Prince Eugene in London-Opening of the Campaign under Ormond and Eugene-Ormond's Secret Instructions-The Allied army deserted by the British forces-Subsequent disasters of the Allies-The Lords' Protest published-Laws proposed against the Press-The first Stamp duty on Periodical Works--Terms of peace announced to Parliament-Bolingbroke's embassy to Paris-Treaty of Utrecht completed-Treaty of Commerce with France rejected by Parliament-Dissolution of Parliament-Jacobite Intrigues-The new ParliamentLibels-Swift-Steele-Death of the Princess Sophia of Hanover-The Schism ActOxford dismissed from office-Death of the Queen.

THE dismissal of Marlborough from all his offices; the hostile vote of Parliament; and a prosecution threatened by the ministry to compel him to refund nearly half a million of that money which he said he had employed in the public service these adversities in the closing years of a life signally prosperous appear to have been borne by him with a philosophical calmness. He wrote, on the 22nd of February, to M. Schuylembourg, who had served under him as a general of cavalry, "Provided that my destiny does not involve any prejudice to the public, I shall be very content with it; and shall account myself happy in a retreat in which I may be able wisely to reflect on the vicissitudes of this world." * There are several other letters, breathing the same sentiment of resignation-a sentiment which was perhaps as real as in any other case of fallen greatness. But Marlborough's public virtue must have been more exalted than that of most great ones of the earth in the day of humiliation, if he did not inwardly rejoice at the degradation of England when he was thrust out of her service. His constant friend, prince Eugene, had arrived in London at the beginning of January. He witnessed the fall of Marlborough, and testified in the most public manner his sense of the injustice and impolicy of palace-intrigues and parliamentary hatreds. Oxford invited Eugene to dinner, and thus complimented him: "I consider this day as the happiest of my life, since I have the honour to see in my house the

Dispatches, vol. v. p. 577.

892

A CAMPAIGN-ORMOND'S SECRET INSTRUCTIONS.

[1712 greatest captain of the age." Eugene replied, "If it be so, I owe it to your lordship." The "greatest captain of the age" was put aside; and the future associate with Eugene in the approaching campaign was to be the duke of Ormond. Conferences were opened at Utrecht; but the real negotiations for peace between Great Britain and France were being secretly carried on at Paris. The mission of Eugene to the court of St. James's was to prevent any such separate negotiation, by offering a guarantee that the emperor would double his contingents, if necessary, to carry the war, in concert with all the members of the Alliance, to a successful conclusion. A few months of vigorous exertion might accomplish that object, and complete the series of triumphs which the Allies had won under English generalship. The propositions of the emperor were coldly listened to; mentioned to Parliament; and then laid aside. Eugene went back to conduct the campaign as the commander of the Allied armies; for the States would not entrust those powers to Ormond which they had entrusted to Marlborough. Eugene could expect no hearty co-operation from the ministry of queen Anne; but he could scarcely expect an amount of duplicity and treachery, happily unparalleled in the future conduct of our country in her foreign affairs. On 26th of May, Eugene and Ormond, with a far larger force than had been brought into the field under Marlborough in the previous year, passed the Scheldt below Bouchain. A French army of inferior force, under Villars and Montesquiou, was nearer the French frontier. The position of the Allies indicated an intention to make a forward movement, and a probable advance into the French territory. But Ormond had a letter in his pocket from Secretary St. John, dated the 10th of May, containing these instructions: "Her majesty, my lord, has reason to believe, that we shall come to an agreement upon the great article of the union of the two monarchies, as soon as a courier, sent from Versailles to Madrid, can return. It is, therefore, the queen's positive command to your grace, that you avoid engaging in any siege, or hazarding a battle, till you have further orders from her majesty. I am, at the same time, directed to let your grace know, that the queen would have you disguise the receipt of this order; and her majesty thinks that you cannot want pretences for conducting yourself, so as to answer her ends, without owning that which might at present have an ill effect, if it was publicly known. The queen cannot think with patience of sacrificing men, when there is a fair prospect of obtaining her purpose another way; and, besides, she will not suffer herself to be exposed to the reproach of having retarded, by the events of the campaign, a negotiation which might otherwise have been as good as concluded, in a few days." On the 28th of May, Eugene proposed to attack the French camp, which was open and exposed. Ormond equivocated, and requested delay. Eugene was indignant; but at length brought the English general to agree to co-operate in the siege of Quesnoy. The trenches were opened in the night of the 18th of June; and on the 4th of July the garrison surrendered as prisoners of war. This was the last military operation in which the British forces were engaged. In the middle of July, there. having been for some time a secret correspondence

*Coxe, vol. vi. p. 187.

1712.] THE ALLIED ARMY DESERTED BY THE BRITISH FORCES.

