffectual; and after
some weeks longer spent in proposals and counter-proposals, the
ultimatum of the Allies was finally delivered to the French
plenipotentiary by the Pensionary of Holland.[15]

By this ultimatum, Charles was to be acknowledged King of Spain and
the Indies, and the whole Spanish monarchy was to be ceded by France.
All the conquests of Louis in the Low Countries were to be given up;
the Duke of Anjou was to surrender Spain and Sicily in two months, and
if not delivered, Louis was to concur with the Allies for his
expulsion. The barrier towns, so eagerly coveted by the Dutch, were to
be given up to them. Namur, Menin, Charleroi, Luxembourg, Condé,
Tournay, Maubeuge, Nieuport, Fismes, and Ipres, were to be put into
the possession of the Allies. De Torcy objected to the articles
regarding the cession of the whole Spanish monarchy in two months;
though he declared his willingness to go to Paris, in order to
persuade the French monarch to comply with them, and actually set off
for that purpose. On the way to the French capital, however, he was
met by a messenger from the French king, who rejected the proposals.
"If I must continue the war," said Louis, with a spirit worthy his
race, "it is better to contend with my enemies than my own family." So
confidently had it been believed, both at the Hague and in London,
that peace was not only probable, but actually concluded, that letters
of congratulation poured in on the duke from all quarters, celebrating
his dexterity and address in negotiation not less than his prowess in
arms. So confident, indeed, was Marlborough that peace would be
concluded, that he was grievously disappointed by the rupture of the
negotiations; and never ceased to strive, during the whole summer, to
smooth away difficulties, and bring the Allies to such terms as the
French king would accept. He was overruled, however, by the ministry
at home, who concluded the celebrated barrier treaty with the Dutch,
which Marlborough refused to sign, and was accordingly signed by
Townsend alone, without his concurrence! And it is now decisively
proved by the publication of his private correspondence with Lord
Godolphin, that he disapproved of the severe articles insisted upon by
the Allies and his own cabinet; and that, if he had had the
uncontrolled management of the negotiation, it would have been brought
to a favourable issue on terms highly advantageous to England, and
which would have prevented the treaty of Utrecht from forming a stain
on its annals.[16]

The rigorous terms demanded, however, by the Allied cabinets, and the
resolute conduct of the King of France in rejecting them, had an
important effect upon the war, and called for more vigorous efforts on
the part of the confederates than they had yet put forth, or were even
now disposed to make. Louis made a touching appeal to the patriotic
spirit of his people, in an eloquent circular which he addressed to
the prelates and nobles of his realm. He there set forth the great
sacrifices which he had offered to make to secure a general peace;
showed how willing he had been to divest himself of all his conquests,
abandon all his dreams of ambition; and concluded by observing, that
he was now compelled to continue the contest, because the Allies
insisted upon his descending to the humiliation of joining his arms to
theirs to dispossess his own grandson. The appeal was not made in vain
to the spirit of a gallant nobility, and the patriotism of a brave
people. It kindled a spark of general enthusiasm and loyalty: all
ranks and parties vied with each other in contributing their property
and personal service for the maintenance of the war; and the campaign
which opened under such disastrous auspices, was commenced with a
degree of energy and unanimity on the part of the French people which
had never hitherto been evinced in the course of the contest.[17] As
afterwards, in the wars of the Revolution, too, the misfortunes of the
state tended to the increase of its military forces. The stoppage of
commerce, and shock to credit, threw numbers out of employment; and
starving multitudes crowded to the frontier, to find that subsistence
amidst the dangers of war which they could no longer find in the
occupations of peace.

Skilfully availing themselves of this burst of patriotic fervour, the
ministers of Louis were enabled to open the campaign with greater
forces than they had yet accumulated since the beginning of the war.
The principal effort was made in Flanders, where the chief danger was
to be apprehended, and the enemy's most powerful army and greatest
general were to be faced. Fifty-one battalions and forty-nine
squadrons were drawn from the Rhine to Flanders; and this great
reinforcement, joined to the crowds of recruits whom the public
distress impelled to his standards, enabled the renowned Marshal
Villars, who had received the command of the French, to take the field
at the head of 112,000 men. With this imposing force, he took a
position, strong both by nature and art, extending from Douay to the
Lye; the right resting on the canal of Douay, the centre covered by
the village of La Bassie, the left supported by Bethune and its
circumjacent marshes. The whole line was strengthened by redoubts and
partial inundations. Marlborough was at the head of 110,000 men, and
although his force was composed of a heterogeneous mixture of the
troops of different nations, yet, like the _colluvies omnium gentium_
which followed the standards of Hannibal, it was held together by the
firm bond of military success, and inspired with unbounded confidence,
founded on experience, in the resources and capacity of its chief.
Events of the greatest and most interesting kind could not but be
anticipated, when two armies of such magnitude, headed by such
leaders, were brought into collision; and the patriotic ardour of the
French nation, now roused to the uttermost, was matched against the
military strength of the confederates, matured by so long and
brilliant a series of victories.[18]

Though relying with confidence on the skill and intrepidity of his
troops, Marlborough, according to his usual system, resolved if
possible to circumvent the enemy by manoeuvring, and reserve his hard
blows for the time when success was to be won in no other way. His
design was to begin the campaign with a general battle, or the
reduction of Tournay, which lay on the direct road from Brussels by
Mons to Paris, and would break through, in the most important part,
the barrier fortresses. To prepare for either event, and divert the
enemy's attention, strong demonstrations were made against Villars'
intrenched position, and if it had been practicable, it would have
been attacked; but after a close reconnoitre, both generals deemed it
too hazardous an enterprise, and it was resolved to besiege the
fortress. On the 23d June, the right under Eugene crossed the lower
Dyle below Lille; while the left, with whom were the whole English and
Dutch contingents, crossed the upper Dyle, and Marlborough fixed his
headquarters at the castle of Looz. So threatening were the masses
which the Allies now accumulated in his front, that Villars never
doubted he was about to be attacked; and in consequence he
strengthened his position to the utmost of his power, called in all
his detachments, and drew considerable reinforcements from the
garrisons of Tournay and other fortresses in his vicinity. Having thus
fixed his antagonist's attention, and concentrated his force in his
intrenched lines between Douay and Bethune, Marlborough suddenly moved
off to the left, in the direction of Tournay. This was done, however,
with every imaginable precaution to impose upon the enemy. They
decamped at nightfall on the 27th in dead silence, and advanced part
of the night straight towards the French lines; but at two in the
morning, the troops were suddenly halted, wheeled to the left, and
marched in two columns, by Pont à Bovines and Pont à Tressins, towards
Tournay. So expeditiously was the change in the line of march managed,
and so complete the surprise, that by seven in the morning the troops
were drawn round Tournay, and the investment complete, while a half of
the garrison was still absent in the lines of Marshal Villars, and it
was thereby rendered incapable of making any effectual defence.
Meanwhile, that commander was so deceived, that he was congratulating
himself that the enemy had "fixed on the siege of Tournay, which
should occupy them the whole remainder of the campaign; when it is
evident their design had been, after defeating me, to thunder against
Aire la Venant with their heavy artillery, penetrate as far as
Boulogne, and after laying all Picardy under contribution, push on
even to Paris."[19]

Tournay is an old town, the ancient walls of which are of wide
circuit; but it had a series of advanced works erected by Vauban, and
its citadel, a regular pentagon, was considered by the great Condé as
one of the most perfect specimens of modern fortification in
existence. So little did the governor expect their approach, that many
of the officers were absent, and a detachment of the garrison, sent
out to forage, was made prisoners by General Lumley, who commanded the
investing corps. The fortifications, however, were in the best state,
and the magazines well stored with ammunition and military stores. It
was the ancient capital of the Nervii, so celebrated for their valour
in the wars with Cæsar; and an inscription on its walls testified that
Louis XIV., after taking it in four days, had assisted in the
construction of the additional works which would render it
impregnable. The attempt to take such a place with a force no greater
than that with which Villars had at hand to interrupt the operations,
would have been an enterprise of the utmost temerity, and probably
terminated in disaster, had it not been for the admirable skill with
which the attention of the enemy had been fixed on another quarter,
and the siege commenced with half its garrison absent, and what was
there, imperfectly supplied with provisions.[20]

The heavy artillery and siege equipage required to be brought up the
Scheldt from Ghent, which in the outset occasioned some delay in the
operations. Marlborough commanded the attacking, Eugene the covering
forces. By the 6th, however, the approaches were commenced; on the
10th, the battering train arrived and the trenches armed; repeated
sallies of the enemy to interrupt the operations were repulsed, and
several of the outworks carried, between that time and the 21st, on
which last occasion the besiegers succeeded in establishing themselves
in the covered ways. The breaching batteries continued to thunder with
terrible effect upon the walls; and on the 27th, a strong horn-work,
called of the Seven Fountains, was carried, and the Allies were
masters of nearly the whole line of the counterscarp. Meanwhile,
Villars made no serious movement to interrupt the besiegers,
contenting himself with making demonstrations between the Scarfe and
the Scheldt to alarm the covering forces. Eugene, however, narrowly
watched all his proceedings; and in truth the French marshal, far from
really intending to disquiet the Allies in their operations, was
busied with an immense army of pioneers and labourers in constructing
a new set of lines from Douay along the Scarfe to the Scheldt near
Condé, in order to arrest the progress of the Allies in the direction
they had now taken. Seeing no prospect of being relieved, the governor
on the 29th surrendered the town, and retired with the remains of the
garrison, still four thousand strong, into the citadel.[21]

