him to the enemy" (according to the life of Queen Anne), and having not only lost a leg, but also received a large wound in his face and another in his arm, gained in an early attempt to board the ship of Du Casse, he reluctantly, and full of bitterness of heart, bore away for Jamaica. When one of his lieutenants expressed his sorrow for the loss of the admiral's leg he wrote Benbow a letter to the following effect :"Sir, I had little hope on Monday last but to have supped in your cabbin (sic); but it pleased God to order it otherwise. I am thankful for it. As for those cowardly captains who deserted you, hang them up, for, by heaven, they deserve it! "DU CASSE." Smollett states that the boisterous manners of "I am sorry for it too," replied the gallant Benbow had produced a confederacy against him; that he was a rough seaman, but remarkably brave, honest, and experienced. So deeply did he take this miscarriage to heart that he became melancholy, and grief co-operating with the fever occasioned by his wounds, put a period to his life on the 4th of November. But, in memory of his bravery, his name is borne to the present day by one of Her Majesty's ships. On the 6th of the preceding month the captains were tried by court-martial, of which Rear-Admiral Whetstone was president; and many days were spent in examining witnesses, and hearing what they could allege in their own justification for the unparalleled act of deserting a British admiral in the face of an enemy's fleet. Sentences were pronounced against them according to their deserts. Vincent, of the Falmouth, and Fogg, of the Breda, Benbow's own captain, were convicted of having signed a document to the effect that they would not serve under his command; but as they had | behaved gallantly in the action, the court inflicted on them no other punishment than a temporary suspension from rank and pay. Captain Walton had also joined in this strange conspiracy when heated with wine; but he afterwards renounced the engagement, and fought with admirable courage till the Ruby was completely disabled. Captains Kirkley and Wade, of the Defiance and Greenwich, were sentenced to death, but this was not put into execution till their arrival at Plymouth | in the Bristol, on the deck of which, without being allowed to land, they were shot by a squad of marines. Captain Constable, of the Windsor, was cashiered, and sentenced to be imprisoned during the pleasure of Her Majesty Queen Anne; and Captain Hudson, of the Pendennis, died some days before the trial, otherwise there is little doubt that he too would have been shot to death. The captain of the Ruby survived these officers long; and after being knighted for his bravery, while captain of the Canterbury, in a battle off Messina, died Admiral Sir George Walton, in 1740. On Benbow's death the command of the fleet in the West Indies devolved upon Rear-Admiral Whetstone, who cruised with considerable success against the enemy; while Vice-Admiral Graydon, with three sail of the line, left Plymouth about the middle of March to join him, escorted by the Montague, 60 guns, and the Nonsuch, 50, with orders to see him 150 miles to the westward. On the 18th he discovered four. French men-ofwar to leeward, viz., two of sixty guns, one of fifty, and one of forty. The Monmouth bore down and brought the last to close action. Upon this the admiral threw out the signal to form line of battle, and called off the Montague; and though a few shots were exchanged yet the enemy escaped, and singularly enough they proved to be part of the squadron of Du Casse, which fought Admiral Benbow in the West Indies. CHAPTER XCI. BLENHEIM, 1704. UNDER the Duke of Marlborough, a British army, consisting of five regiments of horse, three of dragoons, and fifteen regiments of foot, making a total of 18,252 men, had landed in Holland, in June, 1701. The siege of Venloo, the captures of Stevenswaert and Ruremonde, the capture of Liège, and the surrender of Chartreuse occurred in the following year; but it was not until 1704 that he achieved the great victory which is associated with his name. In his animosity to the House of Stewart, and to all who adhered to that house, Macaulay has permitted himself to write some bitter things of the great captain of the reign of Anne; but it must be borne in mind that Marlborough was not one of those who was likely to be very faithful to a new and foreign master, and though he fought for him, was, like many others, intriguing for the restoration of his native king. Moreover, since the restoration, the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland had been separately governed by the unprincipled and the time-serving, whom chance or intrigue raised to power and prominence. On finding himself at the head of the allied armies of Britain and Holland, Marlborough, "the handsome Englishman," whose future pre-eminence had been foretold by the gallant Turenne, in the wars of Charles II., soon displayed unequalled ability, though greatly shackled by opposition and hesitation among the allied leaders; but by the resolution of his own judgment he marched boldly into the heart of Germany, and formed a junction amounted to only 30,000; but when united with Marlborough the Allies numbered 52,000 men, with fifty pieces of cannon. The latter were superior in cavalry. The plain of Hochstadt presented a fine position for defence. A considerable stream intersected it, forming morasses on its borders, and running into an angle of the rapid Danube. The plain itself was six miles long, but unequal in breadth, the entrance to it being in width "a cannon-shot" of