be endeavored to support the credit of his government by issuing mint-bills, in imitation of the bank-notes of England; but, notwithstanding all his precautions, they passed at a discount of three-and-fifty per cent: the lands lay uncultivated; the manufactures could be no longer carried on; and the subjects perished with famine. The allies, on the other hand, seemed to prosper in every quarter: they had become masters of the greatest part of the Netherlands, in consequence of the victory at Ramillies; the army of king Charles was considerably reinforced; a scheme was formed for the conquest of Toulon by the troops of the emperor and the duke of Savoy, supplied with a large sum of money by queen Anne, and assisted by the combined fleets of England and Holland, under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel : in a word, France seemed to be reduced to the verge of destruction, from which nothing in all probability could have saved her but the jealousy and misconduct of the confederates. Louis, by virtue of his capitulation with the emperor in Italy, was enabled to send such reinforcements into Spain, as turned the fortune of the war in that country; while the distractions in the council of king Charles prevented that unanimity and concurrence, without which no success can be expected. The earl of Peterborough declared against an offensive war, on account of the difficulty of finding subsistence in Castile; and advised Charles to trust to the expedition against Toulon: this opinion he sent from Italy, to which he had withdrawn.

19. Charles, however, was persuaded to penetrate once more to Madrid, and give battle to the enemy wherever they should appear on the thirteenth of March the army was assembled at Caudela, to the number of 16,000 men, under the auspices of the marquis das Minas, to whom the earl of Galway was second in command: they marched towards Yecla, and undertook the siege of Vilena; but, having received intelligence that the duke of Berwick was in the neighborhood, they advanced on the fourteenth of April in four columns towards the town of Almanza, where the enemy were drawn up in order of battle, their number being considerably superior to that of the confederates. The battle began about two in the afternoon, and the whole front of each army was fully engaged: the English and Dutch squadrons on the left, sustained by the Portuguese horse of the second line, were overpowered after a gallant resistance: the centre, consisting chiefly of battalions from

Great Britain and Holland, obliged the enemy to give way, and drove their first on their second line; but the Portu.. guese cavalry on the right being broken at their first charge, their foot betook themselves to flight; so that the English and Dutch troops being left naked on the flanks, were surrounded and attacked on every side in this dreadful emergency they formed themselves into a square, and retired from the field of battle. By this time the men were quite spent with fatigue, and all their ammunition exhausted; they were ignorant of the country, abandoned by their horse, destitute of provision, and cut off from all hope of supply: moved by these dismal considerations, they capitulated, and surrendered themselves prisoners of war, to the amount of thirteen battalions: the Portuguese, and part of the English horse, with the infantry that guarded the baggage, retreated to Alcira, where they were joined by the earl of Galway, with about 2500 dragoons which he had brought from the field of battle: about 3000 men of the allied army were killed on the spot, and among that number brigadier Killigrew, with many officers of distinction: the earl of Galway, who charged in person at the head of Guiscard's dragoons, received two deep cuts in the face: the marquis das Minas was run through the arm, and saw his mistress, who fought in the habit of an Amazon, killed by his side: the lords Tyrawley, Mark Ker, and colonel Clayton were wounded: all their artillery, together with 120 colors and standards, and about 10,000 men, were taken, so that no victory could be more complete; yet it was not purchased without the loss of 2000 men slain in the action, including some officers of eminence. The duke of Berwick, who commanded the troops of king Philip, acquired a great addition of fame by his conduct and behavior before and during the engagement; but his authority was superseded by the duke of Orleans, who arrived in the army immediately after the battle: this prince seemed to entertain some private views of his own; for he took no effectual step to improve the victory he began a private negociation with the earl of Galway, during which the two armies lay inactive on the banks of the Cinca; and he concluded the campaign with the siege of Lerida, which was surrendered by capitulation on the second of November: then the troops on both sides went into winterquarters the earl of Galway and the marquis das Minas embarked at Barcelona for Lisbon, and general Carpenter remained commander of the English forces quartered in Ca

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talonia, which was now the only part of Spain that remained to king Charles.

20. The attempt on Toulon by the duke of Savoy and prince Eugene might have succeeded, if the emperor, notwithstanding the repeated remonstrances of the maritime powers, had not divided his army in Italy, by detaching a considerable body through the ecclesiastical state towards Naples, of which he took possession without any difficulty: besides, 10,000 recruits destined for the imperial forces in Italy were detained in Germany, from apprehension of the king of Sweden, who remained in Saxony, and seemed to be on very indifferent terms with the emperor. With the assistance of the English and Dutch fleets, the duke of Savoy and prince Eugene passed the Var on the eleventh of July,io at the head of an army of 30,000 men, and marched directly towards Toulon, whither the artillery and ammunition were conveyed on board of the combined squadrons: the French king was extremely alarmed at this attempt, as 5000 pieces of cannon, vast magazines, and the best part of his fleet were in the harbor of Toulon, and ran the greatest risk of being intirely taken or destroyed. The whole kingdom of France was filled with consternation when they found their enemies were in the bosom of their country: the monarch resolved to leave no stone unturned for the relief of the place, and his subjects exerted themselves in a very extraordinary manner for its preservation: the nobility of the adjacent provinces armed their servants and tenants, at the head of whom they marched into the city: they coined their plate, and pawned their jewels for money to pay the workmen employed on the fortifications; and such industry was used, that in