On the surrender of the town, no time was lost in prosecuting
operations against the citadel, and the line of circumvallation was
traced out that very evening. But this undertaking proved more
difficult than had been expected, and several weeks elapsed before any
material progress was made in the operations, during which Villars
made good use of his time in completing his new lines to cover
Valenciennes and Condé. The garrison of the citadel, though unequal to
the defence of the town of Tournay, was quite adequate to that of the
citadel: and the vast mines with which the whole outworks and glacis
were perforated, rendered the approaches in the highest degree
perilous and difficult. The governor, M. De Surville, proposed, on the
5th August, to capitulate in a month if not relieved; and to this
proposition, Marlborough and Eugene with praiseworthy humanity at once
acceded: but the King of France refused to ratify the terms proposed,
unless the suspension of arms was made general to the whole
Netherlands, to which the allied general would not accede. The
military operations consequently went on, and soon acquired a degree
of horror hitherto unparalleled even in that long and bloody contest.
The art of countermining, and of counteracting the danger of mines
exploding, was then very imperfectly understood, though that of
besieging above ground had been brought to the very highest degree of
perfection. The soldiers, in consequence, entertained a great and
almost superstitious dread of the perils of that subterraneous
warfare, where prowess and courage were alike unavailing, and the
bravest, equally as the most pusillanimous, were liable to be at any
moment blown into the air, or smothered under ground, by the
explosions of an unseen, and therefore appalling, enemy. The Allies
were inferior in regular sappers and miners to the besieged, who were
singularly well supplied with that important arm of the service. The
ordinary soldiers, how brave soever in the field, evinced a repugnance
at engaging in this novel and terrific species of warfare: and it was
only by personally visiting the trenches in the very hottest of the
fire, and offering high rewards to the soldiers who would enter into
the mines, that men could be got who would venture on the perilous
service.[22]

It was not surprising that even the bravest of the allied troops were
appalled at the new and extraordinary dangers which now awaited them,
for they were truly of the most formidable description. What rendered
them peculiarly so, was, that the perils in a peculiar manner affected
the bold and the forward. The first to mount a breach, to effect a
lodgement in a horn-work, to penetrate into a mine, was sure to
perish. First a hollow rumbling noise was heard, which froze the
bravest hearts with horror: a violent rush as of a subterraneous
cataract succeeded; and immediately the earth heaved, and whole
companies, and even battalions, were destroyed with a frightful
explosion. On the 15th August a sally by M. De Surville was bravely
repulsed, and the besiegers, pursuing their advantage, effected a
lodgement in the outwork: but immediately a mine was sprung, and a
hundred and fifty men were blown into the air. In the night between
the 16th and 17th, a long and furious conflict took place below ground
and in utter darkness, between the contending parties, which at length
terminated to the advantage of the besiegers.[23] On the 23d a mine
was discovered, sixty feet long by twenty broad, which would have
blown up a whole battalion of Hanoverian troops placed above it; but
while the Allies were in the mine, congratulating themselves on the
discovery, a mine below it was suddenly sprung, and all within the
upper one buried in the ruins. On the night of the 25th, three hundred
men, posted in a large mine discovered to the Allies by an inhabitant
of Tournay, were crushed by the explosion of another mine directly
below it; and on the same night, one hundred men posted in the town
ditch were suddenly buried under a bastion blown out upon them. Great
was the dismay which these dreadful and unheard-of disasters produced
among the allied troops. But at length the resolution and energy of
Marlborough and Eugene triumphed over every obstacle. Early on the
morning of the 31st August the white flag was displayed, and a
conference took place between the two commanders in the house of the
Earl of Albemarle; but the governor having refused to accede to the
terms demanded--that he should surrender prisoners of war--the fire
recommenced, and a tremendous discharge from all the batteries took
place for the next three days. This compelled the brave De Surville to
submit; and Marlborough, in consideration of his gallant defence,
permitted the garrison to march out with the honours of war, and
return to France, on condition of not serving again till exchanged. On
September 3d the gates were surrendered; and the entire command of
this strong fortress and rich city, which entirely covered Spanish
Flanders, was obtained by the Allies.[24]

No sooner was Tournay taken than the allied generals turned their
eyes to Mons, the next great fortress on the road to Paris, and which,
with Valenciennes, constituted the only remaining strongholds that lay
on that line between them and Paris. So anxious was Marlborough to
hasten operations against this important town, that on the very day on
which the white flag was displayed from the citadel of Tournay, he
dispatched Lord Orkney with all the grenadiers of the army, and twenty
squadrons, to surprise Ghislain, and secure the passage of the Haine.
On the 3d, the Prince of Hesse-Cassel was dispatched after him with
4000 foot and 60 squadrons. Lord Orkney, on arriving on the banks of
the Haine, found the passage so strongly guarded that he did not deem
it prudent to alarm the enemy by attempting to force them. The Prince
of Hesse-Cassel, however, was more fortunate. He marched with such
extraordinary diligence, that he got over forty-nine English miles in
fifty-six successive hours; a rapidity of advance, for such a
distance, that had never been surpassed at that, though it has been
outdone in later times.[25] By this means he reached the Haine on the
other side of Mons, and surprised the passage near Obourg, at two in
the morning of the 6th, and at noon he entered the French lines of the
Trouille without opposition, the enemy retiring with precipitation as
he advanced. He immediately extended his forces over the valley of the
Trouille, fixed his headquarters at the abbey of Belian, and with his
right occupied in strength the important plateau of Jemappes, which
intercepted the communication between Mons and Valenciennes. It was on
this height that the famous battle was fought between the French
Republicans under Dumourier in 1792: another proof among the many
which history affords how frequently the crisis of war, at long
distances of time from each other, takes place in the same place. By
this decisive movement Marlborough gained an immense advantage;--Mons
was now passed and _invested on the side of France_; and the
formidable lines, thirty leagues in length, on which Marshal Villars
had been labouring with such assiduity during the two preceding
months, were turned and rendered of no avail.[26]

While the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, with the advanced guard of the army,
gained this brilliant success, Marlborough was rapidly following with
the main body in the same direction. The force besieging Tournay
crossed the Scheldt at the bridge of that town, and joined the
covering force under Eugene. From thence they advanced to Sirant,
where they were joined by Lord Orkney with his detachment, which had
failed in passing the Haine. On the 6th, having learned of the success
of the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, who had turned the enemy's lines, and
got between Mons and France, the allied generals pushed on with the
utmost expedition, and leaving their army to form the investment of
Mons, joined the prince in the abbey of Belian. Both commanders
bestowed on him the highest compliments for the advantages he had
gained; but he replied, "The French have deprived me of the glory due
to such a compliment, since they have not even waited my arrival." In
truth, such had been the celerity and skill of his dispositions, that
they had rendered resistance hopeless, and achieved success without
the necessity of striking a blow. Meanwhile Marshal Boufflers, hearing
a battle was imminent, arrived in the camp as a volunteer, to serve
under Villars, his junior in military service; a noble example of
disinterested patriotism, which, not less than the justly popular
character of that distinguished general, raised the enthusiasm of the
French soldiers to the very highest pitch.[27] Every thing announced
a more sanguinary and important conflict between the renowned
commanders and gallant armies now arrayed on the opposite sides, than
had yet taken place since the commencement of the war.[28]

During these rapid and vigorous movements, which entirely turned and
broke through his much-vaunted lines of defence, Villars remained with
the great body of his forces in a state of inactivity. Aware he was to
be attacked, but ignorant where the blow was first likely to fall, he
judged, and probably rightly, that it would be hazardous to weaken his
lines at any one point by accumulating forces at another. No sooner,
however, did he receive intelligence of the march of the Prince of
Hesse-Cassel, than he broke up from the lines of Douay, and hastily
collecting his forces, advanced towards that adventurous commander. At
two in the morning of the 4th, he arrived in front of him with his
cavalry; but conceiving the whole allied army was before him, he did
not venture to make an attack at a time when his great superiority of
force would have enabled him to do it with every chance of success.
The movement of Villars, however, and general _feux-de-joie_ which
resounded through the French lines on the arrival of Marshal
Boufflers, warned the allied leaders that a general battle was at
hand; and orders were in consequence given to the whole army to
advance at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th. A detachment of
Eugene's troops was left to watch Mons, the garrison of which
consisted only of eleven weak battalions and a regiment of horse, not
mustering above five thousand combatants; and the whole remainder of
the allied army, ninety thousand strong, pressed forward in dense
masses into the level and marshy plain in the middle of which Mons is
situated. They advanced in different columns, headed by Marlborough
and Eugene; and never was a more magnificent spectacle presented, than
when they emerged from the woods upon the plain, and ascended in the
finest order, with their whole cavalry and artillery, as well as
infantry, the undulating ground which lies to the south of that town.
They arrived at night, and bivouacked on the heights of Quaregnon,
near Genly, and thence on to the village of Quevy, in a line not three
miles in length, and only five distant from the enemy; so that it was
evident a general battle would take place on the following day, unless
Villars was prepared to abandon Mons to its fate.[29]

The French marshal, however, had no intention of declining the combat.
His army was entirely fresh, and in the finest order; it had engaged
in no previous operations; whereas a bloody siege, and subsequent
fatiguing marches in bad weather, had sensibly weakened the strength,
though they had not depressed the spirits, of the allied soldiers. The
vast efforts of the French government, joined to the multitude of
recruits whom the public distress had impelled into the army, had in
an extraordinary degree recruited his ranks. After making provision
for all the garrisons and detached posts with which he was charged, he
could bring into the field no less than a hundred and thirty
battalions, and two hundred and sixty squadrons; and as they had all
been raised to their full complement, they mustered sixty-five
thousand infantry, and twenty-six thousand horse, with eighty guns; in
all, with the artillery, ninety-five thousand combatants. This vast
array had the advantage of being almost entirely of one nation,
speaking one language, and animated with one spirit; while the allied
force was a motley array of many different faces and nations of men,
held together by no other bond but the strong one of military success
and confidence in their chief. Both armies were of nearly equal
strength, under the command of the ablest and most intrepid commanders
of their day; the soldiers of both had acted long together, and
acquired confidence in each other; and both contained that
intermixture of the fire of young, with the caution of veteran troops,
which is of the happiest augury for military success. It was hard to
say, between such antagonists, to which side the scales of victory
would incline.[30]

