up after a Siege of some Hours When these Things were done Luxemburg was at Paris But I warrant he had laid his Spells before he went for I am very sure he did bewitch us Was it not a bewitched Thing that we should fortily these Places for the French When base Things are done and no body in Fault I conclude there is Witchcraft in the Case And when no body is Punish'd I conclude that no body was in Fault We were much troubled at the Loss of these Places But some think That we were more bewitch'd in Fortifying them than we were in Losing them Furnes is about Five Miles forward from Newport which is Ours and Dixmude about Seven sideward And must we have a Garison at every Seven Miles end Why a small Country thus Garison'd would drink up a great Army And thou knowest Tom for thou art a cunning Dog and hast Guts i' thy Brains that when we fortify Places near our own Garisons they do us little good if we keep them and great Mischief if the Enemy take them If we had kept these Two Places they would not have commanded a Contribution more than we had before to maintain a Thousand Men when at least Five or Six thousand must be in them I 'll not give a Pin for a Garison that has not a good Contribution For the great End of Garisons let them say what they will is to command Contributions Therefore our new Garisons should have been made Twenty or Thirty Miles forward towards the Enemies Country and then they would have Contribution in abundance Now follows the Campagne of 93. in the Beginning of which the French Monarch was soundly baffled At that Season it seems the Devil was turn'd against him or at least forsook him He came upon us with a greater Force than ever and we were to be run down forthwith and all Flanders to be swallowed up In good earnest Tom we were in great danger But our King Encamp'd so commodiously and so strongly and took such Order for the Defence of all Places that the Monarch was quite gravell'd Yet if he had not been an arrant Buzzard or the Devil had not owed him a Shame he might have left us in our Camp and have marched up to Brussels and beyond it and whither he pleas'd and have grazed up the Country as he went and have put all Brabant under Contribution Which had put us in a bad Condition to maintain the War And some Places or other would have fallen into his hands But instead of doing this or any Thing else he sneak'd back to Paris or to Versailles I care not which and all his Court Ladies with him Whom he had brought to be Spectators of his famous Victories and by Report they were no better than they should be Soon after the Dauphin marched towards Germany with part of the French Army Luxemburg being left with the remaining Part which was still a Force superiour to Ours And not long after that the Duke of Wirtemberg was detach'd from our Army to attaque the French Lines Which Design was carried so secretly that the Devil himself could not discover it to Luxemburg The Lines were master'd with little ado and we got into brave Quarters and we raised Contributions amain But then came the Battel of Landen another bloody Bout which hurried us back to our main Army that wanted us 'Till then we had been free from Witchcraft during that Campaigne But then Luxemburg bestir'd himself and conjur'd up all his Devils and we were bewitch'd over and over First The Devil bewitch'd us to let Huy be so miserably unprovided for defence the Enemy being so near it And if we could not defend it why did we not blow it up But it was yielded in two or three Days Secondly We were bewitch'd to lie in the Enemies reach who so much over-power'd us And thirdly We were catch'd in a bewitched Ground having a River and Morass behind us which should have been before us The French came up with us over Night and we expected to Retreat that Night which the Gallants thought dishonourable But some of our Troop have read Sir Walter Rawleigh and they tell us that he has a Saying That 't is more honourable to Retreat by Night than to be Beaten by Day But we fought it stoutly and the King did bravely above the rest However it was a bad Business And it would have been much worse if Luxemburg to our great good Fortune had not play'd the Beast in not pursuing his Advantage We are come at last to Ninety four or the Campaigne of last Summer And thou wilt find by the Story That the Devil doth still haunt us and bewitch us This Year the Dauphin did again Command the French in Chief and the old Magician thou knowest who I mean Commanded again under him And they presently fell to their old Trade For the first Thing they did was to come boring into our Country where they lay at Rack and Manger And we suffered this as tamely as we used to do Wherein thou may'st perceive a Spice of the old Witchery I confess that the French at first were something too strong for us But in a short time we were grown stronger than they and our Fingers itched to be upon their Jackets However we were content to forbear till the Arrival of all our Forces Which Forces being come and we being all together the Sun never shined upon a braver Army And then we out-number'd the Enemy by many Thousands both in Horse and Foot and we had better Horses and better Men and were every way superiour