French army, as the eldest lieutenant-general, continued the operations of the siege in sight of prince Eugene: and in spite of the efforts of that experienced general, and the overflowings of the Rhine, the place was forced to surrender. The French and their allies were no less successful in Italy. The count de Montemar having gained a complete victory over the Imperialists, at Bitonto in Apulia, the Spaniards afterwards carried every thing before them; and in two campaigns, became masters of Naples and Sicily. Meanwhile the forces of France and Piedmont, under old mareschal Villars and the king of Sardinia, took Milan and other important places. The mareschal de Coigny, who succeeded to the command of the French army on the death of Villars, defeated the Imperialists under the walls of Parma, after an obstinate battle, in which count de Merci, the Imperial general, was killed. The Imperialists were again worsted at Guastalla, where the prince of Wurtemburg was slain. In these two engagements the emperor lost above ten thousand men. A.D. 1735. Discouraged by so many defeats, his Imperial majesty signified his desire for peace; and as peace was the sincere and constant wish of cardinal Fleury, a treaty for that end was soon concluded. By this treaty it was stipulated, That Stanislaus should renounce his pretensions to the throne of Poland, in consideration of the cession of the duchy of Lorrain, which he should enjoy during life, and which, after his death, should be reunited to the crown of France; that the duke of Lorrain should have Tuscany, in exchange for his hereditary dominions, and that Lewis XV. should insure to him an annual revenue of three millions five hundred thousand livres, till the death of the grand-duke, John Gaston, the last prince of the house of Medicis; that the emperor should acknowledge Don Carlos king of the Two Sicilies, and accept the duchies of Parma and Placentia, as an indemnification for these two kingdoms; that he should cede to the king of Sardinia, who had some old pretensions to the whole A.D. 1736. whole duchy of Milan, the Novarese, the Tortonese, and fiefs of Langes. And in consideration of these cessions, the king of France agreed to restore all his conquests in Germany, and to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction 22. Scarce was this peace negociated, when a new war broke out on the confines of Europe and Asia, in which the emperor found himself involved. Provok ed at the ravages of the Crim Tartars, as well as at the neglect of the Ottoman Porte to her repeated remonstrances on that subject, the empress of Russia resolved to do herself justice. She accordingly ordered Lasci, one of her generals, to attack Azoph, which he reduced; while the count de Munich, entering the Crimea with another army, forced the lines of Prekop, made himself master of the place itself, took Baniesary, and laid all Tartary waste with fire and sword. Next campaign Munichr A.D. 1737. entered the Ukraine, and invested Oczakow, which was carried by assault, though defended by a garrison of three thousand Janizaries and seven thousand Bosniacs. A bomb having set fire to the powder magazine, it immediately blew up and communicated its contents to many of the houses. The Russian general seized this opportunity to storm the town; and the Turks unable to recover themselves from their consternation, or to fight on narrow ramparts contiguous to buildings all in flames, tamely suffered themselves to be cut to pieces23. The rapid successes of the Russians awaked the ambition. of the court of Vienna, which was bound, by treaty, to assist that of Petersburg against the Porte. The emperor was made to believe, that if he should attack the Turks on the side of Hungary while the Russians continued to press them on the borders of the Black sea, the Ottoman empire might be finally subverted. Prophecies were even propagated that the period fatal to the Crescent was at last arrived24. 22. Voltaire. Tindal. Smollett. 24. Id. ibid. But But these prophecies and the emperor's ambitious hopes proved equally illusory. The Turks turned their principal force towards Hungary. The Imperial generals were repeatedly defeated; several important places A.D. 1739. were lost, and Belgrade was besieged; when Charles VI. discouraged by his misfortunes, and resolv ing to put an end to a war from which he reaped nothing but disgrace, had recourse to the mediation of France.M. de Villeneuve, the French ambassador at Constantinople, accordingly repaired to the Turkish camp; and the empress of Russia, though recently victorious at Chocrim, afraid of being deserted by her ally, and left to support alone the whole weight of the war, had also recourse to negociation. In consequence of this pacific disposition in the Christian allies, the Turks, so lately devoted to destruction, obtained an advantageous peace. By that treaty, the empe ror ceded to the grand signior Belgrade, Sabats, the