The face of the country occupied by the French army, and which was to
be the theatre of the great battle which was approaching, is an
irregular plateau, interspersed by woods and intersected by streams,
and elevated from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet above the
meadows of the Trouille. Mons and Bavay, the villages of Quevrain and
Giory, formed the angular points of this broken surface. Extensive
woods on all the principal eminences both give diversity and beauty to
the landscape, and, in a military point of view, added much to the
strength of the position as defensible ground against an enemy. Near
MALPLAQUET, on the west of the ridge, is a small heath, and
immediately to the south of it the ground descends by a rapid slope to
the Hon, which finds its way by a circuitous route by the rear of the
French position to the Trouille, which it joins near Condé. The
streams from Malplaquet to the northward all flow by a gentle slope
through steep wooded banks to the Trouille, into which they fall near
Mons. The woods on the plateau are the remains of a great natural
forest which formerly covered the whole of these uplands, and out of
which the clearings round the villages and hamlets which now exist,
have been cut by the hands of laborious industry. Two woods near the
summit level of the ground are of great extent, and deserve particular
notice. The first, called the wood of Louvière, stretches from
Longueville in a north-easterly direction to Cauchie; the second,
named the wood Taisnière, of still larger size, extends from the
Chaussée de Bois to the village of Bouson. Between these woods are two
openings, or Trouées as they are called in the country--the Trouée de
la Louvière, and the Trouée d'Aulnoet. Generally speaking, the ground
occupied by the French, and which was to be the theatre of the battle,
may be described as a rough and woody natural barrier, stretching
across the high plateau which separates the Haine and the Trouille,
and pervious only by the two openings of Louvière and Aulnoet, both of
which are in a very great degree susceptible of defence.[31]

The allied army consisted of one hundred and thirty-nine battalions,
and two hundred and fifty-three squadrons, with one hundred and five
guns; mustering ninety-three thousand combatants. The two armies,
therefore, were as nearly as possible equal in point of military
strength--a slight numerical superiority on the part of the French
being compensated by a superiority of twenty-five guns on that of the
Allies. Among the French nobles present at the battle, were no less
than twelve who were afterwards marshals of France.[32] The son of
James II., under the name of the Chevalier of St George, who combined
the graces of youth with the hereditary valour of his race, was there;
St Hilaire and Folard, whose works afterwards threw such light on
military science, were to be found in its ranks. The Garde-du-corps,
Mousquetaires gris, Grenadiers _à cheval_, French, Swiss, and Bavarian
guards, as well as the Irish brigade, stood among the combatants. The
reverses of Louis had called forth the flower of the nobility, as well
as the last reserves of the monarchy.[33]

Early on the morning of the 9th, Marlborough and Eugene were on the
look-out at the Mill of Sart, with a strong escort, consisting of
thirty squadrons of horse. From the reports brought in, it was soon
ascertained that the whole enemy's army was in march towards the plain
of Malplaquet, on the west of the plateau, and that Villars himself
was occupying the woods of Lasnière and Taisnière. His headquarters
were at Blaugnies, in the rear of the centre. The two armies were now
only a league and a half separate, and Marlborough and Eugene were
clear for immediately attacking the enemy, before they could add to
the natural strength of their position by intrenchnents. But the Dutch
deputies, Hooft and Goslinga, interfered, as they had done on a
similar occasion between Wavre and Waterloo, and so far modified this
resolution as to induce a council of war, summoned on the occasion, to
determine not to fight till the troops from Tournay were within reach,
and St Ghislain, which commanded a passage over the Haine, was taken.
This was done next day, the fort being carried by escalade, and its
garrison of two hundred men made prisoners; and on the day following,
all the reserves from Tournay came up. But these advantages, which in
themselves were not inconsiderable, were dearly purchased by the time
which Villars gained for strengthening his position. Instead of
pushing on to attack the allies, as Marlborough and Eugene had
expected, to raise the siege of Mons, that able commander employed
himself with the utmost skill and vigour in throwing up intrenchments
in every part of his position. The nature of the ground singularly
favoured his efforts. The heights he occupied, plentifully
interspersed with woods and eminences, formed a concave semicircle,
the artillery from which enfiladed on all sides the little plain of
Malplaquet, so as to render it literally, in Dumont's words, "une
trouée d'enfer." Around this semicircle, redoubts, palisades, abattis,
and stockades, were disposed with such skill and judgment, that,
literally speaking, there was not a single inequality of ground, (and
there were many,) which was not turned to good account. The two
_trouées_ or openings, in particular, already mentioned, by which it
was foreseen the Allies would endeavour to force an entrance, were so
enfiladed by cross batteries as to be wellnigh unassailable. Twenty
pieces of artillery were placed on a redoubt situated on an eminence
near the centre of the field; the remainder were arranged along the
field-works constructed along the lines. Half the army laboured at
these works without a moment's intermission during the whole of the
9th and 10th, while the other were under arms, ready to repel any
attack which might be hazarded. With such vigour were the operations
conducted, that by the night of the 10th, the position was deemed
impregnable.[34]

During these two days, which were passed in inactivity, awaiting the
coming up of the reinforcements from Tournay, which the council of war
had deemed indispensable to the commencement of operations,
Marlborough and Eugene had repeatedly reconnoitred the enemy's
position, and were fully aware of its growing strength. Despairing of
openly forcing such formidable lines, defended by so numerous and
gallant an army, they resolved to combine their first attack with a
powerful demonstration in rear. With this view, the rear-guard, which
was coming up from Tournay under General Withers, of nineteen
battalions and ten squadrons, received orders not to join the main
body of the army, but, stopping short at St Ghislain, to cross the
Haine there, and, traversing the wood of Blangris by a country road,
assail the extreme left of the enemy at the farm of La Folie, when the
combat was seriously engaged in front. Forty battalions of Eugene's
army, under Baron Schulemberg, were to attack the wood of Taisnière,
supported by forty pieces of cannon, so placed that their shot reached
every part of the wood. To distract the enemy's attention, other
attacks were directed along the whole line; but the main effort was to
be made by Eugene's corps on the wood of Taisnière; and it was from
the co-operation of the attack of Schulemberg on its flank, that
decisive success was expected.[35] All the corps had reached their
respective points of destination on the evening of the 10th.
Schulemberg was near La Folie; Eugene was grouped, in four lines, in
front of Taisnière; and the men lay down to sleep, anxiously awaiting
the dawn of the eventful morrow.[36]

At three in the morning of the 11th, divine service was performed,
with the utmost decorum, at the head of every regiment, and listened
to by the soldiers, after the example of their chief, with the most
devout attention. The awful nature of the occasion, the momentous
interests at stake, the uncertainty who might survive to the close of
the day, the protracted struggle now to be brought to a decisive
issue, had banished all lighter feelings, and impressed a noble
character on that impressive solemnity. A thick fog overspread the
field, under cover of which the troops marched, with the utmost
regularity, to their appointed stations: the guns were brought forward
to the grand battery in the centre, which was protected on either side
by an _épaulement_ to prevent an enfilade. No sooner did the French
outposts give notice that the Allies were preparing for an attack,
than the whole army stood to their arms, and all the working parties,
who were still toiling in the trenches, cast aside their tools, and
joyfully resumed their places in the ranks. Never, since the
commencement of the war, had the spirit of the French soldier been so
high, or so enthusiastic a feeling infused into every bosom. With
confidence they looked forward to regaining the laurels, under their
beloved commander, Marshal Villars, which had been withered in eight
successive campaigns, and arresting the flood of conquest which
threatened to overwhelm their country. No sooner did he mount on
horseback at seven, than loud cries of "Vive le Roi!" "Vive le
Maréchal de Villars!" burst from their ranks. He himself took the
command of the left, giving the post of honour on the right, in
courtesy, to Marshal Boufflers. On the allied side, enthusiasm was not
so loudly expressed, but confidence was not the less strongly felt.
They relied with reason on the tried and splendid abilities of their
chiefs, on their own experienced constancy and success in the field.
They had the confidence of veteran soldiers, who had long fought and
conquered together. In allusion to the numerous field-works before
them, and which almost concealed the enemy's ranks from their view,
the sarcastic expression passed through the ranks, "We are again about
to make war on moles." The fog still lingered on the ground, so as to
prevent the gunners seeing to take aim; but at half-past seven it
cleared up; the sun broke forth with uncommon brilliancy, and
immediately the fire commenced with the utmost vigour from the
artillery on both sides.[37]

For about half an hour the cannon continued to thunder, so as to reach
every part of the field of battle with their balls, when Marlborough
moved forward his troops in échelon, the right in front, in order to
commence his projected attack on the French centre and left. The
Dutch, who were on the left, agreeably to the orders they had
received, halted when within range of grape, and a violent cannonade
was merely exchanged on both sides; but Count Lottum, who commanded
the centre of twenty battalions, continued to press on, regardless of
the storm of shot and grape with which he was assailed, and when well
into the enemy's line, he brought up his left shoulders, and in three
lines attacked the right of the wood of Taisnière. Schulemberg, at the
same time, with his forty battalions to the right of Lottum, advanced
against the wood of Taisnière in front; while Lord Orkney, with his
fifteen battalions, as Lottum's men inclined to the right, marched
straight forward to the ground they had occupied, and attacked the
intrenchment before him in the opening. Eugene, who was with
Schulemberg's men, advanced without firing a shot, though suffering
dreadfully from the grape of the batteries, till within pistol-shot of
the batteries. They were there, however, received by so terrible a
discharge of all arms from the intrenchments--the French soldiers
laying their pieces deliberately over the parapet, and taking aim
within twenty yards of their opponents--that they recoiled above two
hundred yards, and were only brought back to the charge by the heroic
efforts of Eugene, who exposed his person in the very front of the
line. Meanwhile, three battalions brought up from the blockade of Mons
stole unperceived, amidst the tumult in front, into the south-eastern
angle of the wood of Taisnière, and were making some progress, when
they were met by three battalions of French troops, and a vehement
fire of musketry soon rang in the recesses of the wood.

