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these, at the instigation of Colonel William Stanhope (he had been sent on a mission to the French army) were committed to the flames. The arsenal and magazines were also consumed, and the total loss. of the Spaniards on this occasion has been estimated at not less than two millions of dollars. Fuenterabia was then invested, and after a stubborn defence surrendered on the 18th of June. The next enterprise of the invaders was partly naval. An English squadron having appeared off the coast as auxiliaries, eight hundred French soldiers were embarked and conveyed to Santoña, another naval station, where Alberoni had carried on the construction of his fleet. The fortress was destitute of regular troops, and garrisoned only by some Miquelets and armed peasants of the neighbourhood, who fled at the first fire. On taking possession of the place, the French, as at Passages, burnt three ships of war on the stocks, and the materials for seven more-a conflagration which, following the action off Cape Bassaro and the tempest off Cape Finisterre, completed the destruction of the Spanish navy, and was ascribed to the maritime jealousy of England.*

Marshal Berwick next turned his arms against St. Sebastian, and obtained possession of the city on the 2d, of the citadel on the 17th of August, while Philip, whose force did not exceed 15,000 men, could do nothing for its relief, and was compelled to return to Madrid without striking a blow. At the close of the campaign the whole of Guipuzcoa was in the hands of the French; and the States of that province even offered to acknowledge their dominion, on the condition that their own rights and liberties should be secured.† That this offer, which would only have increased the jealousy of the Allies and the difficulties of a peace, was promptly rejected by the French Government, need excite no surprise, but it does seem strange to find such an offer proceed from that loyal people. We find, however, on further investigation, that Alberoni, in his eagerness to establish a new and uniform tariff for trade, and to regulate the inland custom-houses between the various kingdoms of the monarchy, had despotically broken through and trampled on the ancient and cherished privileges of the Basques. It seems, in fact, the peculiar curse of all those who have attempted to regenerate Spain, that they think it necessary in the first place to destroy the liberties and laws which they find already happily established in some provinces, and to reduce every thing to the same dead level of servitude-to clear the ground, as they say, for a more regular structure; and thus, while they profess an extension of freedom, their first step is always to abridge it.

Although the surrender of Santoña closed the campaign in Biscay,

Que era el principal designio de los Ingleses, suspirando siempre, porque España no tenga navios, para aprovecharse asi de los tesoros de las Indias con los suyos. (San Phelipe, Coment. vol. ii. p. 233.)

†This proposal was made from Guipuzcoa only, and not from Biscay and Alava as stated by Coxe. (House of Bourbon, vol. ii. p. 354.) He is also mistaken in saying that the French took Urgel (it was not taken at all), and that the British squadron which had co-operated with their army took Vigo; other ships performed that service.

the north of Spain was exposed to further aggressions both from the French and English. The French troops entered Catalonia, where they took some small forts, and attempted Rosas. A British squadron sailed from Spithead on the 21st of September with 4000 troops on board, who were commanded by Lord Cobham, and intended to attack Coruña; but on approaching the Spanish coast and obtaining further information, this project was abandoned as too hazardous, and Cobham resolved to turn his arms against Vigo, where he heard that many of Ormond's stores still remained. Vigo had few regular troops to defend it; and when the British landed at three miles from the town they found only some armed peasants, who showed their zeal rather than their judgment in keeping up a heavy fire of musketry from the distant mountains. Of course not a single shot from thence could reach its destination; and in this exertion either the ammunition or the courage of the Gallicians appears to have become exhausted, since they did not show themselves in arms again. I may observe, that a similar story is told of the Spanish army in the night before the battle of Talavera.†

The garrison of Vigo having first spiked the cannon in the town, left it open to the English, and retired into the citadel; this also yielded on the 21st of October, after a few days' siege. The English found 43 pieces of ordnance, 2000 barrels of powder, and chests of arms containing about 8000 muskets; all these, relies of Ormond's armament, and seven sloops, were seized in the harbour. The neighbouring towns of Redondella and Pontevedra were also sacked by the troops, who were then re-embarked for England; and thus ended an attack by no means unattended either with honour or advantage, but hardly equal to the vaunts with which the "Important and Secret Expedition" had been ushered into public notice. The Court of Madrid, however, showed great consternation at the news; the number of the English and their object were unknown; both appeared magnified through the mist of uncertainty, and it was feared that they might be only the vanguard of a large invading army. Such repeated alarms and reverses could not fail to rouse even the sluggish nature of Philip, and to shake his confidence in his baffled minister.

