suspicious of our general's conduct; we have more reason to admire it, and to believe he knows a thousand times better what is to be done than we. Submissive obedience is our duty, and I give it heartily. If any man deserves implicit obedience I think he does, both in respect of his capacity and integrity.'

In the face of a superior force Marlborough now laid siege to Bouchain, the armies being so near and in so extraordinary a situation that the besiegers were bombarded by the enemy. But the only fruit which Villars derived from this was the mortification of seeing the garrison, consisting of eight battalions and 500 horse, march out as prisoners of war. An anecdote of Marlborough at this time ought never to be omitted in any account of his life, however brief. Fenelon was then archbishop of Cambray. The estates of his see were exposed to plunder, and, from respect to his genius and virtues, the English commander ordered a detachment to guard the magazines of corn at Chateau Cambresis, and gave a safe-conduct for their conveyance to Cambray. But apprehending afterwards that even this protection might not be respected because of the scarcity of bread, he sent a corps of dragoons with waggons to transport the grain, and escort it to the precincts of the town. He meditated next the capture of Quesnoy; the ministers at home affected to approve of his intention, and assured him that they were making the strongest representations to the Dutch for the purpose of obtaining their concurrence. While these very ministers were deceiving their general, they were carrying on a secret negociation with France, and had actually agreed to the preliminaries of that peace by which the interests of their allies and their country were betrayed.

We may be spared the humiliating task of following the manœuvres by which the peace of Utrecht was brought about, and of entering into the details of that abominable transaction; a transaction in which the agents at home felt so secure of their power, and at the same time so conscious of their deserts, that they jested among themselves about the gallows and the scaffold, to which they might be exposed if they lost the protection of the Queen, and the ministers abroad espoused so openly the interest of the enemy, as to provoke from Eugene the indignant question whether they were acting as negociators on the side of England or of France. The whole scheme of this infamous administration could not be effected as long as Marlborough was at the head of the army. It was impossible to make him act treacherously towards the allies; and it was always to be feared that by some signal stroke he might at once defeat the French army and the schemes of the English cabinet. The removal of Marlborough therefore was necessary to the success of their plans, and

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this alone would prove how rightly he acted in not resigning the command. The means by which they brought about his dismissal were worthy of the men. They accused him of peculation, because he had received the same perquisites which had always been allowed to the commander-in-chief in those countries for secret service money; which he had been privileged to receive, moreover, and to employ without account, by the Queen's royal warrant, and which had been applied, as Marlborough said in his defence, from time to time for intelligence and secret service, and with such success, that next to the blessing of God and the bravery of the troops, we might in great measure attribute most of the advantages of the war in the Low Countries to the timely and good advice procured with the help of this money.' Upon this ground, and upon the undeniable fact that the same allowance had been always paid to his predecessors, Marlborough so completely vindicated himself, that though the commissioners of public accounts, who were the tools of the reigning faction, pronounced an opinion against him, in a report as flagrantly false as it was malicious, and though upon that report the Queen dismissed him from all his employments, that the matter might undergo an impartial investigation'-his enemies, malignant as they were, dared not pursue the investigation. When Louis heard of this act, he added with his own hand a sentence in his dispatches to his agent at London, saying, the affair of displacing the Duke of Marlborough will do for us all we desire.'

Every means was now used to blacken the late ministry;—for this purpose no accusation was either too absurd or too atrocious. A cry of peculation was raised against them, as that which was most likely to obtain belief among the vulgar, and excite popular outcry. A deficit of thirty-five millions was charged against them, as if they were responsible for all the unsettled accounts since the Restoration; and this charge, as has generally been the case, dwindled to nothing when it was examined. In those days it was the custom on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's inauguration, to burn in effigy the Pope, the Devil and the Pretender. The effigies were arrested upon a pretence that the whigs intended to take advantage of the holiday to excite an insurrection; and this ridiculous story has found its way into historical writings at home and abroad, with the additional absurdity, that Marlborough was to put himself at the head of the mob, and that Prince Eugene was to support him. Another fable accused them of a design to fire the city, murder the ministers, seize and depose the Queen, and place the Elector of Hanover on the throne! Slanders of this kind were too gross to deserve contradiction, nor could the slanderer be fixed upon. At length a personal insult

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of the grossest kind was offered to the Duke, and in the most public manner. Earl Poulet, in vindicating the Duke of Ormond, who had succeeded to the command, for taking the field with Eugene, while he was at the same time in secret communication with Villars, and had secret orders not to fight, said of him, 'that he did not resemble a certain general, who led his troops to the slaughter to cause a great number of officers to be knocked on the head in a battle, or against stone walls, in order to fill his pockets by disposing of their commissions.' Marlborough heard him in silence, but as soon as the house rose sent a message to him by Lord Mohun, inviting him to take the air in the country. Earl Poulet could not conceal from his lady the uncomfortable emotions which this message excited, and the duel was prevented by a direct order from the Queen to Marlborough, enjoining him to proceed no farther in the affair. It is sufficient punishment for this slanderer, that he is remembered in history for this, and for this only; so easily may the coarsest and meanest mind purchase for itself a perpetuity of disgrace!