So that we made no more of the French Army than of so many Jack-daws We being in this glorious Condition the French who had lain beside us then marched in quite beyond us and were got between Liege and Mastricht But we thought them besotted to give us such an Advantage making account that we had them then in a Bag if we had but the Grace to shut it and that they could not escape us For our Army interposing between them and home as we expected we should and they having with them all their Baggage and heavy Cannon they could not get off without fighting and then we made no doubt but we should beat them to fitters For my part I thought the War was near an End a happy and glorious End There being but two Things to do that is to beat the French Army and then to march to Paris Thou knowest Tom That Namur and Huy and Liege and Mastricht lie all on a Row upon the Maese Of which Mastricht and Liege were ours and the French had Huy and Namur Huy being advanced into our Quarters beyond all the rest of their Frontier These Places lying thus and the French Army as I told thee being between Liege and Mastricht we had Orders given us to get ready to March. And I cannot express nor thou imagine how joyfully we received these Orders And then
our Business was either to march straight upon the Enemy or to cut off their Retreat by interposing between them and home that is between them and Huy For if they got to Huy they got home But now see and wonder how we were Enchanted Tom as I hope to be saved we turn'd our Noses the wrong way again For with mighty diligence we marched clear fromward the Enemy and likewise beside and beyond Huy leaving the French a free Passage to it And they marched thither the very next day Never talk now of Bungling or Fumbling or making Blunders for we scorn those Words 'T was Witchcraft dear Tom 't was Witchcraft that made us do as we did the Devil and Luxemburg did bewitch us And that damn'd Magician may brag of this as one of his bravest-Feats Thou wilt say That we were still between the French and Namur Ay and so we were But the French had a Bridge at Huy over the River and they made divers other Bridges Whereas we had none nor did we offer to make any So that they could march to Namur on the far side the River when they pleas'd without the least danger or disturbance But they chose rather to lie by it that they might give us a Baffle by making us rise first Wherein they succeeded as well they might For they Commanded the one side of the River as much as we and the other side they had wholy to themselves Yet here we staid and encamp'd as long as we could get any Forage waiting upon the French-mens Back sides when thou and I are together we use another Word But for my part I did not think we had owed them that Duty nor did I know why or wherefore we staid here so long in the high Condition we were in The French being the weaker might with reason be willing that the time should be spent in idle Encampments But we who were the stronger if we had not been still bewitch'd methinks should rather have chosen to be doing Well at last we marched away for Flanders as hard as we could drive to have another bout at those Lines And the French durst not follow us the way we went which was the next way for fear we should turn back upon them and fall upon their Bones but they were fain to go round by Namur and beyond the Sambre Yet by the Devil's help for no power of Man could do it they got before us to the Lines By which means we were prevented and baffled What had we then to do with our glorious Army but to march presently up the Scheld and either force a Passage over that River or march on directly for France it self We had then led the French such a Dance who were damnably jaded by their late long March and hardly able to crawl that all the Devils in Hell could not have enabled them to follow us But the Devil turn'd our Noses once more the wrong way For we marched down the River and into our own Country first to Oudenard then almost to Gaunt and at last to a Place called Rousselaer which now bears the Name of a Royal Camp For here was another Encampment and Enchantment And here we lay with our glorious Army all the rest of the Summer as it were bound Hand and Foot and without doing any Thing or any prospect of it For we were coop'd up by the Enemies Lines which we had no Thoughts of Attempting And was not this a bewitched Place for such an Army to lie in We exceeded the Enemy by Thirty or Forty thousand And though after a while we sent a Detachment to the Siege of Huy yet still we far exceeded them If we had Encamp'd all this while in the Enemies Country it would never have anger'd me though we had been never so idle For then if we had done nothing else we had eaten up the Enemies Country I have told thee already and I tell thee again that we were not then in the Enemies Country In the Country between both I confess we were But in these parts the Enemies Country is that within their Lines whereas our Camp was without these Lines and Eight or Nine Miles short of them I said before that we had never attempted Scheld River but I lyed we attempted it then that is we look'd upon it and no more First one great Man view'd the Pâ—ace and