If from Biscay or Gallicia the eye of the King of Spain turned to Sicily and his main army, it could not even there be gladdened by any very cheering prospect. After the reduction of Messina, the Marquis de Lede had with a part of his forces undertaken the siege of Melazzo; a place well fortified and of great natural strength, built upon a narrow headland which juts out a long way into the

There was no want of a favourable opportunity for the Spaniards. We learn from the journals of an oflicer present, that on the very next day "most of the soldiers abused themselves so much with wine, that a small body of men might have given us a great deal of uneasiness." (Boyer's Polit. State, 1719, vol. ii. p. 401.)

+ About twelve o'clock, the Spaniards on the right being alarmed at some horse in their front, opened a prodigious peal of musketry and artillery, which continued for twenty minutes without any object." (Napier's Penins. War, vol. ii. p. 394.)

sea.* It had withstood the Duke de Vivonne in 1675;† but it would probably have yielded to the persevering attack of the Spaniards, had not General Caraffa, with about 8000 Germans, come to reinforce the garrison from Naples, and, sallying forth, fought a sharp action with the enemy. Both armies then drew entrenchments opposite one another on the plain, and remained encamped all the winter without coming to any further engagement, and both suffering alike from the MALARIA of that marshy soil, and from that inaction which, as Spinola used to say, is sufficient to kill any General. But very different were the prospects of the Germans and Spaniards for the future. The former, masters of the sea by the assistance of the British squadron, were assured of constant supplies in the winter, and of large reinforcements in the spring; while the Spaniards, since the destruction of their fleet cooped up within the limits of the island, durst hope for no other succours than such as a few light ships and feluccas escaping the vigilance of the enemy occasionally brought them, and could neither improve a victory nor repair a defeat.

In the month of May the Austrian reinforcements, 10,000 foot and 3000 horse, were mustered at Naples, and Count Mercy arrived from Vienna to take the command of the whole army. The troops sailed on the 22d from the Bay of Baiæ, and landed on the 28th in the Bay of Patti. At the news of their landing the Spaniards immediately decamped from before Melazzo, with so much precipitation as to leave behind them their sick, two thousand sacks of flour, and some pieces of cannon, and retreated to the inland post of Franca Villa, about thirty-two miles distant. Count Mercy, having relieved Melazzo, determined to march against them, but nearly three weeks elapsed before his preparations were completed. In that age the Austrian troops were always slow of motion, and strangely ill-supplied. Their army surgeons, for instance, were very few and unskilled; and it is observed by a contemporary, that with their soldiers there was little difference between being wounded and killed in action, except that of a lingering or a sudden death.

At length on the 27th of June Count Mercy left Melazzo at the head of 21,000 men. They had a most toilsome march for three days over rugged and dreary mountains and under a burning sun, led by unwilling guides, and harassed by the armed peasants of the country. Arriving at length on the heights of Tre Fontane they discovered the Spaniards encamped below in the plain of Franca Villa, and a shout of joy ran through the whole army at the pros

The present state of Malazzo is well described by Capt. Smyth (Sicily, p. 103); but he need hardly have told us that "the garrison is always commanded by a military officer."

† Muratori, Anna]. d'Ital. vol. xi. p. 330. Boileau prudently glides over this reverse in his ingenious letters to the Duke de Vivonne, and does not blush to make Voiture exclaim from the dead, "Nous avons ici César, Pompée, et Alexandre. Ils trouvent tous que vous avez assez attrapé leur air dans votre manière de combattre! Surtout César vous trouve très César."

See the Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 165, ed. 1809.

pect of a speedy and decisive action. The Spaniards, though in a plain, held a strong position; their front protected by the steep banks of the river Alcantara,* their wings by intrenchments, their rear by rocky ground and by the little town of Franca Villa. In advance of them, and on the other side of the stream, was a convent of Capuchins, crowning a single hill, and this De Lede had occupied with his best troops, the Royal Guards, headed by the brave Villadarias. Next morning the battle was begun by the Germans in three different places, and soon became general. The brunt of it was at the Capuchin convent, which was attacked in succession by the flower of the German forces, but which Villadarias most gallantly defended. At length Count Mercy himself, hoping to animate his troops by his presence and example, put himself at the head of another charge, but with no better success; his soldiers were repulsed, his horse killed under him, and himself severely wounded. At the close of day the victory had every where declared in favour of De Lede, and the Germans, though still in good order, withdrew from their attacks. They had upwards of 3000 men killed and wounded, the Spaniards not half so many; and it must, I think, be owned that the steadiness of the latter under the forlorn and disheartening prospects of their arms in Sicily, was highly honourable to the national character, and another proof how little it can ever be daunted by reverses.

