Lanterna Rally

Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay

Publisher: General Books

Published: 2009-08

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780217556088

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: things had been effected by a poor creature, a man of the most ordinary capacity, was an assertion which might easily find credence among the nonjuring parsons who congregated at Sam's Coffeehouse, but which moved the laughter of the veteran politicians of Versailles. While Middleton was in vain trying to convince the French that William was a greatly tmSamff" overrated man, William, who did full justice to Middleton's merit, felt much uneasiness at learning that the Court of Saint Germains had called in the help of so able a counsellor. But this was only one of a thousand causes of anxiety which during that spring pressed on the Bang's mind. He was preparing for the opening of the campaign, imploring his allies to be early in the field, rousing the sluggish, haggling with the greedy, making up quarrels, adjusting points of precedence. He had to prevail on the Imperial Cabinet to send timely succours into Piedmont. He had to keep a vigilant eye on those Northern potentates who were trying to form a third party in Europe. He had to act as tutor to the Elector of Bavaria in the Netherlands. He had to provide for the defence of Liege, a matter which the authorities of Liege coolly declared to be not at all their business, but the business of England and Holland. He had to prevent the House of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel from going to blows with the House of Brunswick Lunenburg: he had to accommodate a dispute between the Prince of Baden and the Elector of Saxony, each of whom wished to be at the head of an army on the Ehine; and he had to manage theLandgrave of Hesse, who omitted to furnish his own contingent, and yet wanted to command the contingents furnished by other princes. But of all the quarrels which at this time distracted the coalition the most serious was one which had sprun...