393

between Ormond and Villars, Ormond proclaimed an armistice for four months between England and France. He withdrew his British troops from those of the Allied army; and called upon the foreign contingents in the pay of England to follow the example. With a trifling exception, they all refused; and became a part of the army of the Empire, and of the States, under the command of Eugene. This infamous abandonment of the Alliance-this base desertion of the common cause without notice or explanation-left the field open for France to recover all the ground she had lost. Eugene, weakened in his force; the plans of the campaign altogether paralysed; was beaten at Denain by Villars on the 24th of July. One by one the fortified posts and towns which had been won by the Allies were retaken by the French. There may be differences of opinion as to the policy of the English ministry in relinquishing the original object of the war, and ultimately separating the interests of their country from those of the House of Austria; but there can be no difference in viewing their duplicity to their Allies as one of the disgraces of party-government. The ministry of Anne "were afraid of some brilliant success in Flanders that might derange their plans; and to prevent such a calamity, they gave secret information to the enemy of the military projects of the Allies, and at the most critical moment of the campaign they withdrew their troops from the contest." * The cold-blooded scoundrelism of St. John goes beyond most recorded examples of the extent to which "low ambition "-even more than "the pride of kings,"—will degrade a man of lofty intellect into the basest political profligacy. When the Secretary sent to Ormond the order to avoid engaging in any siege or battle, he communicated this private direction to Gautier, his agent in the correspondence with Torcy, the French minister. "When I asked him," says Gautier in his dispatch, "what marshal Villars was to do, in case prince Eugene and the Dutch attacked him, he replied, there was only one thing to do, to fall upon him and cut him in pieces, him and his whole army." +

It could scarcely be expected that, even for mere party-purposes, such flagrant violations of national faith should pass unnoticed. Halifax, in the House of Lords, and Pulteney, in the House of Commons, made impressive spec ches against the dishonour of the refusal of Ormond to co-operate with Eugene. But they were defeated by large majorities. A very effective protest was signed by many peers; and it was printed and circulated in several languages. The ministry endeavoured to repress it, and would have prosecuted the printer, could they have discovered him. The practice of secret printing was one of the means in those days by which prosecutions against libel were evaded. Very shortly after the publication of this protest, a Report was presented from a Committee of the whole House, upon "the great licence taken in publishing false and scandalous libels." In this Report it was proposed that printing-presses should be registered, with the names of their owners, and their places of abode; that the name of the printer and of the publisher should be attached to every book, pamphlet, or paper; and that no bookseller should sell or disperse any printed paper without the name of the author, printer, and publisher. The Commons ordered a Bill to be brought in accordingly. The Bill dropt through. To suppress anonymous writing would

* "Edinburgh Review," vol. lxii. p. 8.

+ Ibid.

394

LAWS AGAINST THE PRESS-STAMPS ON NEWSPAPERS.

[1712.

have deprived the government of one of its strongest allies. Swift, in his posthumous work, "The Four last years of queen Anne," looks back with horror upon the provision that would have made him utterly useless to Lordtreasurer and Secretary. "In this Bill there was a clause inserted (whether industriously with design to overthrow it) that the author's name and place of abode should be set to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper; to which I believe no man who has the least regard to learning would have given his consent." Pious men, he says, conceal their names, out of an humble Christian spirit; "persons of true genius have an invincible modesty and suspicion of themselves upon their first sending their thoughts into the world." There was something besides the "humble Christian spirit," and "the invincible modesty," that made Swift always an anonymous writer. Under that form of publication alone could he defame and misrepresent; and, what is of more importance to us, could he leave to the world the most remarkable examples of the power of influencing public opinion by fearless argument and withering sarcasm, expressed in the simplest language. The benefits of anonymous writing have far outweighed its evils. The scheme for restricting the press in this mode broke down. The other scheme of the ministry for taxing it was successful. In 1711 one of the longest Acts in the Statute Book was passed, which imposed duties upon soap, paper, silks, linen, and many other articles, and upon "certain printed papers, pamphlets, and advertisements." Those taxes which came under the denomination of "new Stamp duties," were to be in force for thirty-two years, commencing on the 1st of August, 1712. They endured, with various large additions and modifications, for more than a century and a half; till the public opinion, which they were meant to hold in check, swept them away. The well-known passage in Swift's Journal to Stella tells how the Stamp-duty operated: "Do you know that Grub-street is dead and gone last week? No more ghosts or murders now for love or money. I plied it pretty close the last fortnight, and published at least seven penny papers of my own, besides some of other people's: but now every single half-sheet pays a halfpenny to the queen. The Observator' is fallen; the Medleys' are jumbled together with the Flying Post; the Examiner' is deadly sick; the 'Spectator' keeps up, and doubles its price; I know not how long it will hold. Have you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with? Methinks it is worth a halfpenny the stamping." We shall have to return to the subject of the beginnings of Journalism and of Periodical Literature, in a subsequent chapter.

On the 17th of June the queen informed the Parliament, in a speech from the throne, of the terms upon which "a General Peace may be made." Her majesty had no authority from her Allies to announce their consent to such terms; and this statement was only a continuance of the duplicity that had attended the secret negotiations with France. The Protestant succession as by law established in the House of Hanover, was to be acknowledged. There was to be "an additional security, by the removal of that person out of the dominions of France who has pretended to disturb this settlement.” As "the apprehension that Spain and the West Indies might be united to France was the chief inducement to begin this war," that union was to be effectually

*10 Annæ, c. 18.