But this victory produced only barren laurels. De Lede could not or would not pursue his advantage; and the enemy, recovering from their discomfiture, were soon enabled to undertake the siege of Messina. The citadel made a most resolute defence, but not being relieved by the Spaniards, was compelled to surrender on the 18th of October. A further body of 6000 Germans, intended for the conquest of Sardinia, were diverted from their destination until Sicily should be quite subdued, and they sailed from Genoa to join the forces of Mercy.† A part of the army was then transported by sea to the fortress of Trapani, from whence it spread itself abroad, and reduced the cities of Mazzara and Marsala; so that at the close of 1719, De Lede, who had fixed his head-quarters at Castel Vetrano, trembled for the capital itself.

Cardinal Alberoni, on receiving intelligence of the victory of Franca Villa, availed himself of the transient gleam which it cast upon the Spanish arms to signify his consent to a peace. He was far, however, from yet yielding to the terms required by the Allies, and giving his unqualified adhesion to the Quadruple Treaty. His plan was, that the States-General should be mediators, and that Spain should not relinquish Sicily and Sardinia, unless the French

The river must have been nearly dry at that season. I crossed it much lower down in the month of November, and found very little water.

It appears that the English ministers during all the summer strongly remonstrated with the Austrian on their employing such insufficient forces. "Je n'ai cessé de le représenter à M. de Penterrieder," writes Stanhope to St. Saphorin, July 31, 1719. (Hardwicke Papers, vol. xxxix)

were prepared to restore their conquests, and the English to yield Gibraltar and Port Mahon. With these proposals he sent his countryman, Marquis Scotti, the Envoy from Parma, directing him to travel to Paris, lay his mission before the Regent, and then proceed to the Hague. The Regent, however, on receiving the communication of Scotti, positively refused him passports to continue his journey, declaring that he must previously consult the Emperor and the King of England. Dubois wrote accordingly to Stanhope at Hanover. But the British Minister, knowing the restless temper and ambitious views of Alberoni, and how little reliance could be placed on his professions and promises, thought that the time for negotiation with him had gone by, and said, in his answer to Dubois,* "We shall act wrong if we do not consolidate the peace by the removal of the minister who has kindled the war; and as he will never consent to peace till he finds his ruin inevitable, from the continuance of the war, we must make his disgrace an absolute condition of the peace. For, as his unbounded ambition has been the sole cause of the war which he undertook, in defiance of the most solemn engagements, and in breach of the most solemn promises, if he is compelled to accept peace he will only yield to necessity, with the resolution to seize the first opportunity of vengeance. It is not to be imagined that he will ever lose sight of his vast designs, or lay aside the intention of again bringing them forward whenever the recovery of his strength, and the remissness of the allied powers, may flatter him with the hopes of better success. He is skilled in procuring all the connections necessary for the accomplishment of his schemes. He will be careful to cultivate those connections, and in due time he will employ them so much the more dangerously for your nation and ours, inasmuch as his past imprudences will render him more circumspect, and his past failures more ardent. He himself has warned us against the dangers of a deceitful peace; he is incapable of consenting to any other; he thinks it no reproach to do anything to which his strength is equal; and we ought to thank God that he did not more exactly calculate his power, and his undertakings. He acknowledges no other peace but exhaustion and weakness; and when, therefore, he is reduced to these, let us not allow him to recover. Let us exact from Philip his dismissal from Spain. We cannot propose to his Majesty any condition which will be more advantageous both for himself and his people. Let us hold forth this example to Europe, as a means of intimidating any turbulent minister who breaks the most solemn treaties, and attacks the persons of princes in the most scandalous manner. When Cardinal

Alberoni is once driven from Spain, the Spaniards will never consent to his again coming into administration; even their Catholic Majesties will have suffered too much from his pernicious counsels to desire his return. In a word, any peace made by the Cardinal will

Stanhope to Dubois, Hanover, August 22, 1719. Hardwicke Papers, and Coxe's Copies. Original in French.

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