THE ALLIES AND FRENCH GO INTO WINTER QUARTERS.

As the enemy retreated, prince Ferdinand advanced as far as Hurste, where he established his head-quarters about the latter end of November. While he remained in this position, divers skirmishes happened in the neighbourhood of Gottengen. Major-general Briedenbach, at the head of two regiments of Hanoverian and Brunswick guards, with a detachment of cavalry, attacked, on the twenty-ninth day of November, the French post at Heydemunden, upon the river Worrau. This he carried, and took possession of the town, which the enemy hastily abandoned. Part of their detachment crossed the river in boats; the rest threw themselves into an intrenchment that covered the passage, which the allies endeavoured to force in several unsuccessful attempts, galled as they were by the fire of the enemy’s redoubts on the other side of the river. At length M. Briedenbach was obliged to desist, and fall back into the town; from whence he retired at midnight, after having sustained considerable damage. Prince Ferdinand had it very much at heart to drive the French from Gottengen, and accordingly invested that city; but the French garrison, which was numerous and well provided, made such a vigorous defence, as baffled all the endeavours of the allies, who were moreover impeded by the rainy weather, which, added to other considerations, prevented them from undertaking the siege in form. Nevertheless, they kept the place blocked up from the twenty-second day of November to the twelfth of the following month, when the garrison, in a desperate sally, took one of their principal posts, and compelled them to raise the blockade. About the middle of December, prince Ferdinand retired into winter-quarters; he himself residing at Uslar, and the English troops being cantoned in the bishopric of Paderborn. Thus the enemy were left in possession of Hesse, and the whole country to the eastward of the Weser, to the frontiers of the electorate of Hanover. If the allied army had not been weakened for the sake of a rash, ill-concerted, and unsuccessful expedition to the Lower Rhine, in all probability the French would have been obliged to abandon the footing they had gained in the course of this campaign; and, in particular, to retreat from Gottengen, which they now maintained and fortified with great diligence and circumspection.