Namur.] VIOLATION OF THE TREATY. occupied his coach, accompanied by the Duke of Ormond ("Ormond's Memoirs "); but the Elector of Bavaria, the Landgrave of Hesse, and all other officers of rank were mounted, and in the immediate vicinity of the castle. Reduced now to less than 5,000 men, the garrison, with bayonets fixed, pikes and partisans advanced, colours flying, and drums beating, came marching forth like gallant men as they were; and Marshal Boufflers closed the long column, riding at the head of a regiment of dragoons, with the Count de Guiscard by his side (Puffendorf). "An Elector of Bavaria," says Macaulay, "was hardly entitled to be saluted by the marshal with his sword. A King of England was undoubtedly entitled to such a mark of respect, but France did not recognise William as King of England. At last Boufflers consented to perform the salute, without marking for which of the two princes it was intended. He lowered his sword, William alone acknowledged the compliment, and a short conversation followed." "Boufflers rode on, but had not proceeded far when he was arrested by Everard Van Dyckvelt, attended by twelve privates of the English Life Guards. "You must return with me to Namur, sir," said he. "The King of England has ordered me to inform you that you are his prisoner." 461 battle with a treaty of peace in his pocket, who introduced flogging in the army and keel-hauling in the navy, was not likely to be over nice in any proceeding where the interests of Holland were concerned. With regard to the troops in the two towns mentioned by Dyckvelt, Burnet states that "the garrisons were not indeed able to make a great resistance; but they were ill commanded—though the places were not tenable, yet they were basely delivered up, and 7,000 made prisoners; and though all prisoners were to be redeemed at a set price within a limited time, yet they were all taken into France." The Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, brought this deplorable, useless, and most expensive war to a close. In the following year the king was compelled to send home his obnoxious Dutch Guards; and the House of Commons resolved that all the forces in English pay and south of the Tweed, should be reduced to 7,000 men, those for Ireland to 12,000, while the Scots Parliament found about 4,000 all that were requisite for home service in the North. But 15,000 men were voted for the English fleet. Three survivors of the great siege of Namur were alive in the last century. William Fraser, who lost an arm in the trenches by a cannon-shot, lived 118 years, and died in The marshal grew pale with rage, and his staff 1768; but there were two more recent deaths of crowded about him sword in hand. "This is an infamous breach of faith!" he exclaimed. "Look at the terms of capitulation. What have I done to deserve such an affront? But beware what you do, messieurs, for I serve a master who can and will avenge me." "I, too, am a soldier, sir," replied the stolid Dutchman, "and my orders are to obey orders without reflecting on their consequences. The King of Engiand has reluctantly followed the example set by your master. The soldiers who garrisoned Dixmude and Deynse have, in defiance of plighted faith, been sent to France; so His Majesty might with perfect faith have detained all the French who were in Namur." veterans who had served in William's army. These were Matthew Champion, of Great Yarmouth, who lived till 1793, being then 111 years old; and David Caldwell, born in 1689, who commenced his military career as a drummer in a Scots regiment, "and ended a soldier's life in 1796, at the age of 107. He may be said to have been a soldier ab ovo, born in the army, and in the town of Ayr” (“Notes and Queries "). The recruits who survived the severe tuition of Namur, says Macaulay, speedily became veterans. Steenkirke and Landen had formed the volunteers who followed Cutts through the palisades of Namur. The judgment of all the great warriors whom the nations of Western Europe had sent to By this time the marshal was separated from his the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse was, troops, and completely environed by Dutch cavalry."that the English subaltern was inferior to no Seeing the futility of resistance, he gave up his subaltern, and the English private soldier to no sword, and was detained a prisoner of war for some soldier in Christendom.” time at Maestricht. The honour or credit of this proceeding on the part of William was considered extremely doubtful; but, as the Jacobites averred, a king who could design the cold-blooded massacre of Glencoe, and witness the slaughter of the helpless De Witts from behind a shutter, who fought a The British officers of higher rank were deemed scarcely worthy to command such an army. Lord Cutts had distinguished himself by his intrepidity; but those who most admired him acknowledged that he had not the science necessary for a general. This lock is thus referred to in the Catalogue of the "Musée de l'Artillerie :"-" Fusil-mousquet de Vauban, qui, au mécanisme ordinaire de la platine à batterie réunit le serpentin pour la mèche. A la bataille de Steinkerque (1692) les Français jetèrent spontanément leurs mousquets pour se servir des fusils pris aux ennemis. Ce fut alors que Vauban imagina son fusilmousquet, dans laquelle la mèche sert au défaut de la batterie." The fact that a book found among the old stores of the Tower, in 1861, bearing the cipher and crown of James II., affirms the place of the manufacture by the English name of Brooke on the lock-plate, seems to render Vauban's claim to the invention of this lock at least open to question. "The plan is ingenious, and the mechanism very simple. The object was to combine the action of a flint and steel, and a match cord. The cock is at one end, and a serpentine holding the match at the other; the steel with its pan-cover in the middle. The difficulty to be overcome was how to fire the charge with the match, inasmuch as the steel and pan-cover necessarily intervened. So the pan-cover was perforated, in order to admit of the match, when let down, passing at once through the opening to the powder; and that the burning match might not prematurely ignite the priming, a sliding lid was provided, which, so long as the flint was available, closed the opening of the pan-cover, and so shut off the powder from being accessible to the burning match."