THE FRENCH AND ALLIES TAKE THE FIELD IN FLANDERS.

The operations of the campaign had been concerted in the winter at the Hague, between the duke of Cumberland and the states-general of the United Provinces, who were by this time generally convinced of France’s design to encroach upon their territories. They therefore determined to take effectual measures against that restless and ambitious neighbour. The allied powers agreed to assemble a vast army in the Netherlands; and it was resolved that the Austrians and Piedmonte so should once more penetrate into Provence. The Dutch patriots, however, were not roused into this exertion, until all their remonstrances had failed at the court of Versailles; until they had been urged by repeated memorials of the English ambassador, and stimulated by the immediate danger to which their country was exposed; for France was by this time possessed of all the Austrian Netherlands, and seemed bent upon penetrating into the territories of the United Provinces. In February, the duke of Cumberland began to assemble the allied forces; and in the latter end of March they took the field in three separate bodies. His royal highness, with the English, Hanoverians, and Hessians, fixed his head quarters at the village of Tilberg; the prince of Waldeck was posted with the Dutch troops at Breda; and mareschal Bathiani collected the Austrians and Bavarians in the neighbourhood of Venlo. The whole army amounted to one hundred and twenty thousand men, who lay inactive six weeks, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and almost destitute of forage and provisions. Count Saxe, by this time created mareschal-general of France, continued his troops within their cantonments at Bruges, Antwerp, and Brussels, declaring, that when the allied army should be weakened by sickness and mortality, he would convince the duke of Cumberland that the first duty of a general is to provide for the health and preservation of his troops. In April this fortunate commander took the field, at the head of one hundred and forty thousand men; and the count de Clermont commanded a separate body of nineteen battalions and thirty squadrons. Count Lowendahl was detached on the sixteenth of the month, with seven-and-twenty thousand men, to invade Dutch Flanders; at the same time, the French minister at the Hague presented a memorial to the states, intimating, that his master was obliged to take this step by the necessity of war; but that his troops should observe the strictest discipline, without interfering with the religion, government, or commerce of the republic; he likewise declared, that the countries and places of which he might be obliged to take possession should be detained no otherwise than as a pledge, to be restored as soon as the United Provinces should give convincing proofs that they would no longer furnish the enemies of France with succours.