tulate; upon which hostages were exchanged, and articles agreed on next morning. Pursuant to which, the garrison marched out with drums beating and colours flying two days after, and were conducted to Charleroy.

By the taking this place, which made the prince of Orange the more earnest upon it, the French were wholly expelled their last year's astonishing conquests in Holland. And yet there was another consideration, that rendered the surrender of it much more considerable. For the French being sensible of the great strength of this place, had there deposited all their cannon and ammunition, taken from their other conquests in Holland, which they never were able to remove or carry off, with tolerable prospect of safety, after that prince's army first took the field.

The enemy being marched out, the prince entered the town, and immediately ordered public thanksgivings for its happy reduction. Then, having appointed a governor, and left a sufficient garrison, he put an end to that campaign, and returned to the Hague, where he had not been long before he fell ill of the small-pox. The consternation this threw the whole country into, is not to be expressed: any one that had seen it would have thought that the French had made another inundation greater than the former. But when the danger was over, their joy and satisfaction for his recovery was equally beyond expression.

The year 1675 yielded very little remarkable in our army. Limburgh was besieged by the French, under the command of the duke of Enguien, which the prince of Orange having intelligence of, immediately decamped from his fine camp at Bethlem, near Louvain, in order to raise the siege. But as we were on a full march for that. purpose, and had already reached Ruremond, word was brought, that the place had surrendered the day before. Upon which advice, the prince, after a short halt, made his little army (for it consisted not of more than thirty

thousand men) march back to Brabant. Nothing of moment, after this, occurred all that campaign.

In the year 1676 the prince of Orange having, in concert with the Spaniards, resolved upon the important siege of Maestrich, the only town in the Dutch provinces then remaining in the hands of the French, it was accordingly invested about the middle of June, with an army of twenty thousand men, under the command of his highness prince Waldeck, with the grand army covering the siege. It was some time before the heavy cannon, which we expected up the Maes, from Holland, arrived; which gave occasion to a piece of raillery of monsieur Calvo, the governor, which was as handsomely reparteed. That governor, by a messenger, intimating his sorrow to find we had pawned our cannon for ammunition bread; answer was made, that in a few days we hoped to give him a taste of the loaves, which he should find would be sent him into the town in extraordinary plenty. I remember another piece of raillery, which passed some days after between the Rhinegrave and the same Calvo. The former sending word, that he hoped within three weeks to salute that governor's mistress within the place, Calvo replied, he would give him leave to kiss her all over, if he kissed her anywhere in three months.

But our long expected artillery being at last arrived, all this jest and merriment was soon converted into earnest. Our trenches were immediately opened towards the dauphin bastion, against which were planted many cannon, in order to make a breach; myself, as a probationer, being twice put upon the forlorn hope to facilitate that difficult piece of service. Nor was it long before such a breach was effected as was esteemed practicable, and therefore very soon after it was ordered to be attacked.

The disposition for the attack was thus ordered; two serjeants with twenty grenadiers, a captain with fifty

men, myself one of the number; then a party carrying wool sacks, and after them two captains with one hundred men more; the soldiers in the trenches to be ready to sustain them, as occasion should require.

The signal being given, we left our trenches accordingly, having about one hundred yards to run, before we could reach the breach, which we mounted with some difficulty and loss; all our batteries firing at the same instant, to keep our action in countenance, and favour our design. When we were in possession of the bastion, the enemy fired most furiously upon us with their small cannon through a thin brick wall, by which, and their hand grenadoes, we lost more men than we did in the attack itself.

But well had it been had our ill fortune stopped there; for as if disaster must needs be the concomitant of success, we soon lost what we had thus gotten, by a small, but very odd accident. Not being furnished with such scoops as our enemies made use of in tossing their hand grenadoes some distance off, one of our own soldiers aiming to throw one over the wall into the counterscarp among the enemy, it so happened that he unfortunately missed his aim, and the grenade fell down again on our side the wall, very near the person who fired it. He, starting back to save himself, aud some others who saw it fall doing the like, those who knew nothing of the matter fell into a sudden confusion, and imagining some greater danger than there really was, everybody was struck with a panic fear, and endeavoured to be the first who should quit the bastion, and secure himself by a real shame from an imaginary evil. Thus was a bastion, that had been gloriously gained, inadvertently deserted; and that too with the loss of almost as many men in the retreat as had been slain in the onset; and the enemy most triumphantly again took possession of it.

Among the slain on our side in this action, was an

ensign of sir John Fenwick's regiment; and as an approbation of my services, his commission was bestowed upon me.

A few days after it was resolved again to storm that bastion, as before; out of three English, and one Scotch regiments, then in the camp, a detachment was selected for a fresh attack. Those regiments were under the command of sir John Fenwick (who was afterwards beheaded), colonel Ralph Widdrington, and colonel Ashley, of the English; and sir Alexander Collier, father of the present lord Portmore, of the Scotch. Out of every of these four regiments, as before, were detached a captain, a lieutenant, and an ensign, with fifty men: captain Anthony Barnwell, of sir John Fenwick's regiment, who was now my captain, commanding that attack.

At break of day the attack was begun with great resolution; and though vigorously maintained, was attended with the desired success. The bastion was again taken, and in it the commanding officer, who in service to himself, more than to us, told us that the centre of the bastion would soon be blown up, being to his knowledge undermined for that purpose. But this secret proved of no other use than to make us, by way of precaution, to keep as much as we could upon the rampart. In this attack captain Barnwell lost his life; and it happened my new commission was wetted, (not, as too frequently is the custom, with a debauch) but with a bullet through my hand, and the breach of my collar-bone with the stroke of a halberd.

After about half an hour's possession of the bastion, the mine under it, of which the French officer gave us warning, was sprung; the enemy at the same time making a furious sally upon us. The mine did a little, though the less execution, for being discovered; but the sally no way answered their end, for we beat them back, and immediately fixed our lodgment; which we maintained during the time of the siege. But to our

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double surprise, a few days after they fired another mine under, or aside, the former, in which they had placed a quantity of grenadoes, which did much more execution than the other: notwithstanding all which, a battery of guns was presently erected upon that bastion, which very considerably annoyed the enemy.

The breach for a general storm was now rendered almost practicable; yet before that could be advisably attempted, there was a strong hornwork to be taken. Upon this exploit the Dutch troops only were to signalise themselves; and they answered the confidence reposed in them; for though they were twice repulsed, at the third onset they were more successful, and took possession; which they likewise kept to the raising of the siege.

There was a stratagem laid at this time, which in its own merit one would have thought should not have failed of a good effect; but to show the vanity of the highest human wisdom, it miscarried. On the other side of the Maes, opposite to Maestrich, lies the strong fortress of Wyck, to which it is joined by a stone bridge of six fair arches. The design was, by a false attack on that regular fortification, to draw the strength of the garrison to its defence, which was but very natural to imagine would be the consequence. Ready to attend that well-concerted false attack, a large flat-bottomed boat, properly furnished with barrels of gunpowder, and other necessaries, was to fall down under one of the middle arches, and when fixed there, by firing the powder to have blown up the bridge, and by that means to have prevented the return of the garrison to oppose a real attack at that instant of time to be made upon the town of Maestrich by the whole army.

The false attack on Wyck was accordingly made, which, as proposed, drew the main of the garrison of Maestrich to its defence, and the boat so furnished fell down the river as projected, but unfortunately, before