isle and fortress of Orsova, with Servia, and Austrian Walachia: and the contracting powers agreed, That the Danube and the Saave should, in future, be the boundaries of the two empires. The empress of Russia was left in possession of Azoph, but on condition that its fortifications should be demolished; and the ancient limits between the Russian and Turkish empires were re-established. A.D. 1740. Soon after this peace was signed, died the emperor Charles VI. the last prince of the ancient and illustrious house of Austria, the disputed succession of whose hereditary dominions kindled anew the flames of war in Europe. But before we enter upon that important subject, I must give you, my dear Philip, a short account of the maritime war already begun between Spain and Great-Britain; and, in order to make the grounds of their quarrel distinctly understood, it will be necessary to continue our view of the progress of navigation, commerce and colonization. LETTER PROGRESS LETTER XXVII. OF NAVIGATION, COMMERCE, AND COLONIZATION, FROM THE YEAR 1660, TO THE YEAR 1739, WHEN SPAIN AND GREAT-BRITAIN ENGAGED IN A MARITIME WAR, OCCASIONED BY CERTAIN COMMERCIAL DISPUTES-AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THAT WAR-THE TAKING OF POR TO BELLO, THE SIEGE OF CARTHAGENA AND THE EXPEDITION OF COMMODORE ANSON TO THE SOUTE-SEA. WE have seen, toward the middle of the seventeenth century, the English and Dutch in possession of alBut the Dutch commost the whole trade of the universe. merce received a severe wound from the English navigation act, passed by the commonwealth parliament, in 1651; and the subsequent wars between England and Holland, during the reign of Charles II. reduced still lower the trade of the United Provinces. Their trade to the East-Indies, however, continued to flourish, while that of England remained in a languishing condition till after the revolution. But this disadvantage on the part of England was amply compensated by the population, culture, and extension of her colonies in North-America and the West-Indies, which began to consume a vast quantity of European goods; and by a great and lucrative trade to Spain, Portugal, and Turkey'. During no former or subsequent period, in a word, did England ever make such rapid progress and riches, as during that inglorious one, which followed the restoration, and terminated with the expulsion of the house of Stuart; though she found at the same time, a in commerce 1. England sent annually to the Levant above twenty thousand pieces of woolen cloth. 2. Davenant affirms, that the shipping of England was more than doubled during these twenty-eight years. (Discourse on the Public Revenues, part ii.) And we are told by sir Josiah Child, that in 1688, there were, on the 'change, more men worth ten thousand pounds, than there were in 1650, worth one thousand. Brief Observations, &c. formidable formidable rival in France, and a rival whose encroachments were not sufficiently repressed, by her pusillanimous and pensioned monarchs. The great Colbert, who, as I have had occasion to notice, introduced order into the French finances in the early part of the reign of Lewis XIV. who encouraged the arts, promoted manufactures, and may be said to have created the French navy; Colbert established an East-India company in 1664. This company, which founded its principal settlement at Pondicherry, on the coast of Coromandel, never attained to any high degree of prosperity, notwithstanding the countenance shewn it by government. At last, in consequence of Law's Mississippi scheme, it was united with the West-India company, which had been established in the same year with that trading to the East, and was also in a languishing condition. A separation afterward took place. The WestIndia company was judiciously abolished, as a pernicious monopoly3; and the French trade to the East-Indies became, for a time, of some importance, while that to the West-Indies flourished greatly from the moment it was made free. But France is chiefly indebted for her wealth and commerce to the genius and industry of her numerous. inhabitants, and to the produce of an extensive and naturally fertile territory. Her wines, her brandies, her raisins, her olives, have long been in request; and by her ingenious manufactures, established or encouraged by Colbert, her gold and silver stuffs, her tapestries, her carpets, her silks, her velvets, her laces, her linens, and her toys, she laid all Europe, and indeed the 3. Exclusive companies may sometimes be useful to nourish an infant trade, where the market is under the dominion of foreign and barbarous princes; but where they trade between different parts of the dominions of the same prince under the protection of his laws, and carried on by his own subjects with goods wrought in his own kingdom, such companies must be equally absurd in their nature, and ruinous in their consequences to commerce. VOL. whole |