bitants were overwhelmed
with consternation, so that a small number of troops might have taken
possession without resistance, but there was not a soldier on board.
Nevertheless the sailors took and demolished Quince-fort, and did
considerable damage to the town of St. Maloes, which had been a nest of
privateers that infested the English commerce. Though this attempt was
executed with great spirit and some success, the clamours of the people
became louder and louder. They scrupled not to say that the councils
of the nation were betrayed; and their suspicions rose even to the
secretary's office. They observed, that the French were previously
acquainted with all the motions of the English, and took their measures
accordingly for their destruction. They collected and compared a
good number of particulars that seemed to justify their suspicion of
treachery. But the misfortunes of the nation in all probability arose
from a motley ministry divided among themselves, who, instead of acting
in concert for the public good, employed all their influence to thwart
the views and blacken the reputations of each other. The people in
general exclaimed against the marquis of Carmarthen, the earls of
Nottingham and Rochester, who had acquired great credit with the queen,
and, from their hatred to the whigs, betrayed the interests of the
nation.

THE FRENCH KING HAS RECOURSE TO THE MEDIATION OF DENMARK.

But if the English were discontented, the French were miserable in spite
of all their victories. That kingdom laboured under a dreadful famine,
occasioned partly from unfavourable seasons, and partly from the
war, which had not left hands sufficient to cultivate the ground.
Notwithstanding all the diligence and providence of their ministry
in bringing supplies of corn from Sweden and Denmark, their care
in regulating the price and furnishing the markets, their liberal
contributions for the relief of the indigent, multitudes perished of
want, and the whole kingdom was reduced to poverty and distress. Louis
pined in the midst of his success. He saw his subjects exhausted by
a ruinous war, in which they had been involved by his ambition. He
tampered with the allies apart, in hopes of dividing and detaching them
from the grand confederacy; he solicited the northern crowns to engage
as mediators for a general peace. A memorial was actually presented by
the Danish minister to king William, by which it appears that the
French king would ha