e in case he should be wanted? He replied, "I shall always be found
at the head of my troops," and retired in disgust. The subsequent
disposition has likewise been blamed, inasmuch as not above one half of
the army could act, while the enemy exerted their whole force.

SIEGE OF BERGEN-OP-ZOOM.

The confederates passed the Maese and encamped in the duchy of Limburgh,
so as to cover Maestricht; while the French king remained with his
army in the neighbourhood of Tongres. Mareschal Saxe, having amused
the allies with marches and counter-marches, at length detached count
Lowendahl with six-and-thirty thousand men to besiege Bergen-op-Zoom,
the strongest fortification of Dutch Brabant, the favourite work of
the famous engineer Coehorn, never conquered, and generally esteemed
invincible. It was secured with a garrison of three thousand men, and
well provided with artillery, ammunition, and magazines. The enemy
appeared before it on the twelfth day of July, and summoned the governor
to surrender. The prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen was sent to its relief,
with twenty battalions and fourteen squadrons of the troops that could
be most conveniently assembled; he entered the lines of Bergen-op-Zooin,
where he remained in expectation of a strong reinforcement from the
confederate army; and the old baron Cronstrom, whom the stadtholder had
appointed governor of Brabant, assumed the command of the garrison
The besiegers carried on their operations with great vivacity; and the
troops in the town defended it with equal vigour. The eyes of all Europe
were turned upon this important siege; count Lowendahl received divers
reinforcements; and a considerable body of troops was detached from the
allied army, under the command of baron Schwartzenberg, to co-operate
with the prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The French general lost a great
number of men by the close and continual fire of the besieged; while
he, in his turn, opened such a number of batteries, and plied them so
warmly, that the defences began to give way. From the sixteenth day of
July to the fifteenth of September, the siege produced an unintermitting
scene of horror and destruction: desperate sallies were made, and mines
sprung with the most dreadful effect; the works began to be shattered;
the town was laid in ashes; the trenches were filled with carnage;
nothing was seen but fire and smoke; nothing heard but one continued
roar of bombs and cannon. But still the damage fell