those days. On one side it was bordered by the wood of Schellenberg, then be G. The rest of our Left Wing of Horse. H. The Battalions attacking the village Obirklau. I. The Imperial Horse passing the river. K. Eleven Battalions of Prussians. L. Seven Battalions of Danes. a small town and castle two miles south of Gappencais. "It is an ancient viscounty," according to the "Atlas Geographus, 1711," "and gives title to the Mareschal de Tallard, descended from the family of Argyle in Scotland, who did the French king considerable service in Germany, but was taken at the battle of Hochstadt, and continues a prisoner in England, where he served formerly as ambassador." He commanded the right of the French army; the left was led by the Elector with his Bavarians, and the Marshal Ferdinand Count de Marsin, with the French of his division. In the twilight at three o'clock on the morn- Hochstadt became memorable as the place where ing of the 13th of August, the generale was beaten, a fine army was annihilated by the ignorance of its and the Allies moved forward to attack the French leaders. position at Blenheim. Their movements, on the left, commanded by Marlborough, were for a time concealed by the wood; and those on the right, where they were led by Eugene, were at first mistaken for those of the Prince of Baden's corps, then lying before Ingoldstadt; for so negligent were the French that they had neither spies, scouts, nor patrols, to inform them of the motions of the enemy. Their foragers were all out, and their camp was in perfect repose, when the right wing of the Allies was first discovered by the beams of the morning sun being reflected steadily on their bright barrels and fixed bayonets. These columns were then ten miles distant. 66 'Ignorance inflated by accidental success is always presumptuous," says the historian of the Irish Brigades; "and incapacity elevated to command, is unable to estimate difficulties and risks without calculation. Tallard had gained the battle of Spire by the feebleness of his sight; his vanity. claimed it as an achievement of skill. Marsin had never commanded a division. A stranger to adverse and to prosperous fortune, he was devoid of experience, and on the approach of battle confused. In reverse, he was devoid of courage, the characteristic of Frenchmen, and intent only on personal safety. When the cloud foreboding the coming tempest appeared, the presumption of the marshals, one the appointee of Court intrigue and the other of Court devotion, lapsed into diffidence and confusion." They had still time to make some arrangements, though taken completely by surprise. The advance of the Allies was delayed and impeded by the marshy nature of the ground they had to traverse. Thus Tallard might easily have drawn up his infantry by the margin of the stream that joined the Danube, instead of which he threw twenty battalions and squadrons into the village of Blenheim, where they were surrounded by the Nebelbach, and a curvature of the Danube on three sides, and | were too far from his order of battle to sustain themselves, or to be sustained by his own division, which had no other infantry than eight battalions of Piedmontese deserters, and was too remote to give any effectual opposition to the passage of the Nebelbach by the British. The Irish regiments of Lee, Clare, and Dorington, all clad in red coats, were posted in the village of Oberclau, in advance of the right wing of Marsin's corps, which was chiefly composed of cavalry. By these mistaken arrangements, the plain of As they debouched into the open ground from the edge of the wood, the allied generals beheld at once the defects in the French order of battle; and the genius of Eugene suggested the plan of masking Blenheim and breaking the French centre. The duke approved, and to the prince's energy and resolution was committed its execution, and the right wing of the Allies was reduced, in order to strengthen their left. This alteration took two hours, and the movements were made under cover of the wood, and unseen by Tallard, towards whom the Allies advanced in eight columns-the Imperialists on the right, the English and Dutch on the left. All this astonished the Elector and the two marshals, who had thought of attacking and not being attacked. They fired two pieces of cannon to call in all foragers and stragglers, and made every preparation for defence ("History of Prince Eugene of Savoy, 1742"). Tallard soon saw enough to satisfy him that the village of Blenheim would be the main point of attack; he therefore, as we have said, crowded it with infantry and twelve squadrons of dragoons, most of whom he dismounted, so that they might use their muskets and bayonets. Most of the avenues that led to the village had been palisaded already; the remainder he blocked up with overturned carts and wagons, casks filled with earth and stones, and with boards, shutters, doors, and other incumbrances. An entire brigade lined some hedges on the left of the village; its churchyard was strongly occupied, while every facility of communication from post to post was afforded by the bridges which his engineers had thrown in haste across the Meulweyer. In addition to all this, he ordered several hamlets and mills, of which the skir mishers of the Allies might avail themselves, to be set on fire; and on the extreme right of Blenheim he placed a division of gensdarmes à cheval, with special orders to charge the British so soon as a certain number should have passed the Nebel. By all this he overstrengthened the right of his line, while his centre and left were comparatively