334

DISCONTENTS IN SCOTLAND-JACOBITE PLOTS.

(1708 had been accustomed to have their duties farmed, upon a system of composition for the tax payers. When the gauger came with his accurate measurements, and the loose system would no longer prevail, the indignation was very general, though very unreasonable. The Customs were also obnoxious; and a contraband trade was very soon established. The Equivalent money, too, was delayed in its arrival, from the somewhat low state of the English exchequer. When it was paid there were only a hundred thousand pounds sent in specie, and the remainder in bills. Even the specie was not welcomed; for the populace of Edinburgh were incited to stone the carters who conducted the precious deposit to the Castle. The people at first refused to take the bills; but regularity of payment soon removed the difficulty. There had been a year of grumbling on both sides of the Tweed; for the English merchants looked with aversion, upon the system that had been attempted, of sending foreign goods to the Thames as Scottish merchandise. There were seizures of French wine and brandy, which were held to be smuggled from abroad. The interference of the government prevented a collision, by remitting the penalties which the Board of Customs would have exacted. But there was mutual exasperation; and very angry commercial jealousy.

After the discussions in the Scottish Parliament upon the question of Union, a Jacobite agent from France had been busy in stirring up the disaffected to an insurrection. This ambassador from St. Germain's was colonel Hooke; and he came with offers of French assistance, to unite with the Scots to whom the Union was held to be hateful, for the invasion of England. The legitimate king was to lead the conquering forces of his ancient realm; and he should wear the two crowns, as his royal ancestor, the sixth James, had worn them. This enthusiastic agent had communications with several peers of well-known Jacobite principles. He was also endeavouring to work among the Cameronians; and he received assurances from our amusing friend, John Ker, of Kersland, that five thousand of these fighting zealots should take the field. This worthy patriot had again seen the duke of Queensberry, and told him that there was a project to bring in the Pretender. "The duke was much surprised when he understood a French power was to land in Scotland, and desired me to go into their measures in order to discover the plot." Ker had scruples: "I told him I was afraid I had gone through too much dirty work already." The duke went to London. "I retired," he says, "to Kersland, to breathe some honest air in the country." But "the bugbear of Popery" still troubled his head. The agents came from St. Germain's; let him into the whole affair; promised that nothing should be wanting to secure the Protestant religion; settled that five thousand troops should be sent from France; and forthwith, says the candid autobiographer, "I acquainted the duke of Queensberry with what had passed." In this juncture Ker exercised his influence with the Cameronians, not to excite them to insurrection, and then betray them, but in persuading them not to rise. His information, however, from the Jacobite agents was correct, and his warnings to the government were useful. But he received small personal benefit for his "good services; " and he adds, out of the depth of his frank soul, " Truly, I dare say, I was rewarded just as I deserved." *

"Memoirs," p. 40 to p. 61.

1708.]

ATTEMPTED INVASION-DISMISSAL OF HARLEY.

335

At

In January, 1708, the British government, with a full knowledge of the contemplated invasion, was carefully observing preparations for an armament at Dunkirk. Sir George Byng was cruising in the Channel, with sixteen men-of-war. At the beginning of March, fifteen French battalions and three hundred volunteers were embarked; and prince Charles Edward, known as the Pretender, having gone on board, a fleet of twenty-eight vessels, commanded by the French admiral Fourbin, came out of Dunkirk. Ostend, Byng learnt that they had evaded him; and from the state of the wind and tide, they had eight hours' start of him in their voyage towards Scotland. The French admiral overshot the Frith of Forth; but returned southward from the coast near Montrose, and lay off May Island. When the English squadron appeared, Fourbin sailed in hot haste into the North Sea, without making any attempt to land his troops. The Scots, it was said, made no response to his signals. Byng did not make any pursuit, and the troops and their leader were re-landed at Dunkirk.

Had the French expedition made a descent, the government might have been seriously embarrassed, for the queen's troops in Scotland were very few, and there was little preparation for resistance. Previous to the attempt, there had been a serious disorganization in the ministry. Harley was carrying on, through his influence over the queen, schemes for the construction of a party opposed to the powerful ministers, Godolphin and Marlborough with whom he had been serving. A clerk of Harley, named Gregg, was detected in a correspondence with the French secretary-of-state, to whom he bad communicated important secrets of office. He was tried, and convicted of treason on his own confession; but he persisted to the end in averring that Harley had no part in his treachery. Various revelations were made of the subtle minister's intrigues at court; and Godolphin and Marlborough insisted on his dismissal. The queen would not consent. The lord-treasurer and the commander-in-chief did not appear at the Cabinet Council, refusing to meet Harley. The queen reluctantly yielded to necessity, and the secretary resigned the seals. St. John and other official persons also resigned. The wretched Gregg was executed. The dismissal of Harley was the prelude to that change in the councils of Anne which divided the nation more completely into Whig and Tory factions, and produced a struggle for political ascendancy as remarkable as any in the history of parties. The Whigs, for a time, were in the ascendant. The resignation of St. John opened the important office of secretary-at-war to Robert Walpole.

