THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH CONTINUES TO COMMAND THE ALLIED ARMY.

The new ministry had not yet determined to supersede the duke of Marlborough in the command of the army. This was a step which could not be taken without giving umbrage to the Dutch and other allies. He therefore set out for Holland in the month of February, after the queen had assured him that he might depend upon the punctual payment of the forces. Having conferred with the deputies of the states about the operations of the campaign, he, about the middle of April, assembled the army at Orchies, between Lisle and Douay; while mareschal de Villars drew together the French troops in the neighbourhood of Cambray and Arras. Louis had by this time depopulated as well as impoverished his kingdom; yet his subjects still flocked to his standard with surprising spirit and attachment. Under the pressure of extreme misery they uttered not one complaint of their sovereign; but imputed all their calamities to the pride and obstinacy of the allies. Exclusive of all the other impositions that were laid upon that people, they consented to pay the tenth penny of their whole substance; but all their efforts of loyalty and affection to their prince would have been ineffectual, had not the merchants of the kingdom, by the permission of Philip, undertaken repeated voyages to the South Sea, from whence they brought home immense treasures; while the allies took no steps for intercepting these supplies, though nothing could have been more easy for the English than to deprive the enemy of this great resource, and convert it to their own advantage. Had a squadron of ships been annually employed for this purpose, the subjects of France and Spain must have been literally starved, and Louis obliged to submit to such terms as the confederates might have thought proper to impose. Villars had found means to assemble a very numerous army, with which he encamped behind the river Sanset, in such an advantageous post as could not be attacked with any prospect of success. Meanwhile the duke of Marlborough passed the Scarpe, and formed his camp between Douay and Bouchain, where he was joined by prince Eugene on the twenty-third day of May. This general, however, did not long remain in the Netherlands. Understanding that detachments had been made from the army of Villars to the Rhine, and that the elector of Bavaria intended to act in the empire, the prince, by order from the court of Vienna, marched towards the upper Rhine with the Imperial and Palatine troops, to secure Germany. The Duke of Marlborough repassing the Scarpe, encamped in the plains of Lens, from whence he advanced towards Aire, as if he had intended to attack the French lines in that quarter. These lines beginning at Bouchain on the Schelde, were continued along the Sanset and the Scarpe to Arras, and thence along the Upper Scarpe to Canché. They were defended by redoubts and other works in such a manner, that Villars judged they were impregnable, and called them the Ne plus ultra of Marlborough.

This nobleman advancing within two leagues of the French lines, ordered a great number of fascines to be made, declaring he would attack them the next morning; so that Villars drew all his forces on that side, in full expectations of an engagement. The duke, on the supposition that the passage of the Sanset by Arleux would be left unguarded, had ordered the generals Cadogan and Hompesch to assemble twenty battalions and seventeen squadrons from Douay and the neighbouring garrisons, to march to Arleux, where they should endeavour to pass the Sanset. Brigadier Sutton was detached with the artillery and pontoons, to lay bridges over the canal near Groulezen and over the Scarpe at Vitry, while the duke with the whole confederate army began his march for the same place about nine in the evening. He proceeded with such expedition, that by five in the morning he passed the river at Vitry. There he received intelligence that Hompesch had taken possession of the passes on the Sanset and Schelde without opposition, the enemy having withdrawn their detachments from that side just as he had imagined. He himself, with his vanguard of fifty squadrons, hastened his march towards Arleux, and before eight of the clock arrived at Bacá-Bachuel, where in two hours he was joined by the heads of the columns into which he hadj divided his infantry. Villars being certified of his intention, about two in the morning decamped with his whole army, and putting himself at the head of the king’s household troops, marched all night with such expedition, that about eleven in the forenoon he was in sight of the duke of Marlborough, who had by this time joined count Hompesch. The French general immediately retreated to the main body of his army, which had advanced to the high road between Arras and Cambray, while the allies encamped upon the Schelde, between Oisy and Estrun, after a march of ten leagues without halting, scarce to be paralleled in history. By this plan, so happily executed, the duke of Marlborough fairly outwitted Villars, and, without the loss of one man, entered the lines which he had pronounced impregnable. This stroke of the English general was extolled as a masterpiece of military skill, while Villars was exposed to the ridicule even of his own officers. The field-deputies of the states-general proposed that he should give battle to the enemy, who passed the Schelde at Crevecoeur in order to cover Bouchain; but the duke would not hazard an engagement, considering how much the army was fatigued by the long march; and that any misfortune, while they continued within the French lines, might be fatal. His intention was to besiege Bouchain; an enterprise that was deemed impracticable, inasmuch as the place was situated in a morass, strongly fortified, and defended by a numerous garrison, in the neighbourhood of an army superior in number to that of the allies. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, and the dissuasions of his own friends, he resolved to undertake the siege; and, in the meantime, despatched brigadier Sutton to England with an account of his having passed the French lines; which was not at all agreeable to his enemies. They had prognosticated that nothing would be done during this campaign, and began to insinuate that the duke could strike no stroke of importance without the assistance of prince Eugene. They now endeavoured to lessen the glory of his success; and even taxed him with having removed his camp from a convenient situation to a place where the troops were in danger of starving. Nothing could be more provoking than this scandalous malevolence to a great man who had done so much honour to his country, and was then actually exposing his life in her service.