weak; but until the fire of Eugene's columns was heard in that direction, Marlborough resolved to make no attack, and he gave orders that the chaplains of the several battalions should perform divine service at the heads of their respective regiments. So passed the noon of Blenheim, till an aide-de-camp came galloping from the allied right, with tidings that "the Prince of Savoy was ready to begin the attack," Blenheim.] ASSAULT OF THE VILLAGE. And even while he spoke the boom of cannon came across the level plain. At that moment the Duke of Marlborough chanced to be sharing a hasty meal with the officers of his staff, but he leaped into his saddle. "Now, gentlemen," said he, "to your posts!" The tone of voice in which he spoke gave all who heard him the assurance of victory; and in less than five minutes after, the roar of battle rang from one end of the plain of Hochstadt to the other. At the head of twenty battalions of infantry, the gallant Lord Cutts rushed to the assault of Blenheim, where Clerambaule commanded. Plunging into the stream that crossed their front, the British troops, by the aid of fascines, planks, or by grasp | ing each others' hands, while mowed down by the fire of the French artillery, which was splendidly served, closed in to the assault. In the van of those columns were the brigades of Generals Rowe and Ferguson, advancing with such speed that though many officers and men fell, "the gallant Rowe struck his sword into the enemy's palisades before he gave the word 'Fire"" ("Cannon's Records "). Cutts' division assailed the village on three sides; but secure behind their barricades and entrenchments, the garrison poured in a fire so murderous that no courage could bear up against it; and the stormers, after actually laying hands on the palisades, were driven back (Rowe was mortally wounded), and in retiring, leaving their dead and dying covering all the ground, they were assailed by the gensdarmes à cheval, who came thundering on them sword in hand, and would inevitably have destroyed them, had not General Lumley sent forward five squadrons to their support. These charged, broke and dispersed the gensdarmes, but only to be in turn overthrown by a superior force. "The gensdarmes, of which Tallard's horse chiefly consisted," says General Kane, "and in whom he placed his greatest confidence, believing there were not any troops in the world able to stand before them, began the battle by giving a most furious charge, and broke through part of our front line (in Cutts' division); but he second coming on made them retreat faster than they came, which cooled those gentlemen's courage, for they never made such another charge, upon which our squadrons advanced and charged in their turn." In the attack on the village, a curious incident occurred in Howe's regiment (now the 15th Foot). The major, a tyrannical officer, apprehensive of what might occur, "addressed the corps, confessed he had been to blame, and begged to fall by the hands of the French-not theirs.” "March on, sir,” replied a grenadier, "the 485 enemy is before us, and we have something else to do than think of you now." On the French giving way, the major took off his hat and cried, "Huzzah, gentlemen-the day is our own!" At that moment a musket-ball passed through his brain and killed him instantly ("Advice to Officers," Perth, 1795). Various charges were made with varying success, and in these no regiment distinguished itself more than Wyndham's horse (now 6th Dragoon Guards), under Colonel Francis Palmes. The arrival of the Earl of Orkney, K.T., with the second line of infantry sustained the charges of our cavalry, with whom he checked them, and ultimately drove the gensdarmes back. A thick shroud of smoke now enveloped Blenheim; and while squadron after squadron menaced it on the left, Marlborough ordered his brother, General Charles Churchill, with his division of infantry, to pass the Nebel at Unterglauk, a hamlet which, as it lay in front of their position, the enemy had set in flames. That officer easily possessed himself of a stone bridge which crossed the stream; and marching between two rows of blazing cottages, his division rapidly formed in columns of regiments on the opposite bank. Simultaneous with this movement was the advance of the cavalry, who, by throwing fascines into the stream, with boards over them, crossed with difficulty, however, as they were enfiladed by the enemy's cannon; thus horse and man fell fast, in many instances to rise no more. "They were as yet unformed, when the enemy's horse rushed down the steep, charged, broke, and drove them to the brink of the stream. Certain destruction must have overtaken them there, had not the infantry, by this time in good order, wheeled to the left and checked the assailants by a fire of musketry as close as it was well directed. By this means the fugitives were enabled to draw together, while a reserve of cavalry, passing the stream, rode furiously upon the French as they retired, and completed their overthrow. Repeated charges now took place, in which sometimes one party, sometimes the other, was successful; while the artillery on both sides kept up a murderous fire, and the carnage was dreadful.” The blaze of musketry now covered all the plain; every inch of ground was disputed with inconceivable obstinacy, and a corps of eleven battalions, led by the Prince of Holstein-Beck, in attempting to pass the stream above Oberclau, was very roughly handled by the Irish Brigade. Its certain rout must have ensued had not Marlborough led up a fresh division to its support; while at the same |