campaign commenced very nearly in the same place, and they contended for pretty much the same objects which they had struggled for in the two preceding years.

So superior was the genius of prince Ferdinand, that under many disadvantages he was the first to commence offensive operations. The stroke he struck on this occasion would suffice alone to rank him with the first commanders of his age. His abilities throughout the war have never shone out with more lustre than in this campaign, which concluded it.

The French army was most advantageously posted, both for command of the country, and for strength, near a place called Graebenstein, in the frontiers of Hesse; their centre occupied an advantagcous eminence; their left wing was almost inaccessible by several deep ravines; and their right was covered by the village of Graebenstein, by several rivulets, and a strong detached body under one of their best officers, monsieur de Castries.

In this situation, they imagined they had nothing to fear from the attempts of prince Ferdinand, whose army, besides the inferiority of its numbers, was separated in such a manner, and in such distant places, that they judged it impossible it could unite in any attack upon their camp. But whilst they enjoyed themselves in full security, the storm was preparing to fall upon them from all quarters.

A considerable corps of the allied army, under general Luckner, was posted to the eastward of the Weser, near Eimbecke, on the Leine. He lay there to observe prince Xavier of Saxony, who was en

camped between the Werra and Gottingen. But if he watched the prince, the prince also watched him. When, therefore, he had orders to quit this post, that he might cooperate in the grand design, he left a small party of his corps in his station, by which he deceived the prince of Saxony; and marching in the night with the utmost speed, he crossed the Weser, turned the right of the French army, and, without being discovered, placed himself upon the rear. General Sporken at the same time placed himself so as to attack the same wing in flank. Prince Ferdinand crossed the Dymel, in order to fall upon their centre. The attack on the enemy's left was commanded by lord Granby.

These preparations were made with so much judgment, celerity, and good order, that the French had not perceived the approach of the allies, when they found June 24. themselves attacked with infinite impetuosity, in front, flank, and rear. The battle was scarcely begun, when they thought of nothing but flight. The corps under monsieur de Castries had time to retreat in tolerable order, and without any great loss. But it did not fare so well with their centre and their left, which were opposed by the calm resolution of prince Ferdinand, and the generous courage of Granl.

As the French placed all their hopes rather in retreat than combat, an entire rout must have ensued, if monsieur Stainville, who commanded on the left, had not thrown himself with the flower of the French infantry into a wood; which enabled him, at the expence of the best part of it, to cover the retreat of the army. Here this brave

and

and accomplished officer made a resolute stand, and for a long time sustained the whole weight of the allies. His corps was a devoted sacrifice. All but two battalions were cut to pieces or made prisoners. The other bodies, covered by this resolute manœuvre, made a shift to shelter themselves under the cannon of Cassel, or precipitately escaped to the other side of the Fulda.

'Thus did the French army, by the virtue of monsieur de Stainville, escape a total defeat; but the consequences of the action were not recovered during the whole campaign. They lost much credit, both in point of resolution and generalship. Their infantry, in this engagement, consisted of one hundred battalions, when that of the allies was composed but of sixty. The common men made prisoners by the allies, on this occasion, were two thousand seven hundred and fifty; and no less than one hundred and sixty-two officers were taken. The English lost but a few men killed, and no officer of rank, but lieutenant-colonel Townshend, who fell with great glory to himself, and to the regret of the whole army.

Every thing in the conduct of prince Ferdinand appears the effect of a well-digested plan; and one great action completed, always helps to disclose a series of bold, masterly, and connected designs.