then another great Man view'd it and then we came away It was as we came down to Oudenard in ouâ— way to ouâ— Camp And the Attempt was made by a Detachment of about Six thousand Men. But if we had â—een in earnest we might have made out of our vast Numbers many such Detachments for that Service And we might have attempted several Places at once or tryed one Place and then another both by Day and by Night How did Prince Lewis of Baden pass the Rhine this Summer I am sure I saw it in the Paris Gazette for Tom I can now read French a little That he made a false Attaque or Attempt in one Place and then passed in another the French having drawn their Forces to the first Place But this Attempt of ours such as it was was made in one Place only and in a Place more likely to be provided for defence than any other on the River For it was at Pont Esperies where the French Line ends which is between the Lys and the Scheld and where they always had Forts and Guards Our retaking of Huy was a very good Business as Things go But I expected that the Army that took it would have enter'd the Dutchy of Lutzenburg which the French now have and which lies hard by and so have broken that Charm that keeps us hitherto from Entring the Enemies Country Thou wilt say They did enter that Dutchy for all the News-books said so Why then all the News-books lyed for we never were in that Dutchy nor out of the Diocese of Liege For by their own Story we lay all the while between Navaigne and Franchimont both which Places are in this Diocese And Navaigne is upon the Maes almost as low as Mastricht And therefore I am the more confirmed that some Witchcraft lies upon us so that we cannot find the way into the Enemies Country In the close of the last Campaigne for at last I draw to a Conclusion we new fortified several Places That is Dixmude again which the French had slighted and abandon'd Deynse Ninove and Tillemont and we talk of Hall likewise Of these Dixmude as I said before is Seven Miles from Newport Deynse is within Five Miles of Gaunt Ninove lies behind Oudenard and Aeth Tillemont is between Lovain and Leeuwe and very near the later and Hall is within Six or Seven Miles of Brussels And the Places to which they â—ie thus near were our standing Garisons before Let us now examine between thee and me and according to our Rules and I think we Troopers should understand these Matters as well as some of them do whether these new Garisons be good ones and will do us any Service I say then That if each of these new Garisons can command Contribution to maintain Three or Four thousand or even Two or Three thousand Men we must allow these Garisons to be good ones But if all these Garisons put together will not command any Contribution worth the speaking of more than we might have without them then according to our Rules all of them together are not worth a Dog-turd And we were bewitch'd by Luxemburg and the Devil to be at so much Charge in fortifying and keeping such useless Things A little time will shew what they can do But if we had made a new Garison upon the Scheld any where between Tournay and Conde and another upon the Sambre near Charleroy either above or below it I 'd have eaten Hay with a Horse and been hang'd for a Fool if either of these two Garisons would not have maintain'd Ten thousand Men If they were made big enough as they ought to contain so many And all this by Contributions out of the Enemies Countries which otherwise we cannot reach Out of these two Garisons we should have scour'd the French Quarters i'faith I could write more now to thee but I won't for I know thou art a Man of Business Only I shall say This That if this cursed Witchcraft which has so plagu'd us were removed we 'd beat the French to Iericho But if it continue upon us though you send us never so many Millions from England we shall do nothing here in Flanders that is worth one Farthing And so dear Tom fare thee well LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCV
A LETTER FROM A TROOPER In Flanders to his Comerade SHEWING That Luxemburg is a Witch and deals with the Devil Honest TOM I Know thou dost remember that while thou wast amongst us Things went but untowardly and that having mighty Forces enough one would have thought to have conquer'd the World we made nothing on 't but were still on the losing hand And since thy leaving us Things have gone on after the same Rate We are told a Fellow call'd an Observator should say That though we have a brave Army yet we want Conduct But I would have him to know That we have as good Conduct as any is under the Copes of Heaven What the Devil then is the Matter Or how come these Things about I have been often Musing what the Matter should be and at last I have found it out In plain English Tom we have been bewitch'd This damn'd Rogue Luxemburg this crooked urchinly Rogue and the Devil together have bewitch'd us all this while As for the Dauphin who commanded the French last Summer or at least had the Name of it I suspect him not For we all know that the Dauphin is no Conjurer But we have been bewitch'd as sure as I am here and none but Luxemburg could thus bewitch us Thou knowest Tom that at the beginning we talk'd of nothing less