Meanwhile, Marlborough in person led on D'Auvergne's cavalry in
support of Lottum's men, who speedily were engaged in a most terrific
conflict. They bore without flinching the fire of the French brigade
_du Roi_, and, crossing a ravine and small morass, rushed with fixed
bayonets, and the most determined resolution, right against the
intrenchment. So vehement was the onset, so impetuous the rush, that
some of the leading files actually reached the summit of the parapet,
and those behind pushing vehemently on, the redoubt was carried amidst
deafening cheers. But Villars was directly in rear of that work; and
he immediately led up in person a brigade in the finest order, which
expelled the assailants at the point of the bayonet, and regained the
work. Marlborough upon this charged at the head of D'Auvergne's
cavalry; and that gallant body of men, three thousand strong, dashed
forward, entered the intrenchments, which were, at the same time,
surmounted by some of Lottum's battalions. While this desperate
conflict was going on in front and flank of the wood, Withers, with
his corps brought up from Tournay, was silently, and with great
caution, entering the wood on the side of La Folie, and had already
made considerable progress before any great efforts were made to expel
them. The advance of this corps in his rear rendered it impossible for
Villars any longer to maintain the advanced line of works in the front
of the wood; it was therefore abandoned, but slowly, and in admirable
order--the troops retiring through the trees to the second line of
works in their rear, which they prepared to defend to the last
extremity.

While this bloody conflict was raging in and around the wood of
Taisnière, the half-hour during which the Prince of Orange had been
directed to suspend his attack had elapsed, and that gallant chief,
impatient of inactivity when the battle was raging with such fury on
his right, resolved to move forward in good earnest. The Scotch
brigade, led on by the Marquis of Tullibardine, headed the column on
the left; to their right were the Dutch, under Spaar and Oxenstiern;
while the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, with twenty-one squadrons, was in
reserve to support and follow the infantry into the works, when an
opening was made. On the word "march" being given, the troops of these
various nations, with rival courage, advanced to the attack. The
Scotch Highlanders, headed by the gallant Tullibardine,[38] rushed
impetuously forward to the attack, despite a tremendous fire of grape
and musketry which issued from the works, and succeeded in reaching
the top of the intrenchment. But before they could deploy, they were
charged by the French infantry in close order, and driven out.
Tullibardine met a glorious death in the redoubt he had won. Equally
gallant was the assault, and unpropitious the result, of the Prince of
Orange's attack on the right towards the French centre. There, too,
by a vehement rush the intrenchment was carried; but the troops which
surmounted it had no sooner penetrated in than they were attacked by
Boufflers, at the head of fresh troops in close order in front, while
a powerful battery opened with grape on their flank. This double
attack proved irresistible; the assailants were pushed out of the
works with dreadful slaughter. Spaar lay dead on the spot; Hamilton
was carried off wounded. Seeing his men recoil, the Prince of Orange
seized a standard, and advancing alone to the slope of the
intrenchment, said aloud, "Follow me, my friends; here is your post."
But it was all in vain. Boufflers' men from the French second line had
now closed up with the first, which lined the works, and a dense mass
of bayonets, six deep, bristled at their summit behind the embrasures
of the guns. A dreadful rolling fire issued from them; their position
could be marked by the ceaseless line of flame, even through the
volumes of smoke which enveloped them on all sides; and at length,
after displaying the most heroic valour, the Prince of Orange was
obliged to draw off his men, with the loss of three thousand killed,
and twice that number wounded. Instantly the brigade of Navarre issued
with loud shouts out of the intrenchments. Several Dutch battalions
were driven back, and some colours, with an advanced battery, fell
into the enemy's hands. Boufflers supported this sally by his
grenadiers _à cheval_; but the Prince of Hesse-Cassel came up with his
well-appointed squadron on the other side, and, after a short
struggle, drove the French back into their works.

Hearing that matters were in this precarious state on the left,
Marlborough galloped from the right centre, accompanied by his staff,
where Lotturn's infantry and D'Auvergne's horse had gained such
important advantages. Matters erelong became so alarming, that Eugene
also followed in the same direction. On his way along the rear of the
line, the English general had a painful proof of the enthusiastic
spirit with which his troops were animated, by seeing numbers of the
wounded Dutch and Hanoverians, whose hurts had just been bound up by
the surgeons, again hastening to the front, to join their comrades,
though some, faint from the loss of blood, yet tottered under the
weight of their muskets. The reserves were hastily directed to the
menaced front, and by their aid the combat was in some degree restored
in that quarter; while Marlborough and Eugene laboured to persuade the
Prince of Orange, who was burning with anxiety at all hazards to renew
the attack, that his operations were only intended as a feint, and
that the real effort was to be made on the right, where considerable
progress had already been made. Order was hardly restored in this
quarter, when intelligence arrived from the right that the enemy were
assuming the initiative in the wood of Taisnière, and were pressing
hard both upon the troops at La Folie and in front of the wood. In
fact, Villars, alarmed at the progress of the enemy on his left in the
wood, had drawn considerable reinforcements from his centre, and sent
them to the threatened quarter. Marlborough instantly saw the
advantage which this weakening of the enemy's centre was likely to
give him. While he hastened back, therefore, with all imaginable
expedition to the right, to arrest the progress of the enemy in that
quarter, he directed Lord Orkney to advance, supported by a powerful
body of horse on each flank, directly in at the opening between the
two woods, and if possible force the enemy's intrenchments in the
centre, now stripped of their principal defenders.

These dispositions, adopted on the spur of the moment, and instantly
acted upon, proved entirely successful. Eugene galloped to the extreme
right, and renewed the attack with Schulemberg's men, while Withers
again pressed on the rear of the wood near La Folie. So vigorous was
the onset, that the Allies gained ground on both sides of the wood,
and Villars hastening up with the French guards to restore the combat
near La Folie, received a wound in the knee, when gallantly heading a
charge of bayonets, which obliged him to quit the field. In the
centre, still more decisive advantages were gained. Lord Orkney there
made the attack with such vigour, that the intrenchments, now not
adequately manned, were at once carried; and the horse, following
rapidly on the traces of the foot soldiers, broke through at several
openings made by the artillery, and spread themselves over the plain,
cutting down in every direction. The grand battery of forty cannon in
the allied centre received orders to advance. In the twinkling of an
eye the guns were limbered up, and moving on at a quick trot. They
soon passed the intrenchments in the centre, and facing to the right
and left, opened a tremendous fire of canister and grape on the dense
masses of the French cavalry which there stood in the rear of the
infantry, who were almost all in front among the works. These noble
troops, however, bore up gallantly against the storm, and even charged
the allied horse before they had time to form within the lines; but
they were unable to make any impression, and retired from the attack
sorely shattered by the allied artillery.

The battle was now gained. Villars' position, how strong and gallantly
defended soever, was no longer tenable. Pierced through in the centre,
with a formidable enemy's battery thundering on either side, in the
very heart of his line, on the reserve squadrons, turned and menaced
with rout on the left, it was no longer possible to keep the field.
Boufflers, upon whom, in the absence of Villars in consequence of his
wound, the direction of affairs had devolved, accordingly prepared for
a retreat; and he conducted it with consummate skill, as well as the
most undaunted firmness. Collecting a body of two thousand chosen
horse yet fresh, consisting of the _élite_ of the horse-guards and
garde-du-corps, he charged the allied horse which had penetrated into
the centre, and was by this time much blown by its severe fatigues in
the preceding part of the day. It was accordingly worsted and put to
flight; but all the efforts of this noble body of horsemen were
shattered against Orkney's infantry, which, posted on the reverse of
the works they had won, poured in, when charged, so close and
destructive a fire, as stretched half of the gallant cavaliers on the
plain, and forced the remainder to a precipitate retreat. Still the
indefatigable Boufflers made another effort. Drawing a large body of
infantry from the works on his extreme right, which had been little
engaged, he marched them to the left, and reforming his squadrons
again, advanced to the charge. But Marlborough no sooner saw this,
than he charged the garde-du-corps with a body of English horse which
he himself led on, and drove them back, while the infantry staggered
and reeled like a sinking ship under the terrific fire of the allied
guns, which had penetrated the centre. At the same time the Prince of
Orange and the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, perceiving that the
intrenchments before them were stript of great part of their
defenders, renewed the attack; in ten minutes these works were
carried; a tremendous shout, heard along the whole line, announced
that the whole left of the position had fallen into the hands of the
Allies.