As soon as the enemy was dislodged from their strong post, use was made of this advantage (whilst the French, under the hurry and

confusion of their late misfortunes, were unable to provide against unexpected accidents) to push forward a body of the English, under lord Granby and lord Frederick Cavendish. The French could scarcely imagine, that, whilst they were in possession of so strong a place as Cassel, and commanded an army so superior in number to the allies, and, whilst prince Ferdinand braved them in front, they should find one of his detachments upwards of thirty miles behind them. In this emergency, monsieur de Rochambeau, perceiv ing their motions, hastily collected some brigades of infantry July 6. and cavalry at Hombourg, to prevent, if possible, the communication of the grand army with Francfort from being cut off. But they were charged with so much vigour by the two English commanders, that, though they defended themselves with spirit for some time, they were in the issue dispersed with considerable loss. They were obliged to evacuate that tract of country, Fritzlar, Feltzberg, and Lohr; and almost all the important posts in the south part of Hesse were occupied by the allies. The communication with Francfort, from whence the French drew their whole subsistence, was absolutely intercepted.

To the north of Hesse, also, the allies were not less active, nor less successful; they obliged prince Xavier, with his Saxon detachments, to abandon his advanced post on the Leine, and unite himself to the grand army. They got between him

and

and Gottingen, by which the French garrison there was left without sup port. This garrison, seeing its communication interrupted, blew up a part of the fortifications, and attempted a retreat; but finding no avenue open, they were obliged to return in confusion. Despairing of their ability to hold this important place, they thought themselves happy, when at length, with much maAug. 16. nagement and difficulty, they were able to eva

cuate it without opposition.

Prince Xavier, after having, as we said before, quitted his advanced situation at Morungen in the territories of Hanover, united himself to the right of the principal army, which was posted to the eastward of the Fulda, not far from the place where that river forms an angle in its junction with the Werra. In this angle stands the town of Munden, a fortified place, in which the French had a garrison. Full of confidence from this situation, they were under no apprehensions; but the generals Zastrow, Gilsac, July 23. and Waidhausen, passed

the Fulda in their sight, and under a heavy fire of their cannon. The corps of the two for mer officers possessed themselves of a wood on the enemy's right flank. General Waldhausen, in the mean time, had seized the village of Bonnevert; which enabled him to keep the garrison of Munden in check; and gave him also an opportunity, whenever the occasion required it, of falling on the enemy's rear.

The bold passage of the Fulda, and the judgment of the subsequent dispositions, insured the victory. Prince Xavier, for a good while, defended himself with an obstinate re

solution; but finding his flank gained, he began to give way. In this instant Waldhausen, who had hitherto only watched the issue of the en gagement, threw in his horse upon their rear, and completed the defeat.

General Stainville, who occupied a strong entrenched camp in the neighbourhood, seeing the party of the prince of Saxony in danger of being totally cut to pieces, quitted his entrenchments with his whole army, of ten thousand men, and hastened to their relief. Prince Frederick of Brunswick, attentive to this movement, with great quickness seized this critical opportunity, entered their camp the moment they had left it, and entirely destroyed all their works. In this action eleven hundred of the enemy were made prisoners.

The French, finding their communication destroyed, their army surrounded and harrassed on every side, and without intermission, were neither able to advance with a prospect of success, or to retreat with any hope of safety. In this distress, they had nothing left but to call their army from the Lower Rhine to their assistance. No time was to be lost. Express after express was sent to hasten them. In consequence of these dispatches, the prince of Condé advanced by forced marches; the hereditary prince stuck close to him, and kept himself in readiness to fall upon his corps when a favourable opportunity should offer.

In the mean time, prince Ferdinand pressed upon Soubise's army. Advantageously as they were situated, he offered them battle for a whole day. Rather than risque an engagement, they decamped in the night, and quitted, without an action, those advantageous grounds

called

called the Heights of Mulsingen,, where they could not be attempted without the greatest difficulty and hazard; and the quitting of which gave prince Ferdinand the most important advantages over them.

Never were military operations pushed with more vivacity, whilst the negotiation for peace was in great forwardness. The two great contending courts had opened conferences, whilst their armies were cutting one another in pieces: but prince Ferdinand, on that account, rather strained than slackened his efforts. He knew that the negotia

C H A

tion for peace is always much forwarded by the operations of the campaign, and that a successful action often hastens the decision of a contested article. Perhaps too he was willing to shew in England, that the necessity of making peace ought not to be attributed to the circumstances of that part of the war which had been committed to his care. People imagined they could discern something like coldness towards this great commander in the new British ministry; and that he, on his side, seemed rather to favour that party in England which was for prolonging the war.

