peated voyages to the South Sea, from whence they brought home
immense treasures; while the allies took no steps for intercepting these
supplies, though nothing could have been more easy for the English than
to deprive the enemy of this great resource, and convert it to their
own advantage. Had a squadron of ships been annually employed for this
purpose, the subjects of France and Spain must have been literally
starved, and Louis obliged to submit to such terms as the confederates
might have thought proper to impose. Villars had found means to assemble
a very numerous army, with which he encamped behind the river Sanset, in
such an advantageous post as could not be attacked with any prospect of
success. Meanwhile the duke of Marlborough passed the Scarpe, and formed
his camp between Douay and Bouchain, where he was joined by prince
Eugene on the twenty-third day of May. This general, however, did not
long remain in the Netherlands. Understanding that detachments had been
made from the army of Villars to the Rhine, and that the elector of
Bavaria intended to act in the empire, the prince, by order from the
court of Vienna, marched towards the upper Rhine with the Imperial and
Palatine troops, to secure Germany. The Duke of Marlborough repassing
the Scarpe, encamped in the plains of Lens, from whence he advanced
towards Aire, as if he had intended to attack the French lines in
that quarter. These lines beginning at Bouchain on the Schelde, were
continued along the Sanset and the Scarpe to Arras, and thence along the
Upper Scarpe to Canche. They were defended by redoubts and other works
in such a manner, that Villars judged they were impregnable, and called
them the _Ne plus ultra_ of Marlborough.

This nobleman advancing within two leagues of the French lines, ordered
a great number of fascines to be made, declaring he would attack them
the next morning; so that Villars drew all his forces on that side, in
full expectations of an engagement. The duke, on the supposition that
the passage of the Sanset by Arleux would be left unguarded, had ordered
the generals Cadogan and Hompesch to assemble twenty battalions and
seventeen squadrons from Douay and the neighbouring garrisons, to march
to Arleux, where they should endeavour to pass the Sanset. Brigadier
Sutton was detached with the artillery and pontoons, to lay bridges over
the canal near Groulezen and over the Scarpe at Vitry, while the duke
with the whole confederate army