in the
Spanish ranks. There were others who attached more importance to
gratitude. Berwick thought very highly of lieutenant-general Count
D'Asfeldt, and desired to have him in his army; the Duke of Orleans spoke
to him about it. "Monseigneur," answered D'Asfeldt, "I am a Frenchman, I
owe you everything, I have nothing to expect save from you, but," taking
the Fleece in his hand and showing it, "what would you have me do with
this, which I hold, with the king's permission, from the King of Spain,
if I were to serve against Spain, this being the greatest honor that I
could have received?" He phrased his repugnance so well, and softened it
down by so many expressions of attachment to the Duke of Orleans, that he
was excused from serving against Spain, and he contented himself with
superintending at Bordeaux the service of the commissariat. The French
army, however, crossed the frontier in the month of March, 1719. "The
Regent may send a French army whenever he pleases," wrote Alberoni, on
the 21st November, 1718; "proclaim publicly that there will not be a shot
fired, and that the king our master will have provisions ready to receive
them." He had brought the king, the queen, and the prince of the
Asturias into the camp; Philip V. fully expected the desertion of the
French army in a mass. Not a soul budged; some refugees made an attempt
to tamper with certain officers of their acquaintance; their messenger
was hanged in the middle of Marshal Berwick's camp. Fontarabia, St.
Sebastian, and the Castle of Urgel fell before long into the power of the
French; another division burned, at the port of Los Pasages, six vessels
which chanced to be on the stocks; an English squadron destroyed those at
Centera and in the port of Vigo. Everywhere the depots were committed to
the flames: this cruel and destructive war against an enemy whose best
troops were fighting far away, and who was unable to offer more than a
feeble resistance, gratified the passions and the interests of England
rather than of France. "It was, of course, necessary," said Berwick,
"that the English government should be able to convince the next
Parliament that nothing had been spared to diminish the navy of Spain."
During this time the English fleet and the emperor's troops were keeping
up an attack in Sicily upon the Spanish troops, who made a heroic
defence, but were without resources or re-enforcements, and were
diminishing, consequently, every day. Th