it smote, and withering the nerves of opposition: but his more substantial praise was founded upon his disinterested integrity, his incorruptible heart, his unconquerable spirit of independence, and his invariable attachment to the interest and liberty of his country.

V. The quiet of the ministry being reestablished, the house of commons provided for forty thousand seamen, nearly the same number of land forces, besides fifteen regiments raised by the nobility, on account of the rebellion, and about twelve thousand marines. They settled funds for the maintenance of the Dutch and Hessian troops that were in England, as well as for the subsidy to the landgrave. They granted three hundred thousand pounds to the king of Sardinia; four hundred thousand pounds to the queen of Hungary; three hundred and ten thousand pounds to defray the expense of eighteen thousand Hanoverians; about three and thirty thousand pounds in subsidies to the electors of Mentz and Cologn; and five hundred thousand pounds in a vote of credit and confidence to - his majesty. The whole charge of the current year amounted to seven millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which was raised by the land and malt taxes, annuities on the additional duties imposed on glass, and spirituous liquors, a lottery, a deduction from the sinking fund, and exchequer bills, chargeable on the first aids that should be granted in the next session of parliament.

VI. The rebellion being quelled, the legislature resolved to make examples of those who had been concerned in disturbing the peace of their country. In June, an act of attainder was passed against the principal persons who had embarked in that desperate undertaking; and courts were opened in different parts of England, for the trial of the prisoners. Seventeen persons who had borne arms in the rebel army were executed at Kennington common, in the neighbourhood of London, and suffered with great constancy under the dreadful tortures which their sentence prescribed nine were put to death, in the same manner, at Carlisle; six at Brumpton, seven at Penrith, eleven at York of these a considerable number were gentlemen, and had acted as officers; about fifty had been executed as deserters in different parts of Scotland: eighty-one suffered

the pains of the law as traitors. A few obtained pardons, and a considerable number were transported to the plantations. Bills of indictment for high treason were found by the county of Surry against the earls of Kilmarnock and Cromartie, and lord Balmerino. These noblemen were tried by their peers in Westminster hall, the lord chancellor presiding as lord high steward for the occasion. The two earls confessed their crimes, and in pathetic speeches recommended themselves to his majesty's mercy. Lord Balmerino pleaded not guilty: he denied his having been at Carlisle at the time specified in the indictment, but this exception was overruled: then he moved a point of law in arrest of judgment, and was allowed to be heard by his counsel. They might have expatiated on the hardship of being tried by an ex post facto law, and claimed the privilege of trial in the county where the act of treason was said to have been committed. The same hardship was imposed upon all the imprisoned rebels: they were dragged in captivity to a strange country, far from their friends and connexions, destitute of means to produce evidence in their favour, even if they had been innocent of the charge. Balmerino waved this plea, and submitted to the court, which pronounced sentence of death upon him and his two associates. Cromartie's life was spared: but the other two were beheaded, in the month of August, on Tower hill. Kilmarnock was a nobleman of fine personal accomplishments; he had been educated in revolution principles, and engaged in the rebellion, partly from the desperate situation of his fortune, and partly from resentment to the government, on his being deprived of a pension which he had. for some time enjoyed. He was convinced of his having acted criminally, and died with marks of penitence and Balmerino had been bred up to arms, and acted upon principle: he was gallant, brave, rough, and resolute; he eyed the implements of death with the most careless familiarity, and seemed to triumph in his sufferings. In November, Mr. Ratcliffe, the titular earl of Derwentwater, who had been taken in a ship bound to Scotland, was arraigned on a former sentence, passed against him in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixteen: he refused to acknowledge the authority of the court, and pleaded that

contrition.

he was a subject of France, honoured with a commission in the service of his most christian majesty. The identity of his person being proved, a rule was made for his execution; and on the eighth day of December he suffered decapitation with the most perfect composure and serenity. Lord Lovat, now turned of fourscore, was impeached by the commons, and tried in Westminster hall before the lord high steward. John Murray, secretary to the prince pretender, and some of his own domestics appearing against him, he was convicted of high treason, and condemned. Notwithstanding his age, infirmities and the recollection of his conscience, which was supposed to be not altogether void of offence, he died like an old Roman, exclaiming, " dulce et decorum "est pro patria mori." He surveyed the crowd with attention, examined the axe, jested with the executioner, and laid his head upon the block with the utmost indifference. From this last scene of his life one would have concluded, that he had approved himself a patriot from his youth, and never deviated from the paths of virtue.

