the main cause of the fruit of the glorious victories of the English
general being lost by the treaty of Utrecht.

Though the ascendancy of Mrs Masham, and the treacherous part she was
playing to her benefactress, had long been evident to others, yet the
Duchess of Marlborough long continued blind to it. Her marriage,
however, opened the eyes of the duchess, and, soon after the promotion
of Davies and Blackhall, both avowed Tories, not free from the
imputation of Jacobitism, to the Episcopal bench, in opposition to the
recommendation of Marlborough and Godolphin, gave convincing proof that
their influence at court in the disposal even of the highest offices,
had been supplanted by that of the new favourite. The consequences were
highly prejudicial to Marlborough. The Whigs, who were not fully aware
of this secret influence, and who had long distrusted him on account of
his former connexion with James II., and envied him on account of his
great services to the country, and lustre at court, now joined the
Tories in bitter enmity against him. He was accused of protracting the
war for his own private purposes; and the man who had refused the
government of the Netherlands, and L60,000 a-year, lest it should breed
jealousies in the alliance, was accused of checking the career of
victory from sordid motives connected with the profits of the war. His
brother Churchill was prosecuted by Halifax and the Whigs on the charge
of neglect of duty; and the intercession of the duke, though made in
humble terms, was not so much as even honoured with a reply. The
consequences of this decline of court favour were soon apparent.
Recruits and supplies were forwarded to the army with a very scanty
hand--the military plans and proposals of the duke were either overruled
or subjected to a rigid and often inimical examination--and that
division of responsibility and weakening of power became apparent, which
is so often in military, as well as political transactions, the
forerunner of disaster.

Matters were in this untoward state, when Marlborough, in the middle of
November, returned from the Hague to London. The failure before Toulon,
the disasters in Spain, the nullity of the campaign in Flanders, were
made the subject of unbounded outcry in the country; and the most
acrimonious debates took place in Parliament, in the course of which
violent reproaches were thrown on Marlborough, and all his great
services to his country seemed to be forgot