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ANNALS OF WAR. 1700-1815 |
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ANNALS OF WAR_ 1700-1815 A.D.
1719.
1. DECLARATION OP WAR BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND
SPAIN.—2. SPAIN SENDS AN ARMAMENT AGAINST GREAT BRITAIN, WHICH IS WRECKED.--.3.
A PORTION REACHES SCOTLAND, AND IS DEFEATED AT GLENSHIEL.--4. A BRITISH FLEET
SENT TO THE BALTIC, UNDER SIR JOHN NORRIS.—5. FRANCE ENTERS INTO THE WAR WITH
SPAIN.— 6. BRITISH EXPEDITION AGAINST SPAIN.— 7. THE
WAR IN SICILY. BLOCKADE OF MELAZZO RAISED.--8. BATTLE OF FRANCA VILLA.—9.
MESSINA BESIEGED AND TAKEN.—10. THE SPANIARDS PROPOSE TO QUIT SICILY,—11.
CONCLUSION OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN.
1. Declaration of War
between Great Britain and Spain.
The declaration of war by Great Britain against Spain
was at last made, with the usual solemnities, early this year, six months
after Byng had captured and destroyed the Spanish fleet.
2. Spain sends an Armament
against Great Britain, which is wrecked.
As Cardinal Alberoni was now
deprived of his Swedish allies, both the King and his minister determined to
take up the cause of the Pretender, who received and accepted an
invitation to repair to Spain. He was received at Madrid most royally, as
legitimate Sovereign of Great Britain, and the palace of Buen Retiro
was allotted to him for a residence. The Cardinal prepared, at
Cadiz, a formidable armament, fur the invasion of England, of ten ships
of war and transports, having on board 6000 troops and arms
for 12,000 men. His Britannic Majesty having received from the French
Regent timely notice of this intended invasion, assembled troops in the
north and west of England, and offered rewards for the apprehension of the
Duke of Ormond, who had been appointed to command the expedition, or any
other gentleman who should embark in it. At the same time he demanded
assistance from the States General, to the extent of 2009 men. The Duke of
Orleans also offered King George twenty battalions for his service. But
Ormond never came; a storm in the Bay of Biscay drove him back to
Spain, and entirely frustrated Alberoni’s expedition; many of the
ships were lost; others were saved by throwing overboard the guns,
arms, and horses provided for the campaign.
3. A portion reaches Scotland, and is defeated at
Glenshiel.
Of five ships of the line and twenty transports, with
5000 soldiers, only two frigates and 300 men, with the Earl Marischal Keith,
Lord Seaforth, and the Marquis of Tullibardine, ever reached the
British coast. A few hundred Highlanders began to muster round
the Spaniards who came with Keith, and landed at Kintail, in Rossshire, on the 16th of April, where they possessed
themselves of Donan Castle. Some ships of war were accordingly brought
down to the coast, and General Wightman, with about 1000 men, moved
from Inverness in the beginning of June in quest of the insurgents,
whom he found advantageously posted across the valley of Glenshiel.
At the approach of the King’s forces, these retired to the pass at Strachell, which they resolved to defend. They were
estimated at 2000 men, but Wightman, relying on the discipline of his troops,
fell upon them on the evening of the 10th of June, (the
Pretender’s birthday,) and gave them a complete defeat. The Highlanders dispersed
and ran home to their mountains, and the 300 Spaniards were obliged to
surrender at discretion. The King’s troops had about twenty killed and 120
wounded.
4. A British Fleet sent to
the Baltic, under Sir John Norris.
