promoted count Lowendahl to the rank of a mareschalof France; and having appointed count Saxe governor of the conquered Netherlands, he returned in triumph to Versailles. "The peace," said the penetrating and victorious governor, "lies in Maestricht !"-But the siege of that important place being reserved for the next campaign, both the French and the allies went into winter quarters, without engaging in any new enterprise. Fortunately for the confederates, the French were not equally successful on the frontiers of Italy, during this campaign; although the mareschal de Belleisle, early in the season, saw himself at the head of a powerful army in Provence, which threatened to carry every thing before it. He passed the Var, in the month of April, and took possession of Nice. He reduced Montalban, Villafranca, and Ventimiglia almost without resistance, and obliged the Austrians, under count Brown, to retire toward Final and Savona. Nor were these the most important consequences of his expedition. The court of Vienna, enraged at the revolt of the Genoese, was resolved to reduce them again to subjection, and severely to chastise the capital of the republic. Count Schuylemberg, who had succeeded the marquis de Botta in the chief command of Italy, was accordingly ordered to invest Genoa, with a powerful army of Austrians and Piedmontese. Meanwhile the king of France, sensible of the importance of that city to the cause of the house of Bourbon, had remited large sums, in order to enable the inhabitants to put it in a posture of defence; and, beside engineers and officers to discipline the troops of the republic, he sent thither a body of four thousand five hundred men, under the duke of Boufflers, for the greater security of the place, and to animate the Genoese to a bold resistance. The design took effect. The citizens of Genoa resolved to perish rather than again submit to the Austrians. But the force sent against them made their fate very doubtful. 11. Mem. de Saxe. Schuylemberg, Schuylemberg, assembled his army in the duchy of Milan, in the month of January; and having forced the passage of the Bochetta, entered the territories of Genoa, and appeared before the capital at the head of near forty thousand men. As the inhabitants obstinately refused to lay down their arms, and even treated with derision the proposal made them of submitting to the clemency of the court of Vienna; the place was regularly invested, and although the Genoese behaved with great spirit in several sallies, animated by the example of the French troops under the duke of Boufflers, the Austrian general conducted his operations with so much skill, vigour, and intrepidity, that he must at last have accomplished his enterprize, had not his attention been diverted to another quarter. Alarmed at the progress of the mareschal de Belleisle, the king of Sardinia and count Brown represented to Schuylemberg the necessity of raising the siege of Genoa, in order to cover Piedmont and Lombardy. He accordingly drew off his army, and joined his Sardinian majesty, to the great joy of the Genoese; who, in revenge of the injuries they had suffered, ravaged the duchies of Parma and Placentia. The apprehensions of the king of Sardinia for his hereditary dominions were by no means groundless. While the mareschal de Belleisle lay at Ventimiglia, his brother, the chevalier, attempted to penetrate into Piedmont, by the way of Dauphiny, at the head of thirty thousand French and Spaniards, emulous of glory under so gallant a leader. When he arrived at the Pass of Exiles, a strong post on the north side of the river Doria, he found fourteen battalions of Piedmontese and Austrians waiting for him, behind ramparts of wood and stone, lined with artillery: and all the passes of the Alps were secured by detachments of the same troops. Not discouraged by those obstacles, Belleisle attacked the Piedmontese entrenchments with great intrepidity. But he was repulsed 9. Mem. de Noailles, tom. iv. Contin. of Rapin, vol. ix. with loss in three successive assaults; and being deter mined to perish rather than survive a miscarriage, he seized a pair of colours, and advancing at the head of his troops, through an incessant fire, planted them with his own hand on the enemy's battlements. At that instant he fell dead, having received the thrust of a bayonet and two musket balls in his body. Many other officers of distinction were killed; and the survivors, discouraged by the loss of their brave commander, retired with precipitation, leaving behind them about five thousand slain. The mareschal de Belleisle was no sooner informed of his brother's fate, than he retreated toward the Var, in order to join the unfortunate army from Exiles. About the same time, the king of Sardinia, having assembled an army of seventy thousand men, threatened Dauphiny with an invasion. But excessive rains prevented the execution of the enterprize, and the campaign was closed without any other memorable event. The naval transactions of this year were more favourable to Great-Britain than those of any other during the war. Her success was great almost beyond example, but more advantageous than glorious, as she had a manifest superiority of force in every engagement. The English fleet under the admirals Anson and Warren, consisting of eleven sail of the line, three ships of fifty, and one of forty guns, fell in with a French fleet of six sail of the line in the beginning of May, off Cape Finisterre. The French fleet was commanded by the marquis de la Jonquiere and Mons. St. George, having under their convoy thirty-six ships laden with stores and merchandise, bound for America and the East-Indies. The battle 10. Voltaire represents the chevalier de Belleisle as attempting to pull up the palisades with his teeth, after being wounded in both arms. 