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A mine had been exploded, and the report came in that more than a hundred poor fellows of Marlborough's forces had perished. George Fairburn was more than ever determined to do what he could to discover hidden mines.
Steele had had the Duke of Marlborough's papers, and 'in some of his exigencies put them in pawn.
John, who now became Lord Bolingbroke, pushed forward through the summer of 1711 a secret accommodation between England and France. It was for this negotiation that he had crippled Marlborough's campaign; and it was the discovery of his perfidy which revealed to the Duke how utterly he had been betrayed, and forced him at last to break with the Tory Minister.
That of 1711 was, in fact, Marlborough's last campaign; peace negotiations were at the same time going on between France and England, and preliminaries were signed in London in October of this year, 1711.
Fortunately this affair was closely investigated by the celebrated committee of inquiry that brought on Marlborough's dismissal and Walpole's imprisonment. It was found that the Scots treasury had been drained; and the crisis of the union was not a suitable time either for levying money or for leaving debts the salaries of public offices especially unpaid.
And when I consider all the circumstances preceding the event which will now be related, that my Lord Duke was actually offered certain millions of crowns provided that the siege of Lille should be raised: that the Imperial army before it was without provisions and ammunition, and must have decamped but for the supplies that they received; that the march of the convoy destined to relieve the siege was accurately known to the French; and that the force covering it was shamefully inadequate to that end, and by six times inferior to Count de la Mothe's army, which was sent to intercept the convoy; when 'tis certain that the Duke of Berwick, De la Mothe's chief, was in constant correspondence with his uncle, the English Generalissimo: I believe on my conscience that 'twas my Lord Marlborough's intention to prevent those supplies, of which the Prince of Savoy stood in absolute need, from ever reaching his Highness; that he meant to sacrifice the little army which covered this convoy, and to betray it as he had betrayed Tollemache at Brest; as he had betrayed every friend he had, to further his own schemes of avarice or ambition.
To keep her antagonist in that position was of the greatest consequence to the "Marlborough," as she might thus rake her fore and aft, receiving but little damage in return. An officer and two or three men sprang into the "Marlborough's" mizen rigging to secure the bowsprit to it. The French small-arm men rushed forward to prevent this being done, by keeping up a fire of musketry.
"COTTON MATHER," continued Grandfather, "was a bitter enemy to Governor Dudley; and nobody exulted more than he when that crafty politician was removed from the government, and succeeded by Colonel Shute. This took place in 1716. The new governor had been an officer in the renowned Duke of Marlborough's army, and had fought in some of the great battles in Flanders."
Like Adams, he was a scholar and devoted to AEschylus; he resembled him, too, in his trick of snapping his fingers, and his habitual absence of mind. Of this latter peculiarity it is related that on one occasion, when a chaplain in Marlborough's wars, he strolled abstractedly into the enemy's lines with his beloved AEschylus in his hand.
Whether we are at the height of romantic passion with Esmond's devotion to Beatrix, and his transactions with the duke and the prince over diamonds and title deeds; whether the note is that of the simplest human pathos, as in Colonel Newcome's death-bed; whether we are indulged with society at Baymouth and Oxbridge; whether we take part in Marlborough's campaigns or assist at the Back Kitchen we are in the House of Life, a mansion not too frequently opened to us by the writers of prose fiction.
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