The fall of Charles XII, his old antagonist, had given
the vindictive and ambitious Czar fresh hopes of adding Sweden to his
dominions. This arbitrary and unprincipled attempt the British court would by
no means permit. Sir John Norris was sent to the Baltic, where the Czar
had a fleet, and had landed an army of 15,000 men in Sweden, who committed
dreadful outrages. Sir John was on this occasion called upon to enter the
lists of naval combat against one whom he had formerly instructed, and
under whom, out of delicacy and compliment, he had once nominally served
as commander-in-chief. Peter always liked a naval commander, and an
especial friendship existed between him and Norris. The admiral, with
his flag on board the “Cumberland,” sailed on the 10th of June,
but only brought eight ships of the line with him, with which he
arrived at Carlserona to co-operate with the Swedish fleet. He was
ordered to accommodate differences, if possible, without proceeding to extremities,
and the Czar no sooner heard of his approach, than he withdrew his troops, and
thought it prudent to carry his fleet into the harbour of Revel, and
shrink from a contest to which he knew his fleet, the political idol of
his heart, was unequal. The. year passed on, therefore, without any
action, and Sir John sailed from Copenhagen, on his return to England, on the
12th of November.
6. France enters into the War
with Spain.
France also had now made a declaration war against
Spain, and sent an army of 30,000 men to secure the frontier of the
Pyrenees. The Marshal Duke de Berwick was pitched upon to command
this army. He had been the most devoted servant to King Philip, during the
war of the succession, and was half-brother (illegitimately) of the
Pretender. He had been much affected at this breach between the two
countries; yet he enjoyed, in a great degree, the confidence of the
Regent, who was personally attacked in the war; and he made all other
considerations subservient to what he deemed the great line of duty he owed to
France. King Philip put himself at the head of a very indifferent Spanish
army, to oppose the French, for the best of his forces were in Sicily and
Sardinia, and he advanced to the Pyrenees. He was no soldier, but as the
only surviving grandson of Louis XIV, he thought to appeal to the loyalty
of the French army, and had even formed the design of advancing singly
into their ranks to appeal to their affections. The politic Cardinal
prevented this, and instead, dispersed a good stock of manifestoes and
proclamations among the soldiery. They failed, however, in their effect;
for, instead of passing over to Philip, the French troops began to
take his towns and castles under his very eyes. The Cardinal had employed
extraordinary energy in calling forth the resources of Spain, and at every
port along the coast, ships had been built, or were in process of building.
It was an important part of Berwick’s instructions to destroy these dockyards,
which had been watched with a jealous eye, both by the French and English:
and as early as March, Colonel Stanhope, who had been sent as commissioner
to Berwick’s army, was able to report that he had the satisfaction of
witnessing a new ship of seventy, two of sixty, and some other vessels,
recently built, together with a vast quantity of timber and naval stores,
burnt to ashes. Before the commencement of May, Fuenterrabia was invested, and it surrendered on the I8th of June. An
English squadron co-operated on the coast with the French army, and
took on board about 1000 soldiers, for the port of St. Antonio,
where they destroyed three fine new ships of the line on the stocks, and
the materials collected for building seven more. The strong town
and citadel of St. Sebastian was compelled to surrender on the 10th
of August. Berwick next laid siege to the castle of Urgel,
which surrendered on the 11th of October. He then attempted that of
Rosas, but without success.
6. British Expedition against Spain.
Towards the end of September a strong squadron of five
ships of war, under Admiral Mighells, with 4000 troops on board,
commanded by Lord Cobham, appeared off Corunna and ran along the coast
to Vigo. The British landed about three miles from the town, and
encountered only a few peasants, who fired on them from the distant hills.
The garrison of Vigo spiked their guns in the town and retired to the
citadel, where they were compelled to surrender on the 10th of October.
Cobham found forty-three pieces of ordnance, 8000 muskets, 2000 barrels of
gunpowder, and slave-sloops, which were all seized and carried off.
Major-General White was then sent to reduce Pontevedra, which surrendered on
the 23rd, and the expedition returned to England on the 11th of November.
7. War in Sicily. Blockade
of Melazzo raised.