For the sake of avoiding daily insults and further persecution, Marlborough determined upon leaving England. The death of Godolphin released him from the strongest tie which bound him to his then ungrateful country, for he was unwilling to leave his old tried friend, labouring under the severest sufferings of a mortal disease. A passport was obtained by means of Harley, or Oxford, as he must now be called, in opposition to some of his colleagues. Base as Oxford's conduct was, he was not so bad as Bolingbroke; he had not the same hatred to Marlborough, (perhaps because his obligations to him, great as they were, had not been quite so great,) and it is not unlikely that he may have thought it desirable for the sake of the Protestant succession, to which he was sincerely attached, and which Bolingbroke was plotting to set aside, that Marlborough should be out of his enemies' reach, and in a situation where he might act in its support, when occasion should require. The restoration of the Stuart line indeed appeared so possible, from the principles of Bolingbroke and the favourite, now Lady Masham, and from the irreconcileable dislike with which the Queen regarded the house of Hanover, that Marlborough thought it prudent, before he left England, to invest 50,000/. in the Dutch funds as a means of subsistence in case of that event. As this great commander had received the highest proofs of royal favour both from his own sovereign and from foreign princes, he was fated

Godolphin, the lord treasurer in those days of peculation, which had been so loudly censured in parliament and even from the throne, was so far from having enriched himself, that the property which he left did not exceed 12,000l. E 2

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also to have some experience of royal ingratitude. The government of the Spanish Netherlands had been more than once offered to him, and pressed upon him by the Archduke Charles, and he had been prevented from accepting it only by the jealousy of the Dutch. When he perceived that his disgrace was impending, he asked for this appointment, and the Archduke evaded a compliance with his request. Nor was this the only instance of ingratitude from that thankless quarter. The principality of Mindelheim, which had been conferred on him after the battle of Blenheim, was restored at the peace to Bavaria, and though an equivalent was promised to Marlborough, it was never granted, nor did he ever obtain any compensation for the loss.

When he embarked at Dover, as a private individual, the Captain of the packet had sufficient English feeling to receive him with a voluntary salute. No other honour was paid him upon leaving his native country; but as the illustrious exile entered the harbour of Ostend he was welcomed with a salute of artillery from the town, forts and shipping. And along the whole road to Aix-la-Chapelle, though he endeavoured to avoid notice by taking the most private ways, he was entertained with the highest marks of respect and affection, by governors, garrisons, magistrates and people of all ranks. A finer tribute was never paid to true greatness. They blessed him as their deliverer, and mingling exclamations against the English cabinet with their expressions of admiration and gratitude towards him, many of them shed tears of indignant feeling, and said it were better to be born in Lapland than in England, for that no nation had ever fallen so unaccountably from such a height of glory and esteem into such contempt and degradation. He dwelt some time at Aix-la-Chapelle; but from an apprehension that his person was not safe there, he went to Maestricht; there the Duchess joined, him they proceeded to Frankfort, and after a few months removed to Antwerp, as a safer place while the war continued in. Germany. From thence he corresponded with Hanover, and with the leaders of the Hanoverian interest in England, and there he held himself in readiness to transport troops to England on the demise of the Queen, engaging to use his endeavours to secure the fidelity of the troops at Dunkirk and to embark at their head. The danger to which the Protestant succession was at that time exposed is believed to have proved fatal to the Electress Sophia, a remarkable personage, who at the age of eighty-four retained an unusual strength both of body and mind, and used to say, that if she could but live to have Sophia Queen of England engraven on her tomb, she should die content. Had she lived three months longer, that wish would have been gratified.

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As the crisis drew nearer, it was deemed advisable that Marlborough should return where his presence might be of great importance. Among the calumnies with which his memory been loaded, is the absurd charge, that he was at this time corresponding with the Pretender, and intriguing with Bolingbroke to secure his succession. This falsehood also is now effectually refuted; and it appears from their own acknowledgment, that the ministers who were plotting for that purpose were 'frightened out of their wits' at the news of his intended return. That return would have exposed him to a renewal of persecution, and to every mortification and every injury which it was in the power of the Queen and her ministers to inflict,-but when the vessel wherein he had embarked approached the coast near Dover, it was -boarded by a messenger with news of the Queen's decease, and the undisputed accession of George I. This monarch, though he duly appreciated the services of Marlborough, and respected him accordingly, never forgave him for not having communicated to him the intended operations of that campaign in which Brabant and Flanders had been recovered. He restored him to his offices, but did not avail himself of his advice, as for his own sake and that of the country he should have done; for had the opinion of this consummate statesman been taken, a combined administration would have been formed, to include some of the moderate tories who had supported the protestant succesIsion at the moment when their services were most essential.

lt was a more favourable opportunity than had ever before occurred for bringing upright men of different parties to act together for the general good.

Marlborough lived eight years after his return, happy in the enjoyment of that leisure and tranquillity which he had always desired. It is not true, as Johnson has taught us to believe, that the tears of dotage flowed from his eyes. In the year 1716 he had two paralytic strokes, but recovered both his strength and faculties, except that there were a few words which he could not distinctly articulate. In other respects, however, he was so little impaired, that he continued to attend Parliament, and to perform the business of his office as Captain-General and Master of the Ordnance, till within six months of his death. He wished to resign those offices, but was induced by Sunderland's intreaties and the king's particular desire to retain them. At length a return of the disorder proved fatal: he lay for some days aware of approaching dissolution, and, in full possession of his senses, he quietly expired on the 16th of June 1722, in the 72d year of his age. The Duchess, though sixty-two when she was thus left a widow, still

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