desperate. Castile was lost,
and the enemy were pressing forward to recover Catalonia and Valencia.
Affairs were in the utmost state of confusion. Peterborough's rivals
having got rid of him now quarreled among themselves, or their only bond
of union was their mutual hatred of the earl.

The king himself, while he pretended to flatter him, wrote letters
behind his back to England bringing all sorts of accusations against
him, and succeeded in obtaining an order for his return. Before leaving
he implored the king and his generals to avoid a battle, which would
probably be disastrous, and to content themselves with a defensive war
until Eugene of Savoy and the Duke of Marlborough broke the power of
France elsewhere. His opinion was overruled, and the result was the
disastrous battle of Almanza, in which the hopes of Charles of Austria
of obtaining the crown of Spain were finally crushed.

Peterborough embarked on the 14th of May on board the Resolution, man of
war, commanded by his second son Henry.

The Resolution was accompanied by two frigates, the Enterprise and the
Milford Haven. The King of Spain's envoy to the court of Savoy also
sailed in the Resolution. The earl took with him his two aides de camp,
who were both too indignant at the treatment which their chief had
received to desire to remain with the army in Spain. The little squadron
sailed first for Barcelona, where it only remained a few hours, and then
set sail for Italy.

On the fifth day at sea they fell in with a French fleet of six men
of war. Two carried eighty guns, two seventy, one sixty-eight, and the
other fifty-eight. The Resolution was a slow sailer, and the French, who
at once gave chase, gained rapidly upon her. As resistance against such
overwhelming odds seemed hopeless, Peterborough determined to go with
the Spanish envoy and the state papers on board the Enterprise. There
was little time for reflection. A small boat was lowered, and the earl,
with a hasty adieu to his son, Jack, and Graham, descended the ship's
side with the Spanish envoy and rowed away to the Enterprise.

"We are fated to see the inside of a French prison, after all," Jack
said to Graham.

"I don't know, Stilwell. We have both been in their hands once, and
did not stay there long. I can hardly believe that our luck's going to
desert us at last."

"I don't see much chance of our escape this time, Graham. Six ships
against one are too great odds even for English sailo