-"The British Army," by Sir Sibbald Scott, Vol. II., pp. 282, 283. to attack the Spanish settlements in the West Indian Isles and mainland. On the 3rd of April he appeared before Carthagena, with seven large ships of war, ten frigates, and several small vessels, having on board a body of troops, besides 1,500 buccaneers and volunteers whom he had collected at San Domingo for this expedition. On the 24th, all the strong posts being battered by cannon, and the suburbs taken by storm, the Spanish governor was forced to capitulate; and the plunder taken was very great, some writers computing it at forty millions of livres, others at only nine millions. After totally destroying the fortifi make all sail for the island of Madeira, where he would be joined by some ships which were cruising there under the command of Captain George Meese, an officer who had distinguished himself at the battles off Beachy Head and La Hogue, when commander of the Exeter, and who was now to serve with the rank of rear-admiral. Neville sailed about Madeira for fifty-two days before he could discover this officer, who then joined him, but with only two vessels, the Bristol, and Lightning, fire-ship, having lost the rest of his squadron in a fog; but the whole were united off Barbadoes on the 17th of April. On the 3rd of May the admiral was at Antigua, where he held a consultation with the Governor and Captain-General of the Leeward Isles. The officer who then held these appointments was Christopher Codrington, whose father in the time of Charles I. had emigrated to Barbadoes, and whose ancestor, John Codrington, of Codrington, in Gloucester, had been standard-bearer to Henry V. in his French wars. The governor had just received intelligence that the French were about to attack San Domingo, and had been cutting a road through the woods for the purpose of marching from Le Petit Goave; so it was decided by him, at a council of officers, British and Dutch, that the ships should rendezvous at Puente de la Guada, where the Monmouth frigate brought tidings that M. de Pointis, the adventurer of whom they were in search, had certainly sailed from Le Petit Goave with twenty-six sail, but none knew whither bound. On the 27th, part of the squadron which was to windward made signals of ships being in sight, standing to the west. On this Admiral Neville bore after them under a press of sail, supposing that they must be either French or Spanish galleons; but when dawn came in next morning, they were found to be ten men-of-war and two fly-boats. As they stood off, chase was given. The Warwick, a fifty-gun ship, overtook one, and opened fire upon her, but she, being a swifter sailer, on setting more canvas escaped. One of the fly-boats was captured, and found to be laden with shot, shell, and powder. Some accounts say that she had on board also a hundred negroes, and plate to the value of £20,000. He now bore up for Carthagena, and towards evening came in sight of the hill of Popo which overlooks the long sandy peninsula on which the city is built, and which juts into the Caribbean Sea. There he was rejoined by Rear-Admiral Meese with six other vessels, all of which had their canvas blown away. Sailing thence, on the 6th of June he discovered eight privateers under the lee of the land at Sambay, and sent in the Colchester, two other vessels, and the Lightning, fire-ship, to destroy them, which was accordingly done, while he bore on for Cape Tiburon, an uninhabited island, or. for Le Petit Goave; but failing "to fetch" either of these places, he sailed for Hispaniola, where, after taking one privateer of twenty-four guns and burning another of twelve, he came to anchor on the 19th, leaving to his Rear-Admiral Meese the task of destroying Le Petit Goave. This was resolved on by the advice of the Governor of Jamaica, Sir William Beeston, who stated that it would be a good service to the crown. Meeze proceeded thither; on the 22nd of June, with nine ships of the squadron, he was off that harbour, which is so safe from all winds, and was surrounded by fertile and luxuriant plantations of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton. Next morning at half-past three, while all was yet dark, he landed with 900 men, under Colonel Kirkby, and Captains Lyteot, Holmes, Julius, Elliot, and Moore, of the Royal Navy, and marched directly on the town. The seamen were armed with cutlasses, pistols, and boarding-pikes. Steadily and silently the place was entered; the sentinels were shot, and the grand guard surrounded and disarmed at once. A hundred men then rushed with loud cheers to secure two batteries of four The squadron was now known to be that of M. de Pointis, who, on four of our ships drawing near him, the Bristol, Trident, Gosport, and New-guns each, and wheel them round to bear upon the castle, shortened sail, formed in order of battle, and opened a heavy fire, particularly on the Bristol; but as his vice-admiral, M. de l'Abbe, with another ship, filled their canvas and stood off, the whole squadron did so in succession. For two days and nights, our fleet continued in