In these desperate circumstances, Boufflers and his brave troops did
all that skill or courage could suggest to arrest the progress of the
victors, and withdraw from the field without any additional losses.
Forming his troops into three great masses, with the cavalry which had
suffered least in rear, he slowly, and in perfect regularity,
commenced his retreat. The Allies had suffered so much, and were so
completely exhausted by the fatigue of this bloody and protracted
battle, that they gave them very little molestation. Contenting
themselves with pursuing as far as the heath of Malplaquet, and the
level ground around Taisnière, they halted, and the men lay down to
sleep. Meanwhile the French, in the best order, but in deep dejection,
continued their retreat still in three columns; and after crossing the
Hon in their rear, reunited below Quesnoy and Valenciennes, about
twelve miles from the field of battle.[39]

Such was the desperate battle of Malplaquet, the most bloody and
obstinately contested which had yet occurred in the war, and in which
it is hard to say to which of the gallant antagonists the palm of
valour and heroism is to be given. The victory was unquestionably
gained by the Allies, since they forced the enemy's position, drove
them to a considerable distance from the field of battle, and hindered
the siege of Mons, the object for which both parties fought, from
being raised. The valour they displayed had extorted the admiration of
their gallant and generous enemies.[40] On the other hand, these
advantages had been purchased at an enormous sacrifice, and never
since the commencement of the contest had the scales hung so even
between the contending parties. The Allies lost, killed in the
infantry alone, five thousand five hundred and forty-four; wounded and
missing, twelve thousand seven hundred and six; in all eighteen
thousand two hundred and fifty, of whom two hundred and eighty-six
were officers killed, and seven hundred and sixty-two wounded.
Including the casualties in the cavalry and artillery, their total
loss was not less than twenty thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the
number engaged. The French loss, though they were worsted in the
fight, was less considerable; it did not exceed fourteen thousand
men--an unusual circumstance with a beaten army, but easily accounted
for, if the formidable nature of the intrenchments which the Allies
had to storm in the first part of the action, is taken into
consideration. In proportion to the numbers engaged, the loss to the
victors was not, however, nearly so great as at Waterloo.[41] Few
prisoners, not above five hundred, were made on the field; but the
woods and intrenchments were filled with wounded French, whom
Marlborough, with characteristic humanity, proposed to Villars to
remove to the French headquarters, on condition of their being
considered prisoners of war--an offer which that general thankfully
accepted. A solemn thanksgiving was read in all the regiments of the
army two days after the battle, after which the soldiers of both
armies joined in removing the wounded French on two hundred waggons to
the French camp. Thus, after the conclusion of one of the bloodiest
fights recorded in modern history, the first acts of the victors were
in raising the voice of thanksgiving, and doing deeds of mercy.[42]

No sooner were these pious cares concluded, than the Allies resumed
the investment of Mons: Marlborough, with the English and Dutch,
having his headquarters at Belian, and Eugene, with the Germans, at
Quaregnon. The Prince of Orange, with thirty battalions and as many
squadrons, was intrusted with the blockade. Great efforts were
immediately made to get the necessary siege equipage and stores up
from Brussels; but the heavy rains of autumn set in with such
severity, that it was not till the 25th September that the trenches
could be opened. Boufflers, though at no great distance, did not
venture to disturb the operations. On 9th October, a lodgement was
effected in the covered way; on the 17th, the outworks were stormed;
and on the 26th, the place surrendered with its garrison, still three
thousand five hundred strong. By this important success, the conquest
of Brabant was finished; the burden and expense of the war removed
from the Dutch provinces; the barrier which they had so long sought
after was rendered nearly complete; and the defences of France were so
far laid bare, that by the reduction of Valenciennes and Quesnoy, in
the next campaign, no fortified place would remain between the Allies
and Paris. Having achieved this important success, the allied generals
put their army into winter-quarters at Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, and on
the Meuse; while fifty battalions of the French, with one hundred
squadrons, were quartered, under the command of the Duke of Berwick,
in the neighbourhood of Maubeuge, and the remainder of their great
army in and around Valenciennes and Quesnoy.[43]

During the progress of this short but brilliant campaign, Marlborough
was more than ever annoyed and disheartened by the evident and
increasing decline of his influence at home. Harley and Mrs Masham
contrived to thwart him in every way in their power; and scarcely
disguised their desire to make the situation of the Duke and Godolphin
so uncomfortable, that out of spleen they might resign; in which case,
the entire direction of affairs would have fallen into their
hands.[44] Influenced by these new favourites, the Queen became cold
and resentful to the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she had formerly
been so much attached; and the Duke, perceiving this, strongly advised
her to abstain from any correspondence with her Majesty, as more
likely to increase than diminish the estrangement so rapidly growing
between them. The Duchess, however, was herself of too irritable a
temper to follow this sage advice; reproaches, explanations, and
renewed complaints ensued on both sides; and as usual in such cases,
where excessive fondness has been succeeded by coldness, all attempts
to repair the breach only had the effect of widening it. Numerous
events at court, trifles in themselves, but "confirmation strong" to
the jealous, served to show in what direction the wind was setting.
The Duchess took the strong and injudicious step of intruding herself
on the Queen, and asking what crime she had committed to produce so
great an estrangement between them. This drew from her Majesty a
letter, exculpating her from any fault, but ascribing their alienation
to a discordance in political opinion, adding, "I do not think it a
crime in any one not to be of my mind, or blamable, because you cannot
see with my eyes, or hear with my ears." While this relieved
Marlborough from the dread of a personal quarrel between the Duchess
and Royalty, it only aggravated the precarious nature of his
situation, by showing that the split was owing to the wider and more
irremediable division on political subjects.[45]

Encouraged by this powerful support at court, Harley now openly
pursued his design of effecting the downfall of Marlborough, and his
removal from office, and the command of the armies. The whole campaign
which had terminated so gloriously, was criticised in the most unjust
and malignant spirit. The siege of Tournay was useless and expensive;
the battle of Malplaquet an unnecessary carnage. It was even
insinuated the Duke had purposely exposed the officers to slaughter,
that he might obtain a profit by the sale of their commissions. The
preliminaries first agreed to at the Hague were too favourable to
France; when Louis rejected them, the rupture of the negotiations
rested with Marlborough. In a word, there was nothing done by the
English general, successful or unsuccessful, pacific or warlike, which
was not made the subject of loud condemnation, and unmeasured
invective. Harley even corresponded with the disaffected party in
Holland, in order to induce them to cut short the Duke's career of
victory by clamouring for a general peace. Louis was represented as
invincible, and rising stronger from every defeat: the prolongation of
the war was entirely owing to the selfish interests and ambition of
the allied chief. These and similar accusations, loudly re-echoed by
all the Tories, and sedulously poured into the royal ear by Harley and
Mrs Masham, made such an impression on the Queen, that she did not
offer the smallest congratulation to the Duchess on the victory of
Malplaquet, nor express the least satisfaction at the Duke's escape
from the innumerable dangers which he had incurred.[46]

An ill-timed and injudicious step of Marlborough at this juncture, one
of the few which can be imputed to him in his whole public career,
inflamed the jealousy of the Queen and the Tories at him. Perceiving
the decline of his influence at court, and anticipating his dismissal
from the command of the army at no distant period, he solicited from
the Queen a patent constituting him Captain-general for life. In vain
he was assured by the Lord Chancellor that such an appointment was
wholly unprecedented in English history; he persisted in laying the
petition before the Queen, by whom it was of course refused. Piqued at
this disappointment, he wrote an acrimonious letter to her Majesty, in
which he reproached her with the neglect of his public services, and
bitterly complained of the neglect of the Duchess, and transfer of the
royal favour to Mrs Masham. So deeply did Marlborough feel this
disappointment, that on leaving the Hague to return to England, he
said publicly to the deputies of the States--"I am grieved that I am
obliged to return to England, where my services to your republic will
be turned to my disgrace."[47]

Marlborough was received in the most flattering manner by the people,
on landing on 15th November, and he was greeted by the thanks of both
Houses of Parliament for his great and glorious services. The Queen
declared in her speech from the throne, that this campaign had been at
least as glorious as any which had preceded it; and the Chancellor, in
communicating the thanks of the House of Lords, added--"This high
eulogium must be looked upon as added to, and standing upon the
foundation already laid in the records of this House, for preserving
your memory fresh to all future times; so that your Grace has also the
satisfaction of seeing this everlasting monument of your glory rise
every year much higher." Such was the impulse communicated to both
Houses by the presence of the Duke, and the recollection of his
glorious services, that liberal supplies for carrying on the war were
granted by both Houses. The Commons voted £6,000,000 for the service
of the ensuing year, and on the earnest representation of Marlborough,
an addition was made to the military forces.

But in the midst of all these flattering appearances, the hand of
destruction was already impending over the British hero. It was mainly
raised by the very greatness and inappreciable nature of his services.
Envy, the invariable attendant on exalted merit, had already singled
him out as her victim: jealousy, the prevailing weakness of little
minds, had prepared his ruin. The Queen had become uneasy at the
greatness of her subject. There had even been a talk of the Duke of
Argyll arresting him in her name, when in command of the army. Anne
lent a ready ear to the representations of her flatterers, and
especially Mrs Masham, that she was enthralled by a single family;
that Marlborough was the real sovereign of England, and that the
crown was overshadowed by the field-marshal's baton. Godolphin,
violently libelled in a sermon by Dr Sacheverell, at St Saviour's,
Southwark, the Doctor was impeached before the House of Lords for the
offence. The government of the Tower, usually bestowed on the
recommendation of the commander-in-chief, was, to mortify Marlborough,
bestowed without consulting him on Lord Rivers. At length matters came
to such a pass, and the ascendency of Mrs Masham was so evident, while
her influence was exercised in so undisguised a manner to humiliate
him, that he prepared the draft of a letter of resignation of his
commands to her Majesty, in which, after enumerating his services, and
the abuse which Mrs Masham continued to heap on him and his relations,
he concluded with saying--"I hope your Majesty will either dismiss her
or myself."[48]

Sunderland and several of the Whig leaders warmly approved of this
vigorous step; but Godolphin, who foresaw the total ruin of the
ministry and himself, in the resignation of the general, had influence
enough to prevent its being sent. Instead of doing so, that nobleman
had a long private audience with her Majesty on the subject; in which,
notwithstanding the warmest professions on her part, and the strong
sense she entertained of his great and lasting services, it was not
difficult to perceive that a reserve as to future intentions was
manifested, which indicated a loss of confidence. Marlborough declared
he would be governed in the whole matter by the advice and opinion of
his friends; but strongly expressed his own opinion, "that all must be
undone if this poison continues about the Queen."[49] Such, however,
was the agony of apprehension of Godolphin at the effects of the
duke's resignation, that he persuaded him to adopt a middle course,
the usual resource of second-rate men in critical circumstances, but
generally the most hazardous that can be adopted. This plan was to
write a warm remonstrance to the Queen, but without making Mrs
Masham's removal a condition of his remaining in office. In this
letter, after many invectives against Mrs Masham, and a full
enumeration of his grievances, he concludes with these words--"This is
only one of many mortifications that I have met with, and as I may not
have many opportunities of writing to you, let me beg of your Majesty
to reflect what your own people and the rest of the world must think,
who have been witnesses of the love, zeal, and duty with which I have
served you, when they shall see that, after all I have done, it has
not been able to protect me against the malice of a bed-chamber
woman.[50] But your Majesty may be assured that my zeal for you and my
country is so great, that in my retirement I shall daily pray for your
prosperity, and that those who serve you as faithfully as I have done,
may never feel the hard return I have met with."