P. VI.

THE events of the war in Germany, though its object was not more interesting than that in Portugal, seem to rank far before the actions of the latter in dignity and importance. They naturally occupy the first place, and justify a more minute detail in an history of military operations. It is in Germany that the great efforts of all the great powers in Europe were made from the beginning. Here the most considerable armies were maintained; here the great battles were fought; and on this theatre the great commanders gave a full scope to their genius. Germany seems, as it were, the natural soil of hostility; but Portugal, which had long languished in a tranquil obscurity, could scarce furnish out a faint image of war.

Of the state of the military in that country, we have spoken in a preceding chapter. The marine was not on a much more respectable

footing. About six or seven ships of the line, and a very few frigates, composed all the naval force of Portugal that was fit for service; of that Portugal which had formerly been one of the first maritime powers in Europe. The fortifications in that kingdom had been also long neglected, and scarce any of them were in a condition to sustain a regular siege.

Portugal, however, possessed some advantages; but they were only such as she derived from her weakness. The extreme barrenness and poverty of the country, made it very difficult for an army, either of friends or enemies, to subsist in it. The badness of the roads, and the frequency and steepness of the mountains, which occupy the greatest part of that kingdom, made it no less difficult to advance with rapid marches, and to improve the advantages of the campaign with pro

per

per expedition. The nature of the country also rendered it more fit for that species of defence. which the best force it had was best qualified to make; that is, in the way of an irregular war, by its armed peasantry; for the defiles in many places are of such a nature, as to be capable of being maintained by a small and undisciplined body, against very numerous and very regular forces. And the Portuguese, from the highest to the lowest, were animated with such a sincere and inveterate hatred to the Spanish name, and were filled with so much terror at the prospect of falling a second time under the government of that nation, that great hopes were entertained of their exerting themselves to the utmost on this occasion, and of their rousing that natural courage in which the Portuguese are not deficient.

These advantages, however, did by no means balance the dangers to which that kingdom was exposed, from the joint hostility of France and Spain. All the hope of Portugal was centered in England; for whose sake, and in whose quarrel she had been drawn into this unequal contest. The greater the weakness of Portugal was, the more conspicuous were the magnanimity and resources of Great Britain; who made, in the close of so expensive and ruinous a war, such astonishing efforts, and who was in a condition by her strength to prop up, at least for a time, so very feeble a system. She sent to Portugal officers, troops, artillery, arms, military stores, provisions, and money; every thing which could enable the Portuguese to exert their natural strength, and every thing which could supply that strength where it was deficient.

When the Bourbon courts made war against Portugal, the declared object was to prevent Great Britain from the military and commercial use of the ports of that kingdom. As it was impossible to attain this object by naval operations, they attempted it by military ones, and aimed their principal endeavours at the two great ports to which the English principally resort, Oporto and Lisbon. The possession of these two objects would probably have finished the war in their favour; the possession of either of them would have given them the most decisive advantages in it. With this view three inroads were to be made; one to the north, another was proposed more to the south, whilst the third was made in the middle provinces, in order to sustain these two bodies, and preserve the communication between them. The reader must consider this, as what appears from their designs, and from the steps they took to execute them, to have been their general plan; not that it was ever perfectly executed in all its parts, or at the same time.

The first body which commenced hostilities was commanded by the marquis de Sarria. This army entered into the north-east angle of Portugal, and marched towards Miranda. This town, though in no good state of defence, might have delayed them in their progress; but a powder magazine having blown up by accident, the fortifications were ruined, and the Spaniards, before they had raised their first battery, marched into the town by the breaches in the wall.

May 9.