were repulsed. But count Saxe being reinforced by a body of troops, under the count de Clermont, determined to bring the confederates to an engagement. On the thir. teenth day of the month he passed the Jaar; while he took possession of the villages of Liers, Warem, and Roucoux, drew up their forces in order of battle, and made preparations for giving him a warm reception. On the first day of October the enemy advanced in three columns; and a terrible cannonading began about noon. At two o'clock prince Waldeck on the left was charged with great fury; and after an obstinate defence overpowered by numbers. The villages were attacked in columns, and as one brigade was repulsed another succeeded; so that the allies were obliged to abandon these posts, and retreat towards Maestricht, with the loss of five thousand men, and thirty pieces of artillery. The victory, however, cost the French general a much greater number of lives; and was attended with no solid advantage. Sir John Ligonier, the earls of Crawford and Rothes, brigadier Douglas, and other officers of the British troops, distinguished themselves by their gallantry and conduct on this occasion. This action terminated the campaign. The allies passing the Maese, took up their winter quarters in the dutchies of Limburgh and Luxembourg; while the French cantoned their troops in the places which they had newly conquered.

This nobleman, so remarkable for his courage and thirst of glory, exhibited a very extraordinary instance of presence of mind on the morning that preceded this battle. He and some volunteers, accompanied by his aideducamp, and attended by two orderly dragoons, had rode out before day to reconnoitre the situation of the enemy; and fell in upon one of their advanced guards. The ser. geant who commanded it immediately turned out his men, and their pieces were presented when the earl first perceived them Without betraying the least mark of disorder, he rode up to the sergeant, and assuming the character of a French general, told him in that language, that there was no occasion for such ceremony. Then he asked, if they had perceived any of the enemy's parties? and being answered in the negative, "Very well (said he) be upon your guard; and if you "should be attacked, I will take care that you shall be sustained." So saying, he and his company retired, before the sergeant could recollect himself from the surprise occasioned by this unexpected address. In all probability he was soon sensible of his mistake; for the incident was that very day publicly mentioned in the French army. The prince of Tingay, an officer in the Austrian service, having been taken prisoner in the battle that ensued, dined with mareschal count Saxe, who dismissed him on his parole, and desired he would charge himself with a facetious compliment to his old friend the earl of Crawford. He wished his lordship joy of being a French general, and said he could not help being displeased with the sergeant, as he had not procured him the honour of his lordship's company at dinner.

men.

X. The campaign in Italy was altogether unfavourable to the French and Spaniards. The house of Austria being no longer pressed on the side of Germany, was enabled to make the stronger efforts in this country; and the British subsidy encouraged the king of Sardinia to act with redoubled vivacity. Mareschal Maillebois occupied the greater part of Piedmont with about thirty thousand Don Philip and the count de Gages, were at the head of a greater number in the neighbourhood of Milan; and the duke of Modena, with eight thousand, secured his own dominions. The king of Sardinia augmented his forces to six-and-thirty thousand; and the Austrian army, under the prince of Lichtenstein, amounted to a much greater number; so that the enemy were reduced to the necessity of acting on the defensive, and retired towards the Mantua. In February, baron Leutrum, the Piedmontese general, invested and took the strong fortress of Aste. He afterwards relieved the citadel of Alexandria, which the Spaniards had blocked up in the winter, reduced Casal, recovered Valencia, and obliged Maillebois to retire to the neighbourhood of Genoa. On the other side, Don Philip and count Gages, abandoned Milan, Pavia, and Parma, retreating before the Austrians with the utmost precipita tion to Placentia, where they were joined on the third of June by the French forces under Maillebois.

XI. Before this junction was effected, the Spanish general, Pignatelli, had passed the river Po in the night with a strong detachment, and beaten up the quarters of seven thousand Austrians posted at Codogno. Don Philip, finding himself at the head of two-and-fifty thousand men by his junction with the French general, resolved to attack the Austrians in their camp at San Lazaro, before they should be reinforced by his Sardinian majesty. Accordingly, on the fourth day of June in the evening, he marched with equal silence and expedition, and entered the Austrian trenches about eleven, when a desperate battle ensued. The Austrians were prepared for the attack, which they sustained with great vigour till morning. Then they quitted their intrenchments, and charged the enemy in their turn with such fury, that after an obstinate resistance the combined army was broke, and retired with precipitation to VOL. III. C

