they had so severely censured the whigs for their extravagance, parliament was prorogued on the 12th of June.
The interests of the church had not been neglected during this session. The commons passed a bill, at the instigation of the convocation, for the building of fifty new churches in the suburbs of London and Westminster; and to furnish the necessary funds, they continued the duty on coals brought into London, granted for the building of St. Paul's, which was to remain till it had netted the sum of three hundred and eighty thousand pounds. Convocation had busied itself chiefly with abusing the whig ministry for its conduct to the church, and condemning the Arian opinions of Mr. Whiston, the mathematical professor of Cambridge, who, however, set its authority at nought, and published a work in four volumes, declaring the apostolical constitutions to be both canonical and of higher authority than the epistles and the gospels.
Marlborough had set out for Holland in the month of February. The state of affairs at home gave him no motive for lingering there, whilst the malice of his enemies gave him every motive for conducting the war with his utmost skill. He know that everything would be done to weaken his command, and render abortive his efforts. He did not leave England until he had obtained assurances from the queen that the army should be regularly paid. But it had been robbed of its full force to send fresh troops to the now utterly hopeless war in Spain, and to send others with the redoubtable Jack Hill to Quebec. On the other hand, the French, amid all their misery and destitution, continued to flock to the standard of king Louis; and they were elated by the rumours industriously circulated, that Marlborough was now out of power; that he would no longer be able to command such force against them as he had done, but that he would be soon recalled and peace made. The latter rumour had real foundation. During the last year secret negotiations had been carried on by Harley with the French court through the abbé Gualtier, a profligate priest, whom Harley seems to have taken into favour instead of Guiscard, and probably to the irritation of that emissary. This negotiation was for no other object than the restoration of the pretender on the death of Anne. By this means Harley obtained the support of the Jacobites in England, who, secretly instructed from St. Germains, went over to him. The returning audacity of the French was still further nourished by the unaccountable negligence of the English cabinet of the measures for reducing France to an extremity. Whilst we had been spending so much life and money in the campaigns of Flanders and Spain, we had maintained a vast fleet to very little purpose. The trade of France and Spain to the West Indies and South American colonies was left almost without interruption; and thus money and many necessaries of life were poured into these two countries, which we might, by a vigilant naval system of operations, have entirely cut off. Had this been done, France would have been reduced to the last extremity, and compelled long ago to have accepted the terms of the allies.
Under great discouragements Marlborough opened the campaign which was to prove his last. Whilst his enemies before him were filled with revived spirit, his enemies behind—those of his own country—were, with unpatriotic anxiety, hoping for his defeat, or, at least, for a campaign so little efficient as to be a defeat in its effects on his reputation; but he determined to disappoint them. He assembled his army at Orchis, between Lisle and Douay, about the middle of April, and marshal Villars encamped betwixt Cambray and Arras. The duke soon after passed the Scarpe, and took post betwixt Douay and Bouchain, where he was joined by his faithful comrade in arms, prince Eugene; but that great general was soon compelled to leave him to repel the French farces which were directed against Germany on the Upper Rhine. The army of marshal Villars was a very numerous one, and he had defended his hues with redoubts and other works so formidably, that he styled them the ne plus ultra of Marlborough. These lines extended from Bouchain, on the Scheldt, along the Sanset and the Scarpe to Arras, and thence along the Upper Scarpe to Canché. But Marlborough did net despair of entering them by stratagem, if not by force. He ordered a great quantity of fascines to be prepared, and made a pretence of a direct attack on the lines where he was; but he at the same time secretly dispatched the generals Cadogan and Hompesch to surprise the passage of the Sanset at Arleux. Brigadier Sutton was also dispatched with the artillery and pontoons to lay bridges over the canals near Goulezen, and over the Scarpe at Vitry. By the time that these operations could be effected, Marlborough suddenly quitted his position at nine in the evening, marched the whole of his army through the night, and by five in the morning had crossed the Scarpe at Vitry. There, receiving the information that Hompesch had secured the passes of the Sanset and the Scheldt, Marlborough continued his march on Arleux; and, after a march of ten leagues without halting, was encamped on the Scheldt between Estrun and Ois. Thus, by this unexampled dexterity and exertion, he was completely within the boasted impregnable lines of Villars. This general, on becoming aware of his opponents motions, pursued him with headlong haste, but he arrived too late to prevent his design; and, whilst the duke of Marlborough was extolled as a general of consummate ability, Villars was ridiculed even by his own officers for suffering himself to be outwitted.
The Dutch deputies this time, so far from retarding the duke's enterprise, were desirous that he should at once attack Villars; but he would not hazard a battle whilst his men were fatigued by their enormous march. He determined, on the contrary, to commence the siege of Bouchain. The place was remarkably strong, and difficult of access from its situation in a marsh; yet, by the 10th of August, he had compelled it to surrender, the garrison of six thousand men becoming prisoners of war. With this achievement the duke of Marlborough closed his brilliant career. His enemies at home, Oxford, St. John, Dartmouth, and the tories in general, had fondly hoped that he was going this campaign to certain defeat and disgrace; but, spite of all his disadvantages, he had placed the allied armies, by this conquest of Bouchain, on the highway to Paris. The allies were in possession of the Meuse, almost as far as the Sambre; of the Scheldt from Tournay; and of the Lys as far as it is navigable. They had reduced Spanish Guelderland, Limburg, Brabant, and Flanders, with the greatest part of Hainault, and were in a position, by one more vigorous