chase, sometimes near enough to fire their bow guns, and sometimes at a considerable distance; but no battle ensued. The British and Dutch rear-admirals sprang their topmasts, and as the breeze freshened, many of our ships had their canvas split to ribbons by pressing the chase so close. So De Pointis escaped, with all the booty he had taken at Carthagena. Bishop Burnet asserts that our squadron was much superior to his, yet never engaged it; and that once when it came up with the French, some advantage was won by the admiral, who pursued it no further. town, which the French quitted with precipitation. The moment the sun was up the seamen spread over all the place, ransacking every house and room, every chest, press, and lockfast place. The little town became a scene of universal pillage; and as many of the men began to get intoxicated by the wine and rum found in the stores, the vice-admiral fearing that the French would return in force and attack him while they were in this state, set the place on fire in several quarters sooner than he intended. All went to flame and ruin, by which many officers and men were deprived of their prizemoney; for all the spoil was only a few negroes, although four mules laden with gold and silver from the Isle of Ash had entered Le Petit Goave only two days before. Meese was now joined by Admiral Neville, who, having got wood and water on board, sailed for Jamaica, intending to bear on to Havanah in search of those galleons he and his crews were longing so much to see. On the 11th of July he made the Isle of Pines, then a lonely spot near New Caledonia, and next the dangerous rocks known as the Collerados, without seeing anything of the treasureships. His men were now getting very sickly, and among others there died here Admiral Meese, and Captains Roger Belwood, of the Sunderland; Nicholas Dyer, of the Lincoln; James Studley, of the Pembroke; John Lyteot, Holmes, and Foster, of three other war-ships, who were all committed to the deep with many of their humbler shipmates. On the 27th the admiral also died, and the command devolved upon the only surviving captain in the fleet, Sir Thomas Dilkes, who brought it to England on the 24th of October, in a shattered and half-manned condition. De Pointis, who had in the meanwhile been steering for the banks of Newfoundland, entered Conception Bay, a large and beautiful inlet in the coast of that island, fifty-three miles in depth, and surrounded by bold and mountainous shores. At that moment a stout British squadron lay near, 465 in the secluded bay of St. John, under Commodore (afterwards Admiral Sir John) Norris, an officer who fought valiantly under Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Supposing that De Pointis' squadron was that of Admiral Nesmond, he called a Council of War, and proposed battle at once; but he was overruled by a majority of his officers, who gave it as their opinion that they should run no risk, but remain where they were. "By virtue of this determination," says Smollett, "De Pointis was permitted to proceed on his voyage to Europe. On the 14th of August he fell in with a squadron under Captain Harlow, by whom he was boldly engaged till night parted the combatants. He was pursued next day, but his ships sailing better than those of Harlow, he accomplished his escape, and on the morrow entered the harbour of Brest. That his ships, which were foul, should outsail the English squadron, which had just put to sea, was a mystery which the people of England could not explain, and they complained of having been betrayed in the West Indian Expedition." And now occurred an event with Scotland which, when added to the recent massacre in Glencoe, was on the point of rending Britain once more in twain. CHAPTER LXXXVII. THE DARIEN EXPEDITION, 1698-9. A TRADING Company, embodied by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland, founded a colony in 1698 on the Isthmus of Darien, as a central position for commerce with both India and America. The Act was drawn up under the direction of William Paterson, a native of Dumfriesshire, who was founder of the Banks of England and Scotland, and the company was established "with power to plant colonies, and build cities, towns, or forts, in places not in possession of any other European power." The sum was raised in shares at £100 each. The effort, says Macaulay, "was marvellous, when it may be affirmed with confidence that the Scottish people voluntarily contributed for the colonisation of Darien a larger portion of their substance than any other people ever, in the same space of time, voluntarily contributed to any commercial undertaking." Elsewhere he adds that the sum collected by the subscribers "bore as great a ratio to the wealth of Scotland then as forty millions would bear now. It is melancholy to see in the roll the name of more than one professional man whose paternal anxiety led him to lay out probably all his hard-earned savings in purchasing a hundred pound share for each of his children." One-half of the stock was to be held by Scotchmen resident in Scotland; and no stock which had originally been held by one of these should ever be transferred to any but a Scotchman resident in Scotland. All the sugar and tobacco grown on the company's plantations were to be exempt from taxation. It was doubtless one of the greatest and grandest schemes of the age. The proprietors were empowered to form their own constitutions, civil and military; for the space of ten years they were empowered to freight their own or foreign vessels, notwithstanding the navigation laws; they were to defend themselves by sea and land; and to conclude treaties with the sovereigns of any lands in Asia, Africa, or America. If their vessels were detained |