year as many as 644 prizes were taken.' The war on the part of the English, however, was most efficiently conducted by means of subsidies, which were enormously multiplied. The direct payment of the Hanoverian troops, against which so fierce a clamour had been raised, was, indeed, for a time suspended, but the Queen of Hungary was induced to take those troops into her pay. In order that she should do so her subsidy was increased, and next year the Government, without producing any considerable disturbance, reverted quietly to the former policy. The war, however, was now evidently drawing to a close, and the treaties of 1745 had greatly restricted its theatre. Austria, freed from apprehension on the side of Prussia and Bavaria, was enabled in 1746 to send 30,000 additional soldiers into Italy, where she speedily recovered almost everything she had lost in the preceding year, and defeated the united French and Spaniards in the battle of Placentia. The death of Philip V., which took place in July, made the Spaniards desirous of peace. The command of their army was taken from General Gages, and their troops were soon after ordered to evacuate Italy. Finale was occupied by the Sardinians. Genoa itself was captured by the Austrians, but rescued by a sudden insurrection of the populace. The project of the invasion of Naples was abandoned, in consequence of the opposition of the King of Sardinia, who had grown jealous of Austria, and feared to see her omnipotent in Italy. Provence, however, was invaded and devastated in the November of 1746, and Antibes besieged; but soon after the revolt of Genoa the Austrians were recalled. A second siege of Genoa was raised by a French army, under Belleisle, which burst through Nice, took town after town in that province, and compelled the Austrians and Sardinians to retire. An attempt was then made to capture Turin by a French corps, commanded by the brother of Belleisle, which endeavoured to force its way through the valley of Susa, but it was defeated with great loss at an entrenchment called the Assietta, the commander was killed, and Marshal Belleisle, who had counselled the expedition, and who intended to co-operate with it, fell back upon Nice.

While the fortune of the war was thus rapidly fluctuating in Italy, in the Netherlands it was uniformly in favour of the French. 1_Smollett, Hist. of England, ch. ix.

The Scotch rebellion, which compelled England for a time to withdraw her troops, confirmed the military ascendancy which Marshal Saxe had already acquired. In 1746 Brussels with its whole garrison was captured, and soon after Mechlin, Louvain, Antwerp, Mons, Charleroi, and Namur succumbed. This last town, on whose fortifications the rival genius of Cohorn and Vauban had been in turn employed, now yielded after a siege of six days. The superiority of the French in numbers and especially in artillery, the genius of Marshal Saxe and the paralysing effect of a great domestic sorrow upon Prince Charles of Lorraine, who commanded the Austrians, made the campaign an uninterrupted triumph for the French, who, soon after the arrival of a British force, defeated the allies in the battle of Roucoux, and became masters of all the Austrian Netherlands, except Limburg and Luxemburg. Next year they invaded the Dutch Republic. Zealand was overrun by troops, 5,000 prisoners were taken in less than a month, and several towns and fortresses were occupied. The Dutch, who found their republican institutions much more adapted for securing their liberty in time of peace than for giving energy and concentration to their forces in time of war, adopted a policy which they had before pursued. During their long conflicts with the Spaniards they had confided the executive power to the House of Orange, but soon after the Peace of Westphalia had given Holland a recognised place among European States, the hereditary Stadtholdership was abolished and purely republican institutions were created. When the country, in 1672, was reduced to the verge of ruin by the invasion of Lewis XIV. it reverted to the former system and retained it for thirty years. It now again recurred to it, and a popular insurrection made. the House of Orange hereditary rulers. The war, however, continued to be disastrous. The allies were defeated in a great battle at Lauffeld, near Maestricht, on July 2; Sir John Ligonier, who commanded the English cavalry, and who displayed extraordinary courage in the struggle, was taken prisoner, and the campaign ended with the surprise and capture of the almost impregnable fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom, by Count Lowendahl. It is a curious feature of this campaign that Ligonier, who distinguished himself most highly in the English ranks, was a

French refugee, while of the French commanders Marshal Saxe was by birth a German, and Lowendahl a Dane.

In the meantime the Pelham Government, though unsuccessful abroad, had acquired a complete ascendancy at home. The martial enthusiasm of the country had gone down, and public opinion being gratified by the successive deposition of Walpole and of Carteret, and being no longer stimulated by a powerful Opposition, acquiesced languidly in the course of events. The King for a time chafed bitterly against the yoke. He had been thwarted in his favourite German policy, deprived of the minister who was beyond comparison the most pleasing to him, and compelled to accept others in whom he had no confidence. He despised and disliked Newcastle. He hated Chesterfield, whom he was compelled to admit to office, and he was especially indignant with Pitt, who had described Hanover as a beggarly Electorate' and accused its soldiers of cowardice, and whose claims to office Pelham was continually urging. At length, in February 1745-46, while the rebellion was still raging, the perplexed monarch tried to extricate himself from his embarrassments by holding private communications with Bath and Granville. The ministers were apprised of it and at once resigned. The impotence of their rivals was speedily shown, and in forty-eight hours they were obliged to acknowledge themselves incapable of forming a Government. The Pelhams returned to power, but their position was immeasurably strengthened. The few remaining adherents of Bath were driven from office. The King acknowledged with great irritation that it was impossible for him to resist. He refused, indeed, to make Pitt Secretary of War, but sanctioned his appointment to the lucrative office of Joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and soon after to the still more important position of Paymaster of the Forces.

