KEISEESWAERT AND LANDAU TAKEN.

The war was begun in the name of the elector-palatine with the siege of Keiserswaert, which was invested in the month of April by the prince of Nassau-Saarburgh, mareschal-du-camp to the emperor: under this officer the Dutch troops served as auxiliaries, because war had not yet been declared by the states-general. The French garrison made a desperate defence. They worsted the besiegers in divers sallies, and maintained the place until it was reduced to a heap of ashes. At length the allies made a general attack upon the counterscarp and ravelin, which they carried after a very obstinate engagement, with the loss of two thousand men. Then the garrison capitulated on honourable terms, and the fortifications were razed. During this siege, which lasted from the eighteenth day of April to the middle of June, count Tallard posted himself on the opposite side of the Rhine, from whence he supplied the town with fresh troops and ammunition, and annoyed the besiegers with his artillery; but finding it impossible to save the place, he joined the grand army commanded by the duke of Burgundy in the Netherlands. The siege of Keiserswaert was covered by a body of Dutch troops under the earl of Athlone, who lay encamped in the duchy of Cleve. Meanwhile general Coehorn, at the head of another detachment, entered Flanders, demolished the French lines between the forts of Donat and Isabella, and laid the chatellaine of Bruges under contribution; but a considerable body of French troops advancing under the marquis de Bedmar, and the count de la Motte, he overflowed the country, and retired under the Avails of Sluys. The duke of Burgundy, who had taken the command of the French army under Bouifflers, encamped at Zanten near Cleve, and laid a scheme for surprising Nimeguen; in which, however, he was baffled by the vigilance and activity of Athlone, who, guessing his design, marched thither and encamped under the cannon of the town. In the beginning of June, Landau was invested by prince Louis of Baden: in July, the king of the Romans arrived in the camp of the besiegers with such pomp and magnificence as exhausted his father’s treasury. On the ninth day of September the citadel was taken by assault, and then the town surrendered.