than Marching into France and Carrying the War into France And we had Forces sufficient for that purpose both then and many times since the French not daring to fight us If they had we should have beaten them to Clouts By our carrying the War thus forward we should have lived upon the Enemy and should have tumbled in Free Quarter and Contributions and Plunder But instead of this we have kept still in Flanders lying heavy upon it and plainly devouring it Nor have we ever had our Foot upon French Ground So that I conclude we have been bewitch'd and that a Spell hath been laid before us which we had not the Power to pass over I meant by French Ground not only their own Country of France but their Conquests also or generally the French Quarters And I say again That we have not been in the French Quarters ever since this War that is not with our main Army For I confess Duke Wirtenburg with a Detachment and Count Thian with a Party have been in those Quarters though their Stay and their Reign were very short Marry your Gazette did publish That our main Army upon our late March to Rouselaer where we encamp'd so long to so little purpose was in the Enemies Country But that 's a damn'd Lye For the Enemies Country we all know is that which is beyond and within their Frontier Garisons Whereas this Place is on this side their Frontier and between their Frontier and ours and pays Contribution to us as well as to them So I remember three Years ago when our Army had passed the Sambre and was got as far as Beaumont Fools gave out that we were in the Enemies Quarters But we were but Nine or Ten Miles from Charleroy which was then Ours and within the Contribution of that Garison And the like may be said of Walcourt where we had been before that time Thou seest now that we can come near the Enemies Country though even That doth seldom happen But we can't get into it for the Heart-blood of us Though we desire it above all Things and though we want neither Strength nor Courage nor Conduct And therefore thou may'st be satisfied as well as I That the Devil has hinder'd us and that we have been bewitch'd The French run every foot into Our Country and why should not We do the like into Theirs Are we affraid of an Action of Trespass We had once Namur Charleroy and Mons all abreast and it was a noble Frontier But the French made nothing to pass through this Frontier and to lie in the heart of our Country between those Places and Brussels where they were as safe as a Thief in a Mill. Not a Quarter ever beaten up or so much as attempted And this they would do even when they were forced to avoid fighting our Army being stronger than theirs Tom we have been invaded Year after Year by an Enemy that durst not fight us But whether this could be done without Witchcraft I leave Thee to judge And I know thou art a great Judg in these Matters We have many great Officers that cannot judge half so well Prethee Tom give me leave for otherwise I must take it to add one Word more I say then That by these Doings poor Flanders hath been sadly burden'd being made the perpetual Seat of War When in the mean time the French Quarters lie fresh and untoucht And this hath made them so Rampant as they are But if we had lain upon their Country as long as they have done upon ours they would have been in a very bare and low Condition Ay but thou'lt say We cannot fall into the French Quarters because of their Lines Very good And these Lines shew yet more plainly That there is Witchcraft in the Case For they could never be defended without the help of the Devil They reach from Dunkirk upon the Sea to Pont Espiers upon the River Scheld which is near Forty English Miles From whence to Conde along that River which here serves for a Line is near Twenty Miles more And from Conde to Namur it is almost Fifty Miles Now I leave thee to consider whether Lines of this length could be defended without Witchery And herein lies the Witchery That we have not the Power to attempt them For when we did attempt them which we have done but twice and that was under Wirtemberg and Thian we broak through them with Ease Thou seest by what I have written That I am very fond of getting into the Enemies Country Others are rather for besieging and taking their Frontier Towns And so am I when we are able to do it But this requires a great Odds in Power One Army for the Sieges and another to confront the Enemy Whereas we may march into their Country when ever we dare fight What go beyond their Frontier Garisons Ay beyond them Why should not We do it as well as the French And Garisons signify nothing against a Commanding Army no more than so many Crows Nests An Army that dares Fight and yet dares not March into the Enemies Country are the veriest Buzzards and Owls that ever were hatch'd Unless they are bewitch'd as We plainly have been For I would have thee and all Men to know and thou dost know that We are neither Owls nor Buzzards I will now tell thee in particular of some of Luxemburg's Tricks That thou may'st see what a Rogue he is and that he is the Rogue that has bewitch'd us One of his first Pranks after he came in play was at Fleury where I saw plainly who he dealt with He lay with his Army beyond the Sambre