WILLIAM AND MANY.

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harbour of Brest and bombarding the town. But this sugges-tion, which indicated but too clearly that his judgment hadbeenaffected by the irritation of a wounded body and a woundedmind, was wisely rejected by the naval officers. The armamentreturned to Portsmouth. There Talmash died, exclaiming with hislast breath that he had been lured into asnare bytreachery. Thepublic grief and indignation were loudly expressed. The nationremembered the services of the unfortunate general, forgave hisrashness, pitied his sufferings, and execrated the unknowntraitors whose machinations had been fatal to him. There weremany conjectures and many rumours. Some sturdy English-men, misled by national prejudice, swore that none of our planswould ever be kept a secret from the enemy while French re-fugees were in high military command. Some zealous Whigs,misled by party spirit, muttered that the Court of Saint Ger-mains would never want good intelligence while a single Toryremained in the Cabinet Council. The real criminal was notnamed; nor, till the archives of the House of Stuart were ex-plored, was it known to the world that Talmash had perished bythe basest of all the hundred villanies of Marlborough. * -

Yet never had Marlborough been less a Jacobite than at themoment when he rendered this wicked and shameful sendee tothe Jacobite cause. It may be confidently affirmed that to servethe banished family was not his object, and that to ingratiatehimself with the banished family was only his secondary object.ITis primary object was to force himself into the service of theexisting government, and to regain possession of those impor-tant and lucrative places from which he had been dismissedmore than two years before. He knew that the country and theParliament would not patiently bear to see the English armycommanded by foreign generals. Two Englishmen only had* London Gazette, June 14. 18. 1G94; Paris Gazette, . Burchett;

July o’’ 1

Journal ofLord Caermarthen; Baden, June L’Hermitage, June 4 ®,

21 *

CIIAP.

XX.

1604 ,