§ VII. The flame of war on the continent did not expire at the election of an emperor, and the reestablishment of peace among the princes of the empire. On the contrary, it raged with double violence in consequence of these events; for the force that was before divided being now united in one body, exerted itself with great vigour and rapidity. The states general were overwhelmed with consternation. Notwithstanding the pains they had taken to avoid a war, and the condescension with which they had soothed and supplicated the French monarch in repeated embassies and memorials, they saw themselves stripped of their barrier, and once more in danger of being overwhelmed by that ambitious nation. The city of Brussels had been reduced during the winter; so that the enemy were in possession of all the Austrian Netherlands, except a few fortresses. Great part of the forces belonging to the republic were restricted from action by capitulations, to which they had subscribed. The states were divided in their counsels between the two factions which had long subsisted. They trembled at the prospect of seeing Zealand invaded in the spring. The Orange party loudly called for an augmentation of their forces by sea and land, that they

might prosecute the war with vigour. The common people, fond of novelty, dazzled by the splendor of greatness, and fully persuaded that nothing but a chief was wanting to their security, demanded the prince of Orange as a stadtholder; and even mingled menaces with their demands. The opposite faction dreaded alike the power of a stadtholder; the neighbourhood of a French army, and the seditious disposition of the populace. An ambassador was sent to London with representations of the imminent dangers which threatened the republic, and he was ordered to solicit in the most pressing terms the assistance of his Britannic majesty, that the allies might have a superiority in the Netherlands by the beginning of the campaign. The king was very well disposed to comply with their request; but the rebellion in his kingdom, and the dissensions in his cabinet, had retarded the supplies, and embarrassed him so much, that he found it impossible to make those early preparations that were necessary to check the career of the enemy.

§ VIII. The king of France, with his general, the count de Saxe, took the field in the latter end of April, at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand men, and advanced towards the allies, who, to the number of fourand-forty thousand, were intrenched behind the Demer, under the conduct of the Austrian general Bathiani, who retired before them, and took post in the neighbourhood of Breda, the capital of Dutch Brabant. Mareschal Saxe immediately invested Antwerp, which in a few days was surrendered. Then he appeared before the strong town of Mons in Hainault, with an irresistible train of artillery, an immense quantity of bombs and warlike implements. He carried on his approaches with such unabating impetuosity, that, notwithstanding a very vigorous defence, the garrison' was obliged to capitulate on the twenty-seventh day of June, in about eight-and-twenty days after the place had been invested. Sieges were not now carried on by the tedious method of sapping. The French king found it much more expeditious and effectual to bring into the field a prodigious train of battering cannon, and enormous mortars, that kept up such a fire as no garrison could sustain, and discharged such an incessant hail of bombs and bullets,

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as in a very little time reduced to ruins the place, with all its fortifications. St. Guislain and Charleroy met with the fate of Mons and Antwerp: so that by the middle of July the French king was absolute master of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault.

§. IX. Prince Charles of Lorraine had by this time, assumed the command of the confederate army at Terheyde, which being reinforced by the Hessian troops from Scotland, and a fresh body of Austrians under count Palfi, amounted to eighty-seven thousand men, including the Dutch forces commanded by the prince of Waldeck. The generals, supposing the next storm would fall upon Namur, marched towards that place, and took post in an advantageous situation on the eighteenth day of July, in sight of the French army, which was encamped at Gemblours. Here they remained till the eighth day of August, when a detachment of the enemy, commanded by count Lowendahl, took possession of Huy, where he found a large magazine belonging to the confederates; and their communication with Maestricht was cut off, mareschal Saxe, on the other side, took his measures so well, that they were utterly deprived of all subsistence. Then prince Charles, retiring across the Maese, abandoned Namur to the efforts of the enemy, by whom it was immediately invested. The trenches were opened on the second day of September; and the garrison, consisting of seven thousand Austrians, defended themselves with equal skill and resolution: but the cannonading and bombardment were so terrible, that in a few days the place was converted into a heap of rubbish ; and on the twenty-third day of the month the French monarch took possession of this strong fortress, which had formerly sustained such dreadful attacks.. Meanwhile the allied army encamped at Maestricht were joined by sir John Ligonier, with some British and Bavarian battalions; and prince Charles resolved to give the enemy battle. With this view he passed the Mease on the thirteenth day of September, and advanced towards mareschal Saxe, whom he found so advantageously posted at Tongres, that he thought proper to march back to Maestricht. On the twenty-sixth day of September he crossed the Jaar in his retreat; and his rear was attacked by the enemy, who