Placentia, leaving on the field fifteen thousand men killed, wounded, and taken, together with sixty colours, and ten pieces of artillery. In a few weeks the Austrians were joined by the Piedmontese: the king of Sardinia assumed the chief command; and prince Lichtenstein being indisposed, his place was supplied by the marquis de Botta. Don Philip retired to the other side of the Po, and extended his conquests in the open country of the Milanese. The king of Sardinia called a council of war, in which it was determined that he should pass the river with a strong body of troops, in order to straiten the enemy on one side; while the marquis de Botta should march up the Tydone, to cut off their communication with Placentia. They forthwith quitted all the posts they had occupied between the Lambro and Adda, resolving to repass the Po, and retreat to Tortona. With this view they threw bridges of boats over that river, and began to pass on the ninth day of August in the evening. They were attacked at Rotto Freddo by a detachment of Austrians, under general Serbelloni, who maintained the engagement till ten in the morning, when Botta arrived: the battle was renewed with redoubled rage, and lasted till four in the afternoon, when the enemy retired in great disorder to Tortona, with the loss of eight thousand men, a good number of colours and standards, and eighteen pieces of cannon. This victory cost the Austrians four thousand men killed upon the spot, including the gallant general Bernclau. The victors immediately summoned Placentia to surrender; and the garrison, consisting of nine thousand men, were made prisoners of war: Don Philip continued his retreat, and of all his forces brought six-andtwenty thousand only into the territories of Genoa.

XII. The Piedmontese and Austrians rejoining in the neighbourhood of Pavia, advanced to Tortona, of which they took possession without resistance, while the enemy sheltered themselves under, the cannon of Genoa. They did not long continue in this situation: for on the twentysecond day of August they were again in motion, and retired into Provence. The court of Madrid imputing the bad success of this campaign to the misconduct of count Gages, recalled that general, and sent the marquis de las Minas to resume the command of the forces. In the mean time,

the victorious confederates appeared before Genoa on the fourth day of December: and the senate of that city thinking it incapable of defence, submitted to a very mortifying capitulation, by which the gates were delivered up to the Austrians, together with all their arms, artillery, and ammunition; and the city was subjected to the most cruel contributions. The marquis de Botta being left at Genoa with sixteen thousand men, the king of Sardinia resolved to pass the Var, and pursue the French and Spaniards into Provence but, that monarch being seized with the smallpox, the conduct of this expedition was intrusted to count Brown, an Austrian general of Irish extract, who had given repeated proofs of uncommon valour and capacity. He was on this occasion assisted by vice-admiral Medley, who commanded the British squadron in the Mediterranean. The French forces had fortified the passes of the Var, under the conduct of the mareschal de Belleisle, who thought proper to abandon his posts at the approach of count Brown; and this general, at the head of fifty thousand men, passed the river, without opposition, on the ninth day of November. While he advanced as far as Draguignan, laying the open country under contribution, baron Roth, with four-andtwenty battalions, invested Antibes, which was at the same time bombarded on the side of the sea by the British squadron. The trenches were opened on the twentieth day of September: but Belleisle having assembled a numerous army, superior to that of the confederates, and the Genoese having expelled their Austrian guests, count Brown abandoned the enterprise, and repassed the Var, not without some damage from the enemy.

XIII. The court of Vienna, which has always patronised oppression, exacted such heavy contribution from the Genoese, and its directions were so rigorously put into execution, that the people were reduced to despair; and resolved to make a last effort for the recovery of their liberty and independence. Accordingly, they took arms in secret, seized several important posts of the city; surprised some battalions of the Austrians; surrounded others, and cut them in pieces; and, in a word, drove them out with great slaughter. The marquis de Botta acted with caution and spirit: but being overpowered by numbers, and appre

hensive of the peasants in the country, who were in arms, he retreated to the pass of the Brochetta on the side of Lombardy, where he secured himself in an advantageous situation, until he could receive reinforcements. The loss he had sustained at Genoa did not hinder him from reducing Savona, a seaport town belonging to that republic; and he afterwards made himself master of Gavi. The Genoese, on the contrary, exerted themselves with wonderful industry in fortifying their city, raising troops, and in taking other measures for a vigorous defence, in case they should again be insulted.

XIV. The naval transactions of this year reflected very little honour on the British nation. Commodore Peyton, who commanded six ships of war in the East Indies, shamefully declined a decisive engagement with a French squadron of inferior force; and abandoned the important settlement of Madras on the coast of Coromandel, which was taken without opposition in the month of September by the French commodore, de la Bourdonnais. Fort St. David, and the other British factories in India, would probably have shared the same fate, had not the enemy's naval force in that country been shattered and partly destroyed by a terrible tempest. No event of consequence happened in America, though it was a scene that seemed to promise the greatest success to the arms of England. The reduction of Cape Breton had encouraged the ministry to project the conquest of Quebec, the capital of Canada, situated upon the river St. Lawrence. the governors of the British empowering them to raise companies to join the armament from England; and eight thousand troops were actually raised in consequence of these directions; while a powerful squadron and transports, having six regiments on board, were prepared at Portsmouth for this expedition. But their departure was postponed by unaccountable delays, until the season was judged too far advanced to risk the great ships on the boisterous coast of North America. That the armament, however, might not be wholly useless to the nation, it was employed in making a descent upon the coast of Bretagne, on the supposition that port L'Orient, the repository of all the stores and ships belonging to

Commissions were sent to colonies in North America,