These expressions, how just soever in themselves, and natural in one
whose great services had been requited as Marlborough's had been, were
not likely to make a favourable impression on the royal mind, and,
accordingly, at a private audience which he had soon after of the
Queen, he was received in the coldest manner.[51] He retired in
consequence to Blenheim, determined to resign all his commands,
unless Mrs Masham was removed from the royal presence. Matters seemed
so near a rupture, that the Queen personally applied to several of the
Tories, and even Jacobites, who had long kept aloof from court, to
support her in opposition to the address expected from both Houses of
Parliament on the duke's resignation. Godolphin and Somers, however,
did their utmost to bend the firm general; and they so far succeeded
in opposition to his better judgment, and the decided opinions of the
Duchess, as to induce him to continue in office without requiring the
removal of Mrs Masham from court. The Queen, delighted at this victory
over so formidable an opponent, received him at his next audience in
the most flattering manner, and with a degree of apparent regard which
she had scarcely ever evinced to him in the days of his highest
favour. But in the midst of these deceitful appearances his ruin was
secretly resolved on; and in order to accelerate his departure from
court, the Queen inserted in her reply to the address of the Commons
at the close of the Session of Parliament, a statement of her
resolution to send him immediately to Holland, as "I shall always
esteem him the chief instrument of my glory, and of my people's
happiness." He embarked accordingly, and landed at the Brill on March
18th, in appearance possessing the same credit and authority as
before, but in reality thwarted and opposed by a jealous and ambitious
faction at home, which restrained his most important measures, and
prevented him from effecting any thing in future on a level with his
former glorious achievements.

The year 1709 was signalized by the decisive victory of the Czar Peter
over Charles XII. at Pultowa, who was totally routed and irretrievably
ruined by the Muscovite forces, commanded by the Czar in person on
that disastrous day. This overthrow was one of the most momentous
which has occurred in modern times. Not only was a great and dreaded
conqueror at once overturned, and erelong reduced to captivity; but a
new balance of power was established in the north which has never
since been shaken. Sweden was reduced to her natural rank as a
third-rate power from which she had been only raised by the
extraordinary valour and military talents of a series of warlike
sovereigns, who had succeeded in rendering the Scandinavian warriors,
like the Macedonians of old, a race of heroes. Russia, by the same
event, acquired the entire ascendency over the other Baltic powers,
and obtained that preponderance which she has ever since maintained in
the affairs of Europe. Marlborough sympathised warmly with the
misfortunes of the heroic sovereign, for whose genius and gallantry he
had conceived the highest admiration. But he was too sagacious not to
see that his disasters, like those of Napoleon afterwards in the same
regions, were entirely the result of his own imprudence; and that if
he had judiciously taken advantage of the terror of his name, and the
success of his arms, in the outset of his invasion, he might have
gained all the objects for which he contended without incurring any
serious evil.[52]

Peter the Great, who gained this astonishing and decisive success, was
one of the most remarkable men who ever appeared on the theatre of
public affairs. He was nothing by halves. For good or for evil he was
gigantic. Vigour seems to have been the great characteristic of his
mind; but it was often fearfully disfigured by passion, and not
unfrequently misled by the example of more advanced states. To elevate
Russia to an exalted place among nations, and give her the influence
which her vast extent and physical resources seemed to render within
her reach, was throughout life the great object of his ambition; and
he succeeded in it to an extent which naturally acquired for him the
unbounded admiration of mankind. His overthrow of the Strelitzes, long
the Prætorian guards and terror of the czars of Muscovy, was effected
with a vigour and stained by a cruelty similar to that with which
Sultan Mahommed a century after destroyed the Janissaries at
Constantinople. The sight of a young and despotic sovereign leaving
the glittering toys and real enjoyments of royalty to labour in the
dockyards of Saardem with his own hands, and instruct his subjects in
shipbuilding by first teaching himself, was too striking and
remarkable not to excite universal attention. And when the result of
this was seen: when the Czar was found introducing among his subjects
the military discipline, naval architecture, nautical skill, or any of
the arts and warlike institutions of Europe, and in consequence long
resisting and at length destroying the terrible conqueror who had so
long been the terror of Northern Europe, the astonishment of men knew
no bounds. He was at once the Solon and Scipio of modern times: and
literary servility, vying with great and disinterested admiration,
extolled him as one of the greatest heroes and benefactors of his
species who had ever appeared among men.

But time, the great dispeller of illusions, and whose mighty arm no
individual greatness, how great soever, can long withstand, has begun
to abate much from this colossal reputation. His temper was violent in
the extreme; frequent acts of hideous cruelty, and occasional
oppression, signalized his reign. More than any other man, he did evil
that good may come of it. He compelled his people, as he thought, to
civilisation, though, in seeking to cross the stream, hundreds of
thousands perished in the waves. "Peter the Great," says Mackintosh,
"did not civilize Russia: that undertaking was beyond his genius,
great as it was; he only gave the Russians the art of civilized war."
The truth was, he attempted what was altogether impracticable. No one
man can at once civilize a nation: he can only put it in the way of
civilisation. To complete the fabric must be the work of continued
effort and sustained industry during many successive generations. That
Peter failed in rendering his people on a level with the other nations
of Europe in refinement and industry, is no reproach to him. It was
impossible to do so in less than several centuries. The real
particular in which he erred was, that he departed from the national
spirit, that he tore up the national institutions, violated in
numerous instances the strongest national feelings. He clothed his
court and capital in European dress; but men do not put off old
feelings with the costume of their fathers. Peter's civilisation
extended no further than the surface. He succeeded in inducing an
extraordinary degree of discipline in his army, and the appearance of
considerable refinement among his courtiers. But it is easier to
remodel an army than change a nation; and the celebrated _bon-mot_ of
Diderot, that the Russians were "rotten before they were ripe," is but
a happy expression, indicating how much easier it is to introduce the
vices than the virtues of civilisation among an unlettered people. To
this day the civilisation of Russia has never descended below the
higher ranks; and the efforts of the real patriotic czars who have
since wielded the Muscovite sceptre, Alexander and Nicholas, have been
mainly directed to get out of the fictitious career into which Peter
turned the people, and revive with the old institutions the true
spirit and inherent aspirations of the nation. The immense success
with which their efforts have been attended, and the gradual, though
still slow descent of civilisation and improvement through the great
body of the people, prove the wisdom of the principles on which they
have proceeded. Possibly Russia is yet destined to afford another
illustration of the truth of Montesquieu's maxim, that no nation ever
yet rose to durable greatness but through institutions in harmony with
its spirit. And in charity let us hope that the words of Peter on his
death-bed have been realized: "I trust that, in respect of the good I
have striven to do my people, God will pardon my sins."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 17th December 1708. _Disp._ iv.
362.

[7] _Disp._ iv. 315, 323, 345. Marlborough to Duke de Mole, 10th Dec.
1708. _Ibid._ 346. COXE, iv. 278.

[8] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 3d January 1709, _Disp._ iv.
389.

[9] "'Can I do more than I do now?' said the King. 'I make treaties,
but the Emperor breaks his word with me, as well as Holland, every
moment. Besides it is impossible, without great inconvenience, _to
give more than three battalions_; and he is a wretch who would advise
me otherwise.' I said he was a wretch who should advise him not to do
it. He replied, 'You speak very boldly, and may perhaps repent it, if
your arguments are not conclusive.'"--General Grumbkow to Marlborough,
March 9, 1709. COXE, iv. 341.

[10] King of Prussia to Marlborough, March 9, 1709. COXE, iv. 346.

[11] In communicating the thanks of the House of Lords, the Chancellor
said,

"I shall not be thought to exceed my present commission, if, being
thus led to contemplate the mighty things which your Grace has done
for us, I cannot but conclude with acknowledging, with all gratitude,
the providence of God in raising you up to be an instrument of so much
good, in so critical a juncture, when it was so much wanted." COXE,
iv. 375.

[12] COXE, iv. 352, 366, 377.

[13] "M. de Torcy has offered so much, that I have no doubt it will
end in a good peace." Marlborough to Godolphin, 19th May 1707.

"Every thing goes on so well here, that there is no doubt of its
ending in a good peace. Government have in readiness the sideboard of
plate, and the chairs of state and canopy; and I beg it may be made so
as to form part of a bed when I am done with it here, _which I hope
may be by the end of this summer_, so that I may enjoy your dear
society in quiet, which is the greatest satisfaction I am capable of
having." Marlborough to the Duchess, 19th May 1709. COXE, iv. 393.

[14] _Mémoire, M. de Torcy_, ii. 104-111.

[15] SWIFT'S _Conduct of the Allies_, 72; COXE, iv. 395-415.