It was not till the beginning of July, 1708, that the war in the Netherlands assumed any decisive character. There was a French army of a hundred thousand men advancing to Brabant, under the command of the duke de Vendôme. The Dutch had conducted themselves with so much harshness in the fortified places which had been surrendered after the battle of Ramilies, that the inhabitants had become thoroughly adverse to the cause of the Allies, and they looked with joy at the advance of the French. Marlborough was inactive through June, waiting for prince Eugene and his army, marching from Vienna. In the mean time the gates of Ghent and Bruges had been opened to the French; and Marlborough wrote to Godolphin, on the 9th of July, "The States have used this country so ill, that I no ways doubt but all the towns in it will play us the same trick as Ghent has done, whenever

336

GHENT SURRENDERED TO THE FRENCH.

[1708.

they have it in their power."* At the date of this letter Marlborough was marching day and night, to come up with the French who were preparing to invest Oudenarde. Prince Eugene had joined him alone, having hurried on before his troops. They immediately determined to attack Vendôme, and to take a line of march that would interpose between him and the French frontier. But Marlborough, at this most important juncture, would have been little fitted for conducting a great battle, had he been formed of the same yielding materials as ordinary men. In the letter to Godolphin of the 9th of July, in which he attributes the surrender of Ghent to the harsh conduct of the Dutch to the people of the Spanish Netherlands, he says, "I should answer two of your letters, but the treachery of Ghent, continual marching, and some letters I have received from England, have so vexed me, that I was yesterday in so great a fever, that the doctor would have persuaded me to have gone to Brussels; but I thank God I am now better, and by the next post I hope to answer your letters." This impassive man can feel then. His plans of warfare are disconcerted; he is exhausted by wearisome marches; but, worst of all, he has the agitation of letters "received from England." The future greatness of the ambitious commander, who has more of the dizzy heights of fortune yet to scale, may altogether depend upon those letters. He had written at the end of May to Godolphin, "I am very glad to find by yours of the 11th, that you have hopes that Mrs. Morley, though late, will do what you desire. Nothing else can make us happy in serving her well; for though I should have success, that might give safety abroad, but could not hinder disagreeable things at home."+ Mrs. Morley (the queen), though she had dismissed Harley from her councils, kept up her correspondence with him, through her new favourite, Mrs. Masham. Mrs. Freeman (the duchess) had not yielded up her old influence without an attempt to subdue Mrs. Morley entirely to her will, not by blandishments, but by an imperial contempt of her majesty's understanding and conduct. The duchess, when, in the autumn of 1707, she remonstrated against the appointment of two high-churchmen to vacant benefices, employed the following extraordinary language:-"I hope your majesty will not be so much offended with me as you have lately been, if I believe those things for your good that are thought so by those that have served you with so much success-men that have a view of all things and all sorts of people, whereas your majesty has had the misfortune to be misinformed in general things. Even from twelve years old, you have heard in your father's court strange names given to men by flatterers in these former reigns, for no reason in the world but that they would not continue to carry on Popery. That, and many other things too long to repeat in a letter, has given your majesty very wrong notions, and you are like people that never read but one sort of books,-you can't possibly judge unless you heard all things stated fairly." The ascendancy of Mrs. Masham was, under the tuition of Harley, rapidly driving Mrs. Morley to cast off her dear friend Mrs. Freeman, who used such plain speaking. Upon such slight things do the fates of nations depend. Marlborough had a fever-fit: but he roused himself, and, three days after, won the great victory of Oudenarde.

*Coxe, vol. iv. p. 133, edit. 1820.

Coxe, vol. iv. p. 108.

Correspondence of Sarah, duchess of Marlborough.

1708.]

BATTLE OF OUDENARDE.