'This is a perfectly ludicrous image; and admitting the assumed fact to be true, utterly inconsistent with the dignity of history. But it is by no means uncommon, even with the best French writers, to excite laughter, when they attempt the sublime. began began about four in the afternoon: and although the French seamen and commanders behaved with singular courage, and discovered no want of conduct, six ships of war and four armed East-Indiamen were taken". About six weeks after this engagement, and nearly in the same latitude, commodore Fox fell in with a fleet of merchantmen, from St. Domingo, laden with the rich productions of that fertile island, and took forty-six of them. Admiral Hawke was no less successful. He sailed from Plymouth in the beginning of August, with fourteen ships of the line, to intercept a fleet of French merchantmen bound for the West-Indies. He cruised for some time off the coast of Brittany; and at last the French fleet sailed from the isle of Aix, under convoy of nine ships of the line, besides frigates, commanded by Mons. de Letendeur. On the 14th of October, the two squadrons came within sight of each other, about seven in the morning, in the latitude of Belleisle. By noon both were engaged. The battle lasted till night, when six French ships of the line struck to the British flag. The rest escaped under cover of the darkness; having all maintained, with great obstinacy, a gallant but unequal fight. These naval victories, which in a manner annihilated the French fleet, and the sailing of admiral Boscawen, with a strong squadron, and a considerable body of land-forces, for the East-Indies, where it was conjectured he would not only recover Madras but reduce Pondicherry, disposed Lewis XV. to think seriously of peace, and even to listen to moderate terms, notwithstanding the great superiority of his arms in the Low-Countries. Other causes conspired to the same effect. His finances were almost exhausted: the trade of his subjects was utterly ruined: and he could no longer depend upon supplies from the mines of Mexico and Peru, in the present low state of the French and Spanish navy. 11. Lond. Gazette, May 16, 1747. Contin. of Rapin, vol. ix. The success success of his arms in Italy had fallen infinitely short of his expectation; and the republic of Genoa, though a necessary, was become an expensive ally. His views had been totally defeated in Germany, by the elevation of the grand duke to the Imperial throne, and the subsequent pacification between the houses of Austria, Bavaria, and Brandenburg. He was still victorious in the Netherlands; but the election of a stadtholder, by uniting the force of the states-general against him, left little hopes of future conquests in that quarter; especially as the British parlia ment, whose resources were yet copious, and whose liberality seemed to know no bounds, had enabled their sovereign to conclude a subsidiary treaty with the empress of Russia, who engaged to hold in readiness an army of thirty thousand men, and forty gallies, to be employed in the service of the confederates, on the first requisition. Influenced by these considerations, the king of France made advances toward an accommodation both at London and the Hague; and all parties, the subsidiary powers excepted, being heartily tired of the war, it was agreed to open a new congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, as soon as the plenipotentiaries could receive their instructions. In the mean time, vigorous preparations for war were made in every quarter; but the preliminaries of a general pacification were signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, and a cessation of arms took place, before any enterprize of consequence was undertaken, except the siege of Maestricht. Mareschal Saxe invested that important place in the beginning of April; and he concerted his measures with so much judgment, that Lowendahl was enabled to carry on his operations without interruption, though the army of the confederates, under the duke of Cumberland, to the number of an hundred and ten thousand men, lay in the immediate neighbourhood. The town was defended by twenty-four battalions of Dutch and Austrian. troops, commanded by baron d'Aylva, who opposed the besiegers with great skill and resolution. They prosecuted |