[16] "I have as much mistrust for the sincerity of France as any body
living can have; but I will own to you, that in my opinion, if France
had delivered the towns promised by the plenipotentiaries, and
demolished Dunkirk and the other towns mentioned, they must have been
at our discretion; so that if they had played tricks, so much the
worse for themselves." Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, June 10, 1709.
COXE, iv. 405.

[17] COXE, iv. 401.

[18] _Ibid._ v. i. 5.

[19] _Mém. de Villars_, ii. 63. Marlborough to Godolphin, June 27,
1709. COXE, iv. 5, 6.

[20] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 27th June 1709. _Disp._ iv.
520. COXE, v. 7, 8.

[21] Marlborough to Lord Galway, 4th July 1709; and to the Queen, 29th
July 1709. _Disp._ iv. 530 and 556. COXE, v. 8, 13. Marlborough's
private letters to the Duchess at this period, as indeed throughout
all his campaigns, prove how he was tired of the war, and how ardently
he sighed for repose at Blenheim. "The taking of the citadel of
Tournay will, I fear, cost us more men and time than that of the town;
but that which gives me the greatest prospect for the happiness of
being with you, is, that certainly the misery of France increases,
which must bring us a peace. The misery of the poor people we see is
such, that one must be a brute not to pity them. May you be ever
happy, and I enjoy some few years of quiet with you, is what I daily
pray for." Marlborough to the Duchess, July 30, 1709. COXE, v. 12.

[22] DUMONT'S _Military History_, ii. 104. COXE, v. 15, 16.

[23] A very striking incident occurred in the siege, which shows to
what a height the heroic spirit with which the troops were animated
had risen. An officer commanding a detachment, was sent by Lord
Albemarle to occupy a certain lunette which had been captured from the
enemy; and though it was concealed from the men, the commander told
the officer he had every reason to believe the post was undermined,
and that the party would be blown up. Knowing this, he proceeded with
perfect calmness to the place of his destination; and when provisions
and wine were served out to the men, he desired them to fill their
calashes, and said, "Here is a health to those who die the death of
the brave." The mine in effect was immediately after sprung; but
fortunately the explosion failed, and his comrades survived to relate
their commander's noble conduct.

[24] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 31st August and 3d September
1709. _Disp._ iv. 585, 588. COXE, v. 14, 18. DUMONT'S _Military
History_, ii. 103.

[25] Mackenzie's brigade, which joined Wellington's army after the
battle of Talavera, marched sixty-two English miles in twenty-six
hours. NAPIER, ii. 412.

[26] COXE, v. 20, 25. Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 7th September
1709. _Disp._ iv. 590.

[27] A similar incident occurred in the British service, when Sir
Henry, now Lord Hardinge, and Governor-general of India, served as
second in command to Sir Hugh Gough, his senior in military rank, but
subordinate in station, at the glorious battles of Ferozepore and
Sobraon, with the Sikhs. How identical is the noble and heroic spirit
in all ages and countries! It forms a freemasonry throughout the
world.

[28] COXE, v. 24, 25. _Disp._ iv. 588, 595.

[29] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, 7th and 11th September 1709.
_Disp._ iv. 591, 592. COXE, v. 25, 26.

[30] _Mém. de Villars_, ii. 167, 184. COXE, v. 26, 28.

[31] COXE, v. 29, 30. The author has passed over the ground, and can
attest the accuracy of the description here given.

[32] Viz. Artagnan, Maréchal de Montesquieu; De Guiche, Maréchal de
Grammont; Puysegur, Montmorenci, Coigny, Broglio, Chaulnes, Nangis,
Isenghien, Duras, Houdancourt, and Sanneterre. The monarchy never sent
forth a nobler array.

[33] COXE, v. 32. _Mém. de Villars_, ii, 280.

[34] COXE, v. 34, 37; DUMONT'S _Military History_, ii. 381-7.

[35] Marlborough's General Orders, Sept. 10, 1709.

[36] COXE, v. 40, 44.

[37] LEDIARD, _Life of Marlborough_, ii. 172, 180. COXE, v. 45, 47.

[38] The regiments of Tullibardine and Hepburn were almost all Atholl
Highlanders.

[39] COXE, v. 54, 63; _Disp._ v. 592, Marlborough to Mr Secretary
Boyle, Sept. 11, 1709, and to Mr Wauchope, same date, v. 598.

[40] "The Eugenes and Marlboroughs ought to be well satisfied with us
during that day; since till then they had not met with resistance
worthy of them. They may now say with justice that nothing can stand
before them; and indeed what shall be able to stay the rapid progress
of these heroes, if an army of one hundred thousand men of the best
troops, strongly posted between two woods, trebly entrenched, and
performing their duty as well as any brave men could do, were not able
to stop them one day? Will you not then own with me that they surpass
all the heroes of former ages?"--_Letter of a French Officer who
fought at Malplaquet_; COXE, v. 65.

[41] At Waterloo, there were sixty-nine thousand six hundred and
eighty-six men in Wellington's army, and the loss was twenty-two
thousand four hundred and sixty-nine, or one in three nearly; at
Malplaquet, it was one in five; at Talavera, one in four--five
thousand being killed and wounded out of nineteen thousand eight
hundred engaged.--SIBORNE'S _Waterloo_, ii. 352 and 519.

[42] Marlborough to Marshal Villars, 13th September 1709, and to Mr
Secretary Boyle, 16th September 1709; _Disp._ v. 596, 599.--COXE, v.
64.

[43] Marlborough to Mr Secretary Boyle, October 21, 1709. _Disp._ v.
617, 621.

[44] "Be assured that Mrs Masham and Mr Harley will, underhand, do
every thing that can make the business uneasy, particularly to you the
Lord Treasurer, and me, for they know well that if we were removed
every thing would be in their power. This is what they labour for,
believing it would make them both great and happy; but I am very well
persuaded it would be their destruction." _Marlborough to Godolphin_,
Nov. 1, 1709; COXE, v. 105.

[45] COXE, v. 105, 111.

[46] COXE, v. 115, 116.

[47] SWIFT, _Mem. on Queen's Change of Ministry in 1710_, p. 37. COXE,
v. 117-118.

[48] COXE, v. 124, 133.

[49] Duchess of Marlborough to Maynwaring, January 18, 1710. COXE, v.
134

[50] Marlborough to Queen Anne, January 19, 1710.

[51] "On Wednesday sennight I waited upon the Queen, in order to
represent the mischief of such recommendations in the army, and before
I came away I expressed all the concern for her change to me, that is
natural to a man that has served her so faithfully for many years,
which made no impression, nor was her Majesty pleased to take so much
notice of me as to ask my Lord Treasurer where I was upon her missing
me at Council. I have had several letters from him since I came here,
and I cannot find that her Majesty has ever thought me worth naming;
when my Lord Treasurer once endeavoured to show her the mischief that
would happen, she made him no answer but a bow." Marlborough to Lord
Somers, January 21, 1710.

[52] "If this unfortunate king had been so well advised as to have
made peace the beginning of this summer, he might in a great measure
have influenced the peace between France and the Allies, and made
other kingdoms happy. I am extremely touched with the misfortunes of
this young king. His continued successes, and the contempt he had of
his enemies, have been his ruin." Marlborough to Godolphin, August 26,
1709. _Disp._ v. 510.




THE AMERICANS AND THE ABORIGINES.

A TALE OF THE SHORT WAR.


PART THE LAST.


It may be present to the memory of some of our readers, that when the
British troops, under Sir Edward Pakenham, menaced New Orleans, the
constitution of Louisiana was temporarily and arbitrarily suspended by
General Jackson, commanding the American forces in the south, with a
view to greater unity in the defensive operations. This suspension
excited great indignation amongst the Louisianians, who viewed it as a
direct attack upon their liberties, unjustified by circumstances.
Meetings were called, and the general's conduct was made the subject
of vehement censure. When the news of the peace between England and
the United States, concluded in Europe before the fight of New Orleans
took place, arrived, judicial proceedings were instituted against
Jackson; he was found guilty of a violation of the Habeas Corpus act,
and condemned to a fine of two thousand dollars. This fine the
Louisianian Creoles were anxious to pay for him; but he preferred
paying it himself, and did so with a good grace, thereby augmenting
the popularity he had acquired by his victories over the Creek
Indians, and by the still more important repulse of Pakenham's
ill-planned and worse-fated expedition. In the book which forms the
subject of the present article, this historical incident has been
introduced, rather, however, to illustrate American character and
feelings, than in connexion with the main plot of the tale. Captain
Percy, a young officer of regulars, brings the announcement of the
suspension of the Louisianian constitution to a town on the
Mississippi, then the headquarters of the militia, who, at the moment
of his arrival, are assembled on parade. The general commanding reads
the despatch with grave dissatisfaction, and communicates its contents
to his officers. The news has already got wind through some passengers
by the steam-boat which brought the despatch-bearer, and discontent is
rife amongst the militia. The parade is dismissed, the troops
disperse, and the officers are about to return to their quarters, when
they are detained by the following incident:--

From the opposite shore of the river, two boats had some time
previously pushed off; one of them seeming at first uncertain what
direction to take. It had turned first up, then down stream, but had
at last pulled obliquely across the river towards the bayou or creek,
on the shore of which the little town was situated. It was manned by
sailors, judging from their shirts of blue and red flannel; but there
were also other persons on board, differently dressed, one of whom
reconnoitred the shore of the bayou with a telescope. It was the
strange appearance of these persons that now attracted the attention
of the officers. They were about twelve in number; some of them had
their heads bound up, others had their arms in slings; several had
great plasters upon their faces. They were of foreign aspect, and,
judging from the style of their brown, yellow, and black
physiognomies, of no very respectable class. As if wishing to escape
observation, they sat with their backs to the bayou. At a word from
General Billow, an officer stepped down to meet them.