*

837

Those letters to the ministry at home in which Marlborough relates the results of a battle rarely contain any precise military details. In the instance of his victory at Oudenarde, he sends a note of a few lines to the Secretary of State, referring him to the aide-de-camp he has sent "to give the queen an account of his great success." But five days after this battle of the 11th of July, he writes a letter of very minute information to count Piper, the minister of Charles XII. of Sweden, in which he describes his operations, for the information of that king to whom fighting was the great object of existence. We translate a few passages of this letter, written in French, which may still be read with interest. Having described the occupation of Ghent by the enemy, after they had remained some weeks in their camp of Braine-la-Leude, he says, "their army marched at the same time to make assurance of their new conquest, believing that by that they would become masters of all Flanders. They first desired to besiege Oudenarde, which they had invested on the 9th,. and to cover the siege their army marched on the 10th to seize on the camp of Lessines. They were only two leagues from it, when they found that we had anticipated them, by forced marches. Seeing that we had already begun to pass the Dender at Lessines, they recalled their forces from before Oudenarde, to fall back upon Gavre, upon the Escaut [Scheldt] previous to passing that river. This passage they commerced at four o'clock on the morning of the 11th and the same day we continued our march towards Oudenarde, five leagues distant from our camp." It was this march of unexampled rapidity that gave Marlborough his triumph. The French were quite unprepared for the sudden presence of his army, ready to give immediate battle, after a fatiguing march through a close country, with a great river to cross at the end of that march. Saint Simon relates that when it was reported to the French Commander, the duke de Vendôme, that all the army of the Allies was in sight, having crossed the Scheldt, he maintained that it could not be true. An officer arrived to confirm the news; but Vendôme still continued obstinate in his opinion. A third messenger, and then he mounted his horse, saying "that all this was the work of the devil, and that such diligence was impossible." He soon was relieved of his incredulity. We turn again to Marlborough's own narrative. Bridges had been constructed by an advanced detachment. The main body of the army reached these bridges at noon. "The enemy moved forward, and took their ground, which obliged our detachment, about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, to attack their advance; which was executed with success. A brigade, having defeated and killed or taken seven battalions, had thus given time to a part of our army to join them, while the enemy formed in lines. Although many of our troops were not yet come up, between five and six o'clock the battle commenced, principally between the infantry; and it lasted till night, when the enemy retreated towards Ghent in great confusion." In this battle scarcely any use was made of artillery. Marlborough's march had been too rapid to allow him to bring more than a few pieces of cannon into the field; and the French appear to have been equally short of this great arm of war. In a dispatch to M. de Thungen, Marlborough says, "if we had had two more hours of day, it is probable that the enemy would have been entirely defeated. We have, how

Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 114.

VOL. V.

Z

338

SARDINIA AND MINORCA SURRENDERED.

[1708.

ever, about seven thousand prisoners, besides more than seven hundred officers, many of distinction, with a great number of colours and standards." The great general was very far from considering the battle of Oudenarde a total victory. He wrote, indeed, to Godolphin, "I hope I have given such a blow to their foot, that they will not be able to fight any more this year." + But Marlborough had work still to do before that campaign was finished. On the 26th of July, he wrote to Godolphin, that although the success at

Oudenarde had lessened the French army by at least twenty thousand men, he was uneasy. He had difficulty in getting cannon; he was in a country where the people had been commanded to abandon their dwellings, and retire to the strong towns. He had a notion, it is related, of penetrating into France by the northern frontier, having masked Lille. Even prince Eugene, with his fiery courage, regarded the attempt as too dangerous. The siege of Lille was therefore to be undertaken. That siege lasted till the winter. Meanwhile the fortified lines of the French near Ypres were destroyed, and Ghent again fell into the power of the Allies. There were successes of importance in other quarters. The island of Sardinia was taken by the English admiral, sir John Leake; and the same enterprising commander, in conjunction with general Stanhope, who had retrieved the fortunes of the Allies in Catalonia carried Port Mahon by storm; and thus the island of Minorca came into the possession of the English, who retained it for half a century. Other triumphs, in the Mediterranean and in South America, again established the naval superiority of England.

At the end of October died the husband of queen Anne, prince George of Denmark. For some time previous to his decease there had been a struggle on the part of some of the great Whig leaders to remove him from his office of Lord High Admiral, for which he was certainly incompetent. His death settled the dispute, and opened the way to the completion of a more decided Whig ministry. Upon the pedestal of a statue of prince George, in a niche at one end of the Town-hall of Windsor, it is recorded, in flattering falsehood, such as many another Latin inscription has recorded of the living and the

* Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 111.

+ Coxe, vol. iv. p. 154.