The great work of the Government was the pacification of Europe by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Another campaign had actually begun when the preliminaries were signed. Russia had at last been brought into the war, and 30,000 Russian soldiers subsidised by the maritime Powers were on the march to rescue the Netherlands. It was not impossible that this powerful reinforcement might have given a new course to the war. In Italy the balance of success was on the whole in

favour of the Austrians. The commerce of France had been almost annihilated by the English; her resources were nearly exhausted by the extraordinary exertions she had made, and the returning prosperity produced by the long pacific government of Fleury had been completely overcast. On the other hand, Nice and Savoy were still occupied by the French and Spaniards. The French were almost absolute masters of the Austrian Netherlands; the capture of Bergen-op-Zoom and the subsequent investment of Maestricht had rendered the condition of the Dutch Republic almost desperate, and it would probably have been crushed before any succour could arrive. Maria Theresa, it is true, ardently desired the continuance of the war, hoping to obtain in Italy some compensation for the loss of Silesia, and the Duke of Newcastle was inclined, in opposition to his brother, to support her; but she waged war chiefly by the assistance of the subsidies of England, and her ambition was clearly contrary to the general interests of Europe. Like many absolute sovereigns she appears to have been completely indifferent to the misery and desolation she caused, provided only she could leave her empire as extended as she had received it. She was resolved also to throw the defence of the Austrian Netherlands almost exclusively on the maritime Powers, employing the subsidies, which she received on the express condition of keeping a large army in those provinces, mainly in a war of aggression in Italy; and she was bitterly aggrieved because the English, under these circumstances, diminished her remittances. With the exception of the King of Sardinia, however, who saw prospects of pushing his fortunes in Italy, and who was determined, if possible, to avoid restoring the Duchy of Finale, she found little support in her hostility to peace. Spain was now governed by a perfectly unambitious sovereign, who wished for nothing but repose. Holland was reduced to such a condition that peace was her first necessity. England was ruled by an eminently pacific minister; and there was hardly any Opposition to impede his policy. The enormous subsidies which England had been for years scattering through Europe were rapidly adding to her debt and impairing her prosperity, and it was not clear what object she had to gain. The quarter in which the French arms were most successful was precisely that most dangerous to Eng

land; and except the capture of Cape Breton, and of a number of prizes, she had obtained little or nothing as a compensation for her sacrifices. Even in India, where the small settlements of France appeared almost at the mercy of England, she had encountered reverses. Two Frenchmen of great abilities and enterprise, but separated from each other by a bitter jealousy, then presided over French interests in India. Dupleix, after a brilliant industrial career upon the Ganges, had been made Governor of the French settlement of Pondicherry, while La Bourdonnais, one of the bravest and most skilful seamen France has ever produced, directed affairs in the islands of Bourbon and Mauritius. La Bourdonnais succeeded, in the course of 1746, in repelling an English squadron under Admiral Barnet, and in besieging and taking Madras. As express orders from the ministry at home prohibited him from occupying permanently any conquests that might be made in India, a capitulation was signed by which the town was to be restored on the payment of a specified ransom. It passed, however, under the dominion of Dupleix, who shamefully broke the capitulation and subjected the English to scandalous outrages, while La Bourdonnais returned to France and was soon after, on false charges, flung into the Bastille, where he remained for nearly three years. In 1748 the English made a formidable attempt to retaliate upon the French, and a large force of English and Sepoy troops, under the command of Admiral Boscawen and of Major Lawrence, besieged Pondicherry. It was defended, however, by Dupleix with great energy and genius. The rainy season came on, sickness decimated the besiegers, and the enterprise was at last abandoned.

It was plain that the time for peace had arrived. France had already made overtures, and she showed much moderation, and at this period much disinterestedness in her demands, and the influence of England and Holland at length forced the peace upon Austria and Sardinia, though both were bitterly aggrieved by its conditions. France agreed to restore every conquest she had made during the war, to abandon the cause of the Stuarts, and expel the Pretender from her soil, to demolish, in accordance with earlier treaties, the fortifications of Dunkirk on the side of the sea, while retaining those on the side of the land, and to retire from the contest without acquiring any fresh terri