In Sicily, for which everything had been sacrificed,
the course of the war was equally unfavourable to Spain. The Marquis de
Lede, the Spanish general, moving with a part of his forces from
Messina, had undertaken the siege of Melazzo, a very important and
fortified place, built on a tongue of land, which juts out into the sea
towards the Lipari Islands. The allies had the complete mastery at
sea, under the able direction of Sir George Byng; and troops, both German
and Neapolitan, had been carried across the Straits and landed at the
Molehead of Melazzo. The defence of the place had been entrusted to
General Caraffa, a brave Neapolitan officer, and the siege now assumed a
new and singular character. Considerable reinforcements had been brought over
from Italy; and as the town was small, and afforded scanty lodgement for
so large a garrison, intrenchments had been pushed forward, so as to cover a
camp in front of the place, between the walls of the town and the
besieging force of the Spaniards. The Marquis de Lede had also
intrenched himself, and thus the two armies had lain within musket-shot of
each other during the whole winter. The soil was marshy, and
exposed to the storms and the seas, so that the trenches often
filled with water. The Germans and Neapolitans had no provisions but
what were brought over from time to time from Calabria; and the
inhabitants of the Lipari Islands, who were bold mariners, intercepted a
great deal of these under the Spanish flag, and carried home the
provisions to the islands that lie scattered between the ever-burning Stromboli
and the Sicilian coast. Great numbers perished in both armies of disease
and hunger, of bad and unwholesome food. Byng’s fleet did its best to
provision the place, but Captain Walton with the “Canterbury,” and a
squadron under his command, was blown off the station in a storm, and was
not again seen or heard of for six-and-twenty days. The Spanish
admiral, Cammock, a brave and adroit Irishman, seized this opportunity
to leave Messina, and when the storm had abated, ran down the
coast to Tropcea, in which port provisions had
been collected to be sent to Melazzo to the famishing Austrians and
Neapolitans, as soon as the weather would permit. Cammock, on arriving,
hoisted English colours, and sent a letter to the governor to say he was
appointed by the admiral to convey these provisions to Melazzo, but the
governor of Tropoea happened to be a wary and
acute man, and observed that the letter was not written on English but on
Genoa paper—so that, suspecting some trick, he refused to send the
supplies. Had the stratagem succeeded, the garrison at Melazzo would, in
all probability, have been compelled, by hunger, to surrender. A few
days after, Walton recovered his station, and Cammock ran back to Messina
without accomplishing anything. In the mean while Byng, being informed of the
extremities to which the Germans and Neapolitans were reduced, sent four
English men-of-war to carry provisions to Melazzo, directing the captains
at all hazards to make that port. One of these was disabled in a storm,
but the three others relieved the garrison at a very critical moment. The
Spaniards, however, worked hard to strengthen their position, so as to
drive the garrison closer to the town, and prevent the descent of any
fresh forces that might be sent to the succour of the besieged city.
Byng returned to Naples in the month of April, and
left Captain Mathews behind to observe Cammock at Messina, and prevent
his escaping to the southward. Mathews had the good fortune to run
one sixty-four ashore, whilst another Spanish sixty-gun ship was
wrecked, so that Cammock was obliged to attempt his escape, which
he effected with great difficulty in an open boat, leaving his own
frigate with all its effects and papers in the hands of Captain Mathews.
On the 27th of May, Byng, with the Austrian reinforcement,
consisting of 10,000 foot and 3500 horse under Count de Mercy (which had
been just before victorious in Hungary, and which Prince Eugene
had been able to despatch into Italy from the Danube), appeared off
Melazzo. They had been embarked at Baiae in upwards of 200 transports, and the
admiral convoying them from thence now landed them all safely, and with
much celerity, in the Bay of Patti. Immediately on hearing this, the Spaniards,
under De Lede, before Melazzo, decamped, and marched without halting some
thirty-two miles to Franca Villa, an inland town in a hilly country,
whence three roads branch off to Palmero, Messina, and Syracuse. They left
behind them their sick and part of their artillery, most of their
ammunition, and a considerable quantity of flour, all of which were taken
possession of by De Mercy, who advanced by easy marches to Melazzo. Whilst
matters were preparing here for the further operations of the army, Count Seckendorf was despatched with 2500 men and 160 horse
to reduce the Lipari islanders, who had made themselves troublesome in
privateering; and this being successfully accomplished, De Mercy on the 17th of
June turned his attention to the Spaniards under De Lede at Franca Villa.
