of joining the Prince, marched off quite another way; the Prince of Orange, with the Dutch and Spanish troops, marched directly for Ghent; exclaiming publicly against the chicanery of Souches, and openly declaring, that he had been advertised of a conference between a French Capuchin and that General, the night before. Certain it is, that that General lay under the displeasure of his master, the Emperor, for that piece of management; and the Count de Sporck was immediately appointed general in his place.

The Prince of Orange was hereupon

leaving the army in great disgust, till prevailed upon by the Count de Montery, for the general safety, to recede from that resolution. However, seeing no likelihood of any thing further to be done, while Souches was in command, he resolved upon a post of more action, though more dangerous; wherefore ordering ten thousand men to march before, he himself soon after followed to the siege of Grave.

Carries on

the siege of Grave,

And takes

it.

The Grave, a strong place, and of the first moment to the Hollanders, had been blocked up by the Dutch forces all the summer; the Prince of Orange, therefore, leaving the main army under Prince Waldeck at Ghent, followed the detachment he had made for the siege of that important place, resolving to purchase it at any rate. On his arrival before it, things began to find new motion; and as they were carried on with the utmost application and fury, the besieged found themselves, in a little time, obliged to change their haughty summer note for one more suitable to the

season.

The Prince, from his first coming, having kept those within hotly plied with ball, both from cannon and mortars, Monsieur Chamilly, the governor, after a few days, being weary of such warm work, desired to capitulate; upon which hostages were exchanged, and articles agreed on next morning. Pursuant to which, the garrison marched out with drums beating and co

lours 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

Limburgh besieged and taken by the French.

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.

besieged by

the Prince

of Orange.

In the year 1676, the Prince of Orange Maestrich 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 Rhingrave and the same Cal