uck at the very foundation of the pope's temporal power. His holiness
wrote a long remonstrance to the emperor on the injustice of those
proceedings, and declared that he would assert his cause though he
should lose his life in the contest. He forthwith began to raise an
army, and revived a plan of forming a league among the princes and
states of Italy for their mutual defence. Sir John Leake had received
orders to bombard Civita-Vecchia, in resentment for the pope's having
countenanced the pretender's expedition to Great Britain; but as the
emperor and duke of Savoy hoped to effect an accommodation with the
court of Rome, they prevailed upon the English admiral to suspend
hostilities until they should have tried the method of negotiation. The
marquis de Prie, a Piedmontese nobleman, was sent as ambassador to Rome;
but the pope would not receive him in that quality. Elated with the
promises of France, he set the emperor at defiance; and his troops
having surprised a body of Imperialists, were so barbarous as to cut
them all in pieces. The duke of Savoy having ended the campaign, the
troops of the emperor, which had served under that prince, were ordered
to march into the papal territories, and drove the forces of his
holiness before them, without any regard to number. Bologna capitulated;
and Rome began to tremble with the apprehension of being once more
sacked by a German army. Then the pope's courage failed; he was glad
to admit the marquis de Prie as envoy from the emperor. He consented to
disband his new levies; to accommodate the Imperial troops with winter
quarters in the papal territories; to grant the investiture of Naples to
king Charles; and to allow at all times a passage to the Imperial troops
through his dominions. On the Upper Rhine the electors of Bavaria
and Hanover were so weak, that they could not undertake any thing of
consequence against each other. In Hungary the disputes still continued
between the emperor and the malcontents. Poland was at length delivered
from the oppression exercised by the king of Sweden, who marched into
the Ukraine against the czar of Muscovy, notwithstanding the submission
with which that monarch endeavoured to appease his indignation. During
the course of this year the English merchants sustained no considerable
losses by sea: the cruisers were judiciously stationed, and the trade
was regularly supplied with convoys. In the West Indies, commodore Wager
destroyed the admiral o