The force he carried with him amounted to 21,000 men. The Spaniards,
unencumbered with baggage, had made their march in a single day, which
De Mercy, a sanguine man, interpreted as a proof that they were panic-stricken,
and would make no great stand against him. His Austrians, however, took three
days to get over the same ground, and suffered exceedingly from thirst,
the burning sun, and the armed and hostile peasantry of Sicily upon the
march. The soldiers were also oppressed with the weight of their
ammunition and of the six days’ bread they carried. At last, however, they
reached the top of the mountain of Tre Fontane, and discovered the
Spaniards encamped below in the plain of Franca Villa.
8. The Battle of Franca Villa.
The Marquis de Lede had protected his front by the
steep rocky banks of the river Cantara, which is nearly dry at this season,
while the bed is rugged and difficult to pass; and the bare steep
banks, running from six to eight feet in perpendicular height, are at
this part hard to climb. His left was on the rising ground above the
little town of Franca Villa, extending to a ridge of hills, which was
occupied by the armed peasantry: his other flank rested upon an irregular hill,
defended by intrenchments and some stone walls. In advance of him, and on
the other side of the Cantara, but joined by a bridge to the town of
Franca Villa, was a steep isolated rock with a convent of Capuchins upon
it; and this De Lede had garrisoned with five battalions of his best troops,
under the command of the gallant Villadarias. The
steep river Castiglione runs into the Cantara, close behind this hill. The
Austrians could obtain no information, for neither peasant nor deserters
came to them, so that they were ignorant of the strength and advantages of
Lede's position until they got into action, and were within musket-shot of
the Spanish intrenchments. The Austrian commander is described to have
been short-sighted, almost to purblindness, full
of fire, bold, and resolute, but exceedingly rash in conduct. Zumjungen, the
second in command, was of a sedate deliberate temper. The movements of the
Austrians are proverbially slow, and night fell before their attacking columns
were ready. At break of day the second line of foot, consisting of
twelve battalions, under General Seckendorf,
and all the horse, consisting of thirty-five squadrons, under General
Count d'Eckmerling, meeting twelve squadrons of
the enemy as they descended into the valley, I drove them in behind their
intrenchments. Count de Mercy now perceiving that the enemy possessed
several considerable posts on a hill to the right, from whence they might
flank him in his proposed attack, ordered Seckendorf and the Prince of Hesse-Cassel with six battalions to go and dislodge
them, and then to return and join him in the valley; while Generals
Zumjungen and Wallis were ordered to defer their attack till they saw that Seckendorf was successful. The hill the general
had to climb was, however, so steep and difficult that it took his troops
some time to get up, and the enemy, seeing their object, strengthened their
front, which induced De Mercy to send up four battalions more, so that it
was four in the afternoon before Seckendorf could commence the attack with his ten battalions; nevertheless, he now
drove back the troops opposed to him into their lines. At the same time
Wallis with four companies of grenadiers attacked another party on the
same hill, and drove them in, whilst seven more companies, supported by
the battalions and dragoons of Anspach, attacked and carried a small intrenchment
which the enemy had made across the valley, and having been reinforced
by two battalions, which had been drawn from the left, they
advanced, about six in the evening, on the rocks of the Capuchins. Here
they were received with such vigour, and found the ground so
difficult, that they were forced to give way. De Mercy threw forward
fresh troops, and attack after attack was made upon the convent by
the imperial troops, but Villadarias repelled
them all. Seeing that another night was closing in, De Mercy put himself
at the head of two fresh battalions to make another attack On the convent,
but after having one horse killed and two wounded under him, he was
himself dangerously wounded by a musket-ball and carried off the field.
The Prince Holstein was here also mortally wounded, and a son
of Admiral Byng, who served as a volunteer, very dangerously. Darkness now
put an end to the action. The Germans lost upwards of 3000 men, killed and
wounded, and the Spaniards about 1500, but the latter kept the field,
although the Germans retained several small posts they had carried. De
Mercy would have renewed the contest , in the morning, but was prevailed
upon to desist, from the strength of the position: and he accordingly
withdrew his army in good order, hoping to re-establish his communication
with the English fleet, and cut of De Lede and his army from Messina.