10 This passage was effected to the astonishment of the French, who thought the works they had raised on that river were impregnable the honor of the enterprise was in a great measure owing to the gallantry of Sir John Norris and the English seamen : that brave officer, embarking in boats with 600 sailors and marines, entered the river, and were rowed within musket-shot of the enemy's works, where they made such a vigorous and unexpected attack, that the French were immediately driven from part of their intrenchments; then Sir John landed with his men, clambered over the works that were deemed inaccessible, and attacking the defendants sword in hand, compelled them to fly with the utmost precipitation: this detachment was sustained by Sir Cloudesley Shovel in person. The duke of Savoy, taking advantage of the enemy's consternation, passed the river almost without opposition.

a few days the town and harbor, which had been greatly neglected, were put in a good posture of defence. The allies took possession of the eminences that commanded the city, and the ordnance being landed, erected batteries: from these they began to cannonade and bombard the city, while the fleet attacked and reduced two forts at the entrance of the mole, and co-operated in the siege with their great guns and bomb-ketches: the garrison was numerous, and defended the place with great vigor: they sunk ships in the entrance to the mole; they kept up a prodigious fire from the ramparts; they made desperate sallies, and even drove the besiegers from one of their posts with great slaughter. The French king, alarmed at this design of his enemies, ordered troops to march towards Toulon from all parts of his dominions: he countermanded the forces that were on their route to improve the victory of Almanza; a great part of the army under Villars on the Rhine was detached to Provence; and the court of Versailles declared that the duke of Burgundy should march at the head of a strong army to the relief of Toulon. The duke of Savoy, being apprised of these preparations, seeing no hope of reducing the place, and being apprehensive that his passage would be intercepted, resolved to abandon his enterprise: the artillery being re-embarked, with the sick and wounded, he decamped in the night, under favor of a terrible bombardment and cannonading from the English fleet, and retreated to his own country without molestation:" then he undertook the reduction of Suza, the garrison of which surrendered at discretion: by this conquest he not only secured the key to his own dominions, but also opened to himself a free passage into Dauphiny.

21. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, having left a squadron with Sir Thomas Dilkes for the Mediterranean service, set sail for England with the rest of the fleet, and was in soundings on the twenty-second of October: about eight o'clock at night his own ship, the Association, struck on the rocks of Scilly, and perished with every person on board: this was likewise the fate of the Eagle and the Romney: the Firebrand was dashed

Had the duke of Savoy marched with expedition from the Var, he would have found Toulon defenceless; but he lingered in such a manner as gives reason to believe he was not hearty in the enterprise; and his operations were retarded by a difference between him and his kinsman prince Eugene.

in pieces on the rocks, but the captain and four-andtwenty men saved themselves in the boat: the Phoenix was driven on shore: the Royal Anne was saved by the presence of mind and uncommon exterity of Sir George Byng and his officers the St. George, commanded by lord Dursley, struck on the rocks, but a wave set her afloat again: the admiral's body, being cast ashore, was stripped and buried in the sand; but afterwards discovered and brought into Plymouth, from whence it was conveyed to London, and interred in Westminster-abbey. Sir Cloudesley Shovel was born of mean parentage in the county of Suffolk; but raised himself to the chief command at sea by his industry, valor, skill, and integrity. On the Upper Rhine the allies were unprosperous : the prince of Baden was dead, and the

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12 In the month of May three ships of the line, namely, the Royal Oak, of seventy-six guns, commanded by commodore baron Wylde; the Grafton, of seventy guns, captain Edward Acton; and the Hampton-court, of seventy guns, captain George Clements, sailed as convoy to the West-India and Portugal fleet of merchant-ships, amounting to five-and-fifty sail: they fell in with the Dunkirk squadron, consisting of ten ships of war, one frigate, and four privateers, under the command of M. de Forbin: a furious action immediately ensued, and notwithstanding the vast disproportion in point of number, was maintained by the English commodore with great gallantry, until captain Acton was killed, captain Clements mortally wounded, and the Grafton and Hampton-court were taken, after having sunk the Salisbury, at that time in the hands of the French: then the commodore, having eleven feet water in his hold, disengaged himself from the enemy, by whom he had been surrounded, and ran his ship aground near Dungeness; but she afterwards floated, and he brought her safe into the Downs: in the mean time the French frigate and privateers made prize of twenty-one English merchant-ships of great value, which, with the Grafton and Hampton-court, Forbin conveyed in triumph to Dunkirk. In July the same active officer took fifteen ships belonging to the Russian company, off the coast of Lapland in September he joined another squadron fitted out at Brest under the command of the celebrated M. du Guai Trouin, and these attacked, off the Lizard, the convoy of the Portugal fleet, consisting of the Cumberland, captain Richard Edwards, of eighty guns; the Devonshire, of eighty; the Royal Oak, of seventy-six; the Chester and Ruby, of fifty guns each. Though the French squadron did not fall short of twelve sail of the line, the English captains maintained the action for many hours with surprising valor: at length the Devonshire was obliged to yield to superior numbers; the Cumberland blew up; the Chester and Ruby were taken; the Royal Oak fought her way through the midst of her enemies, and arrived safe in the harbor of Kinsale;