ld pieces to the conquerors
and leaving more than six hundred corpses on the ground. Marlborough, on
this as on every similar occasion, acquitted himself like a valiant and
skilful captain. The Coldstream Guards commanded by Talmash, and the
regiment which is now called the sixteenth of the line, commanded
by Colonel Robert Hodges, distinguished themselves highly. The Royal
regiment too, which had a few months before set up the standard of
rebellion at Ipswich, proved on this day that William, in freely
pardoning that great fault, had acted not less wisely than generously.
The testimony which Waldeck in his despatch bore to the gallant conduct
of the islanders was read with delight by their countrymen. The fight
indeed was no more than a skirmish: but it was a sharp and bloody
skirmish. There had within living memory been no equally serious
encounter between the English and French; and our ancestors were
naturally elated by finding that many years of inaction and vassalage
did not appear to have enervated the courage of the nation, [454]

The Jacobites however discovered in the events of the campaign abundant
matter for invective. Marlborough was, not without reason, the object
of their bitterest hatred. In his behaviour on a field of battle malice
itself could find little to censure: but there were other parts of his
conduct which presented a fair mark for obloquy. Avarice is rarely
the vice of a young man: it is rarely the vice of a great man: but
Marlborough was one of the few who have, in the bloom of youth, loved
lucre more than wine or women, and who have, at the height of greatness,
loved lucre more than power or fame. All the precious gifts which nature
had lavished on him he valued chiefly for what they would fetch. At
twenty he made money of his beauty and his vigour. At sixty he made
money of his genius and his glory. The applauses which were justly due
to his conduct at Walcourt could not altogether drown the voices of
those who muttered that, wherever a broad piece was to be saved or got,
this hero was a mere Euclio, a mere Harpagon; that, though he drew a
large allowance under pretence of keeping a public table, he never asked
an officer to dinner; that his muster rolls were fraudulently made up;
that he pocketed pay in the names of men who had long been dead, of men
who had been killed in his own sight four years before at Sedgemoor;
that there were twenty such names in one troop; that there were
thirty-s