The fate of the war depended, however, entirely on
Admiral Byng. The Austrians must have perished at this time for want of
provisions, had they not been supplied by the English navy. We
cannot enough admire the activity and indefatigable industry of this admiral, who,
besides his natural character of a naval commander, at one and the same
time performed with success and credit the several offices of ambassador,
commissary, and a general purveyor of the stores and necessaries requisite
for the support and maintenance of a numerous army. The admiral,
forgetting for a while his own station and eminent, set out on horseback for
the Austrian camp. He found the Austrian generals quarrelling about the
battle, and throwing the blame of it on one another:—De Mercy complaining
of Zumjungen’s dilatoriness, and the latter of his chief’s rash
impatience. De Mercy now proposed to put his army into cantonments, and
await the arrival of reinforcements from Germany. Byng had already used
all his influence with the Viceroy of Naples and at the court of
Turin, to induce them to lay aside for the present the expedition
agreed upon in the convention between the Emperor and the Duke for
the conquest of Sardinia; so that every soldier that could be
spared might be sent immediately to Sicily. He accordingly
recommended to De Mercy to undertake the siege of Messina, for which these
expected reinforcements would suffice. He also insisted upon it fur his own
sake; knowing well from the experience of the last two years the
difficulty of keeping two squadrons, one within and the other without the
Faro, to block up the Spanish ships in Messina and secure the passage of
the provisions for the army. He considered, that to put the imperialist
army into cantonments would convey to the world a worse opinion of the
late action at Franca Villa than it deserved, and would give spirit to the
enemy and to the Sicilians in their interest, who might conclude that they
had been defeated and disabled. He removed one of the objections raised,
by agreeing to provide siege artillery with a proportionate supply of
gunpowder; and to proceed to Naples to solicit personally everything
necessary for the enterprise. Indeed the whole of Byng’s conduct, in this
little known but very curious war, was that of a most intelligent and
active officer as well as of a most successful diplomatist.
The admiral forthwith repaired to Naples, where he
found his old friend, Count Daun, removed from the government. He now proposed
to the new viceroy. Count Gallas, to despatch someone to the Emperor to
urge his arguments for the postponement of the Sardinian expedition, which was
already assembled in Lombardy and piedmont; but the great difficulty he
had, was to remove the jealousy of the Savoyard minister, who suspected that it
was a plan to serve the Emperor in Sicily first, and to leave his own Sovereign
in the matter of Sardinia to be served last, or not at all. Byng, however,
fully convinced the Duke of Savoy’s minister, that the expedient of sending the
troops designed for Sardinia into Sicily was the effect of hard necessity,
and not a pretence for postponing his master’s interests: and in the end
the court of Turin gave its consent to his scheme. The admiral’s exertions
to accomplish this object threw him into a fever, but his heart was so
much in the business, that he determined to return to Messina, where he
knew his presence was desirable, and-caused himself to be carried to the
bedside of Count Gallas, the viceroy, who was also himself confined to his
bed, dying from the effects of malaria, occasioned by his travelling
over the Campagna to his new government in the dog-days. The
two noble invalids had a short conference on the business of the
war, and then took leave. Count Gallas died two days after, but the
sea voyage restored Byng, and he came to anchor off the Faro
pointy near Messina, on the 28th of July. During the admiral's
absence from the fleet, Captain Haddock, in the “Grafton,” had brought
into the bay two large Genoese ships, with 600 Swiss on board for
the Spanish army, and Captain Strickland, in the “Lennox,” had
driven a third on shore and burnt her, but the troops and sailors bad
been saved.
