were more successful on the Lower Rhine and in the
Netherlands. The duke of Marlborough crossed the sea in the beginning of
April, and assembling the allied army, resolved that the campaign should
be begun with the siege of Bonne, which was accordingly invested on
the twenty-fourth day of April. Three different attacks were carried
on against this place: one by the hereditary prince of Hesse-Cassel;
another by the celebrated Coehorn; and a third by lieutenant-general
Fagel. The garrison defended themselves vigorously till the fourteenth
day of May, when the fort having been taken by assault, and the breaches
rendered practicable, the marquis d'Alegre, the governor, ordered a
parley to be beat; hostages were immediately exchanged; on the sixteenth
the capitulation was signed; and in three days the garrison evacuated
the place in order to be conducted to Luxembourg. During the siege of
Bonne, the mareschals Boufflers and Villeroy advanced with an army of
forty thousand men towards Tongeren, and the confederate army, commanded
by M. d'Auverquerque, was obliged at their approach to retreat under
the cannon of Maestricht. The enemy having taken possession of Tongeren,
made a motion against the confederate army, which they found already
drawn up in order of battle, and so advantageously posted, that,
notwithstanding their great superiority in point of number, they would
not hazard an attack, but retired to the ground from whence they
had advanced. Immediately after the reduction of Bonne, the duke
of Marlborough, who had been present at the siege, returned to the
confederate army in the Netherlands, now amounting to one hundred and
thirty squadrons, and fifty-nine battalions. On the twenty-fifth day of
May, the duke having passed the river Jecker in order to give battle to
the enemy, they marched with precipitation to Boekwren, and abandoned
Tongeren, after having blown up the walls of the place with gunpowder.
The duke continued to follow them to Thys, where he encamped, while they
retreated to Hannye, retiring as he advanced. Then he resolved to force
their lines: this service was effectually performed by Coehorn, at the
point of Callo, and by baron Spaar, in the county of Waes, near Stoken.
The duke had formed the design of reducing Antwerp, which was garrisoned
by Spanish troops under the command of the marquis de Bedmar. He
intended with the grand army to attack the enemy's lines on the side of
Louvaine and Mechlin: he det