Leuwe, and was seconded by the Danish, Hanoverian, and Hessian generals;
but the scheme was opposed by the Dutch officers, and the deputies
of the states, who alleged that the success was dubious, and the
consequences of forcing the lines would be inconsiderable; they
therefore recommended the siege of Limburgh, by the reduction of which
they would acquire a whole province, and cover their own country, as
well as Juliers and Gueldres, from the designs of the enemy. The siege
of Limburgh was accordingly undertaken. The trenches were opened on
the five-and-twentieth day of September, and in two days the place was
surrendered; the garrison remaining prisoners of war. By this conquest
the allies secured the country of Liege, and the electorate of Cologn,
from the incursions of the enemy; before the end of the year they
remained masters of the whole Spanish Guelderland, by the reduction of
Gueldres, which surrendered on the seventeenth day of September, after
having been long blockaded, bombarded, and reduced to a heap of
ashes, by the Prussian general Lottum. Such was the campaign in the
Netherlands, which in all probability would have produced events of
greater importance, had not the duke of Marlborough been restricted by
the deputies of the states-general, who began to be influenced by the
intrigues of the Louvestein faction, ever averse to a single dictator.

PRINCE OF HESSE DEFEATED BY THE FRENCH.

The French king redoubled his efforts in Germany. The duke de Vendome
was ordered to march from the Milanese to Tyrol, and there join the
elector of Bwaria, who had already made himself master of Inspruck. But
the boors rising in arms, drove him out of the country before he could
be joined by the French general, who was therefore obliged to return
to the Milanese. The Imperialists in Italy were so ill supplied by the
court of Vienna, that they could not pretend to act offensively. The
French invested Ostiglia, which, however, they could not reduce; but the
fortress of Barsillo, in the duchy of Beggio, capitulating after a long
blockade, they took possession of the duke of Modena's country. The
elector of Bwaria rejoining Villars, resolved to attack count Stirum,
whom prince Louis of Baden had detached from his army. With this view
they passed the Danube at Donawert, and discharged six guns as a signal
for the marquis D'Usson, whom they had left in the camp at Lavingen, to
fall upon the rear of the imperialists, while