9. Messina besieged and taken.
The place was defended for Spain by the Marquis of
Spinola, the inheritor of a great military name, and himself an officer of
high reputation: he had with him a garrison of 3000 men, very
insufficient-for the extent of the works to be defended. De Mercy had
retired across the straits to Reggio, in Calabria, to get recovered from
his .wound, leaving Zumjungen in command of his army, who began the
siege on the 20th of July. General Wachtendonck had taken, by stratagem,
the town of Taormina, a strong pass, by which he was able to advance
without opposition, by the way of St. Alessio and La Scaletta, up to the
outskirts of the town. The Imperialists also took the Castel Gonzaga,
which stood on a hill immediately behind the town, and commanded the port
and nearly every part of the city, and they now effected a considerable
breach in one of the bastions of the town. Hereupon Spinola withdrew his
troops from the town into the exceedingly strong citadel, and then the
Senate of Messina sent to propose a capitulation for the town. De
Mercy’s impatience would not permit him to remain all this time at
Reggio, and notwithstanding the anguish of his wound, (from which,
through the unskilfulness of the surgeons, the ball had not yet been
extracted,) he returned to Messina in time to treat with the Senate; but
he first desired to know whether he was to treat with the Messinese as subjects of his roaster, the Emperor, or
as enemies. The people thought it best that they should consider
themselves as Austrian subjects; and accordingly, on the 8th of August,
the citizens opened their gates, and threw themselves on the clemency of
the Emperor. As soon as the city was in possession of the Austrians, Byng
landed some English sailors and grenadiers, and took the tower of the Faro, by
which a free passage was opened to his ships to enter the port.
The remains of the Spanish navy, which had escaped at Passaro, were
in the fine harbour of Mesina. Two
of the ships bad belonged to the Duke of Savoy,
but had been captured by the Spaniards, at Palermo, and these were now
reclaimed by the Duke. The Austrian claimed them, as having been found in
the port of a town taken by his master’s arms; but Byng denied the right
of either party to take these ships, since, but for his fleet, they might
have put to sea and escaped. However, in order to put an end to the
dispute, and to prevent any conditions in their favour hereafter by the
Spanish garrison in the citadel of Messina, he proposed to set up a good battery, and
destroy these ships in harbour as they lay; which, notwithstanding all
representations and protests, he succeeded in effecting; and the
much-disputed ships were all sunk and destroyed, thus completing the ruin of
the great fleet of Spain.
Five days after the surrender of the city, the fort of
Castellazzo, and the old Norman castle of Matagriffone, were reduced by
the Imperialists, aided by British sailors and grenadiers; but the
strong citadel was exceedingly well provided, and everything seemed
to promise a long siege. Od the 13th of August the messenger
returned with the account, that the Emperor approved of the scheme
proposed by the English admiral, to whom his Majesty wrote a very gracious
letter, intimating that he had issued orders to the governor of Milan to
despatch the troops, designed for Sardinia, to Vado, in order to be
transported into Italy. Byng determined to run over himself to the
continent, to inquire about these troops. After extraordinary exertions, he got
together a number of transports, and with these he sailed down to Vado,
which was near Genoa. Here, however, he was doomed to a series of
disappointments. The Savoyard troops had not even commenced their march to the
coast, and their general, Count de Bonneval,
evinced the greatest jealousy at being employed under De Mercy; chagrined
to see the troops, destined for Sardinia, under his command, diverted to
another expedition, in which he could not enjoy an independent action.
With infinite trouble Byng got two vessels sent away, under the convoy of
his ships, with some artillery and ammunition for Messina.
Some Germans had arrived, and the rest were on their way from
Milan, but he saw do signs of transports being victualled, or
fitted up for the reception of the troops, when they should all have
arrived; so that at last the English admiral declared he would sail away
for Messina, where bis presence was wanted, and leave the army to follow
as it could. This threat had some effect, and on the 27th of September
about 6000 men were shipped off for Sicily, with such provisions as could
be got together. Od the 8th of October the admiral, with his
convoy, arrived before Messina. The sight of his ships so elevated the
spirits of the besieging army, that they attacked and carried a ravelin on
the spur of the moment, and Byng landed his troops while this was going
on. The siege of the citadel was now carried forward with increased
vigour, and on the 17th an assault was made on the breach; but after two
hours’ engagement the besiegers were repulsed, with the loss of 120 men
killed, and 617 wounded. Next day, however, the governor beat a parley,
and surrendered upon articles. Od the 21st the brave Spanish
garrison marched out through the breach, and were transported by sea, under an
English convoy, to Augusta. Thus ended the siege of Messina, which lasted
three months, and occasioned the besiegers tremendous loss in
killed and wounded. In the midst of the siege, and nearly a month before
it concluded, Byng had got over all the troops from
Genoa, who thus arrived in time to share in the glory.