The boat was close to shore, but as soon as the suspicious-looking
strangers perceived the approach of the militia officer, it was turned
into the creek and shot rapidly up it. Suddenly it was brought to
land; one of the better dressed of the men stepped out and approached
the captain of regulars, who just then came out of the guard-house.
With a military salute he handed him a paper, saluted again, and
returned to his companions in the boat. After a short time the whole
party ascended the bank of the bayou, and walked off in the direction
of the town. The captain looked alternately at the men and at the
paper, and then approached the group of officers.

"What do those people want?" inquired General Billow.

The officer handed him the paper.

"Read it yourself, general. I can hardly believe my eyes. A passport
for Armand, Marceau, Bernardin, Cordon, &c., planters from
Nacogdoches, delivered by the Mexican authorities, and countersigned
by the general-in-chief.

"Have you inquired their destination?"

Captain Percy shrugged his shoulders. "New Orleans. Any thing further,
the man tells me, is known to the general-in-chief. A most suspicious
rabble, and who seem quite at home here."

"Ah, Mister Billow and Barrow, how goes it? Glad to see you. You look
magnificent in your scarfs and plumes."

This boisterous greeting, uttered in a rough, good-humoured voice,
proceeded from our friend Squire Copeland, who had just landed from
the second boat with his companions and horses, and having given the
latter to a negro to hold, now stepped into the circle of officers,
his broad-brimmed quaker-looking hat decorated with the magnificent
bunch of feathers, for which his daughters had laid the tenants of the
poultry-yard under such severe contribution.

"Gentlemen," said he, half seriously and half laughing, "you see Major
Copeland before you. To-morrow my battalion will be here."

"You are welcome, major," said the general and other officers, with a
gravity that seemed intended as a slight check on the loquacity of
their new brother in arms.

"And these men," continued the major, who either did not or would not
understand the hint, "you might perhaps take for my aides-de-camp.
This one, Dick Gloom, is our county constable; and as to the other,"
he pointed to the Englishman, "I myself hardly know what to call him."

"I will help you then," interrupted Hodges, impatient at this singular
introduction. "I am an Englishman, midshipman of his Majesty's frigate
Thunderer, from which I have, by mishap, been separated. I demand a
prompt investigation of the fact, and report to your headquarters."

The general glanced slightly at the overhasty speaker, and then at the
written examination which the squire handed to him.

"This is your department, Captain Percy," said he; "be pleased to do
the needful."

The officer looked over the paper, and called an orderly.

"Let this young man be kept in strict confinement. A sentinel with
loaded musket before his door, and no one to have access to him."

"I really do not know which is the most suspicious," said the general;
"this spy, as he is called, or the queer customers who have just
walked away."

Squire Copeland had heard with some discontent the quick decided
orders given by the captain of regulars.

"All that might be spared," said he. "He's as nice a lad as ever I
saw. I was sitting yesterday at breakfast, when a parcel of my
fellows, who are half horse, half alligator, and a trifle beyond, came
tumbling into the house as if they would have pulled it down. Didn't
know what it meant, till Joe Drum and Sam Shad brought the younker
before me, and wanted to make him out a spy. I had half a mind to
treat the thing as nonsense; but as we sat at table he let out
something about Tokeah; and when the women spoke of Rosa--you know who
I mean, Colonel Parker; Rosa, whom I've so often told you of--he got
as red as any turkey-cock. Thinks I to myself, 'tisn't all right;
better take him with you. You know Tokeah, the Indian, who gave us so
much trouble some fifteen years ago?"

"Tokeah, the chief of the Oconees?"

"The same," continued the squire. "I chanced to mention his name, and
the lad blurted out, 'Tokeah! Do you know him?' and when Mistress
Copeland spoke of Rosa"----

"But, my dear major, this circumstance is very important, and I see no
mention of it in your report," said the general reprovingly.

"I daresay not," replied the loquacious justice of peace; "he'd hardly
be such a fool as to put that down. I had my head and hands so full
that I asked him just to draw up an account of the matter himself."

The officers looked at each other.

"Upon my word, squire," said the general, "you take the duties of your
office pretty easily. Who ever heard of setting a spy to take down his
own examination, and a foreigner too? How could you so expose yourself
and us?"

The squire scratched himself behind the ear. "Damn it, you're right!"
said he.

During this dialogue, the officers had approached one of the five
taverns, composing nearly a third part of the infant town, towards
which the ill-looking strangers had betaken themselves. The latter
seemed very anxious to reach the house first, but owing to the
tardiness of some of their party, who walked with difficulty, they
were presently overtaken by the prisoner and his escort. When the
foremost of them caught a sight of the Englishman's face, he started
and hastily turned away. Hodges sprang on one side, stared him full in
the face, and was on the point of rushing upon him, when one of his
guards roughly seized his arm and pointed forwards.

"Stop!" cried the midshipman, "I know that man."

"Maybe," replied the orderly dryly, "Forward!"

"Let me go!" exclaimed Hodges, "It is the pirate."

"Pirate?" repeated the soldier, who had again laid hold of his
prisoner. "If you cut any more such capers, I'll take you to prison in
a way that your bones will remember for a week to come. This young man
says," added he to the officers, who just then came up, "that yonder
fellow is a pirate."

"Obey your orders," was the sole reply of the general; and again the
orderly pushed his prisoner onwards.

"And you?" said the militia general, turning to the foreigners--"Who
may you be?"

One of the strangers, half of whose face was bound up with a black
silk bandage, whilst of the other half, which was covered with a large
plaster, only a grey eye was visible, now stepped forward, and bowed
with an air of easy confidence.

"I believe I have the honour to address officers of militia, preparing
for the approaching conflict. If, as I hope, you go down stream
to-morrow, we shall have the pleasure of accompanying you."

"Very kind," replied the general.

"Not bashful," added the squire.

"We also are come," continued the stranger in the same free and easy
tone, "to lay our humble offering upon the altar of the land of
liberty, the happy asylum of the persecuted and oppressed. Who would
not risk his best blood for the greatest of earth's blessings?"

"You are very liberal with your best blood," replied the general
dryly. "How is it that, being already wounded, you come so far to seek
fresh wounds in a foreign service?"

"Our wounds were received from a party of Osages who attacked us on
the road, and paid dearly for their temerity. We are not quite
strangers here; we have for many years had connexions in New Orleans,
and some of the produce of our plantations will follow us in a few
days."

"And this gentleman," said Colonel Parker, who, after staring for some
time at one of the adventurers, now seized him by the collar, and in
spite of his struggles dragged him forward: "does he also come to make
an offering upon liberty's altar?"

With a blow of his hand he knocked off the man's cap, and with it a
bandage covering part of his face.

"By jingo! dat our Pompey, what run from Massa John in New Orlean,"
tittered the colonel's black servant, who stood a little on one side
with the horses.

"Pompey not know massa. Pompey free Mexican. Noding to massa,"
screamed the runaway slave.

"You'll soon learn to know me," said the colonel. "Orderly, take this
man to jail, and clap irons on his neck and ankles."

"You will remain here," said the general in a tone of command to the
spokesman of the party, who had looked on with an appearance of
perfect indifference during the detection and arrest of his black
confederate.

"It will be at your peril if you detain us," was the reply. "We are
ordered to repair to headquarters as speedily as possible."

"The surgeon will examine you, and if you are really wounded, you
will be at liberty to fix your temporary abode in the town. If not,
the prison will be your lodging."

"Sir!" said the man with an assumption of haughtiness.

"Say no more about it," replied the general coldly--"the
commander-in-chief shall be informed of your arrival, and you will
wait his orders here."

The stranger stepped forward, as if he would have expostulated, but
the general turned his back upon him, and walked away. A party of
militia now took charge of the gang, and conducted them to the
guard-house.

This scarred and ill-looking crew are Lafitte and the remnant of his
band, come, according to a private understanding with General Jackson,
to serve the American artillery against the British, (an historical
fact.) Their bandages and plasters being found to cover real wounds,
they are allowed to quarter themselves at the _estaminet_ of the Garde
Imperiale, kept by a Spaniard called Benito, once a member of
Lafitte's band, but now settled in Louisiana, married, and,
comparatively speaking, an honest man. Benito is greatly alarmed at
the sight of his former captain and comrades, and still more so when
they insist upon his aiding them that very night to rescue Pompey the
negro, lest he should betray their real character to the militia
officers. Lafitte promises to have the runaway slave conveyed across
the Mississippi; but as this would require the absence, for at least
three hours, of several of the pirates, who, although at liberty, are
kept under a species of surveillance, the real intention is to make
away with the unfortunate Pompey as soon as the boat is at a certain
distance from land. The negro is confined in a large building used as
a cotton store, built of boards, and in a dilapidated condition; the
militia on guard leave their post to listen to the proceedings of a
meeting then holding for the discussion of General Jackson's
unconstitutional conduct, and, profiting by their absence, Benito and
four of the pirates, Mexican Spaniards, contrive the escape of a
prisoner whom they believe to be Pompey. In the darkness they mistake
their man, and bring away Hodges, who is confined in the same
building. This occurs at midnight. The meeting, which absorbs the
attention of the militia, is not yet over, when the four pirates,
Benito, and the rescued prisoner, arrive at the junction of the creek
and the Mississippi, and, unmooring a boat, prepare to embark.

At this moment a second boat became visible, gliding gently down the
bayou towards the stream.

"_Que diablo!_" muttered the Mexicans. "What is that?"

The boat drew near; a man was in it.

"Who is that?" whispered the pirates, and then one of them sprang
suddenly into the strange skiff, whence the clanking of chains was
heard to proceed. The Mexican stared the unwelcome witness hard in the
face.

"Ah, massa Miguel!" cri

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