Whilst the siege of the citadel was depending, the
Marquis de Lede decamped from Franca Villa, and fortified his army in a
strong and advantageous position, at Castel Giovanni, to secure the
magazines he had formed there; he now quitted that post, fixed
his head-quarters at Castel Vetrano, and threw up lines, running
from Alcamo to Salama, with a view of shutting up the Imperialists in
the north-western quarter of the island, and of preventing their
approach to the capital; and at first he was strong enough to hold these
lines, and to lay waste the country about Marsala, Mazzara, and
Trapani. The Imperialists were at their wits’ end to know how to act in
this emergency, and in their difficulty had recourse to the admiral,
who proposed to convey their whole army by sea round to Trapani, where
they disembarked on the 29th of January. As soon, therefore, as De Mercy had
got together all his force, the Spaniards were obliged to give ground, and
Lede was reduced to inactivity. De Mercy then made a movement to threaten
Palermo, and Lede moved to the opposite extreme of his lines, in order to
be nearer the capita), and immediately set to work to fortify himself with
strong intrenchments and redoubts, and with heavy batteries of cannon.
10. The Spaniards propose to
quit Sicily.
But the war had gradually assumed a size which greatly
aggravated the Spanish difficulties, especially in regard to supplies. The
peasantry had now joined the stronger party, and turned against them. The
rabble in Palermo were fierce and insolent. The English cruisers cut off
all assistance from Spain, so that the Spanish commander renounced the idea of
any longer maintaining himself, and made overtures to De Mercy and Byng
for evacuating Sicily, upon condition of a free passage for his army back
to Barcelona, or some other Spanish port in the Mediterranean.
This proposal was not disagreeable to the Austrians,
who would thus obtain their object—the possession of the island—without further
trouble, but Byng protested against it, and declared that not a man of the
Spanish army should quit the island; because, to allow the Spanish army to
go as proposed, would be to furnish Spain with her very best troops, with
which she might attack other countries, and even England; but he did not
object to De Mercy proposing to the Marquis de Lede to surrender Palermo
and the sea-board of the island, and to retire to his fortified camp in
the interior, at Castel Giovanni. The Marquis consented to surrender
Palermo, in consideration of a suspension of arms for three months; but while
the negotiation was pending, events were in progress in Spain,
which promised to bring the war to a conclusion. The Imperialists,
however, in the interval, might have taken Palermo if they had been more active
and daring.
11. Conclusion of the War with Spain.
The Duke of Berwick took Urgel on the 12th of October, but was obliged to raise the siege of Rosas on the 27th
of November, on account of the weather, and put his troops in
winter-quarters. The war had, however, convinced Philip that the French
were in earnest in it, and resolved to act in concert with their allies.
The presence of a French army in Spain, the capture of
the citadel of Messina, the occupation of Trapani, the fears
entertained for Palermo, and every tiding that arrived on military
affairs from Sicily, exasperated the Spanish nation against their
rulers; and Spain being oppressed and utterly exhausted, Philip saw
the necessity of a general pacification. He now perceived that
Cardinal Alberoni’s ambitious projects had made him personally offensive
to the Emperor, the King of England, and the Regent of France,
who had all declared they would hearken to no proposal while he
should continue in office. The Spanish Monarch, therefore, by a
royal decree, dismissed him from all his employments, and
commanded him to leave the kingdom in three weeks; in the sequel, Philip
consented to accede to the quadruple alliance. He therefore
solemnly renewed his renunciation of the French crown, and promised
to evacuate both Sardinia and Sicily within two months.
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