written concerning it, it may be dismissed very briefly here.

When our fleet came within view of Cadiz, our commander sent a boat
with a white flag and a couple of officers to the Governor of Cadiz, Don
Scipio de Brancaccio, with a letter from his Grace, in which he hoped
that as Don Scipio had formerly served with the Austrians against the
French, 'twas to be hoped that his Excellency would now declare himself
against the French King, and for the Austrian in the war between King
Philip and King Charles. But his Excellency, Don Scipio, prepared a
reply, in which he announced that, having served his former king with
honor and fidelity, he hoped to exhibit the same loyalty and devotion
towards his present sovereign, King Philip V.; and by the time this
letter was ready, the two officers had been taken to see the town, and
the alameda, and the theatre, where bull-fights are fought, and the
convents, where the admirable works of Don Bartholomew Murillo inspired
one of them with a great wonder and delight--such as he had never felt
before--concerning this divine art of painting; and these sights over,
and a handsome refection and chocolate being served to the English
gentlemen, they were accompanied back to their shallop with every
courtesy, and were the only two officers of the English army that saw at
that time that famous city.

The general tried the power of another proclamation on the Spaniards, in
which he announced that we only came in the interest of Spain and King
Charles, and for ourselves wanted to make no conquest nor settlement
in Spain at all. But all this eloquence was lost upon the Spaniards, it
would seem: the Captain-General of Andalusia would no more listen to us
than the Governor of Cadiz; and in reply to his Grace's proclamation,
the Marquis of Villadarias fired off another, which those who knew the
Spanish thought rather the best of the two; and of this number was Harry
Esmond, whose kind Jesuit in old days had instructed him, and now had
the honor of translating for his Grace these harmless documents of war.
There was a hard touch for his Grace, and, indeed, for other generals in
her Majesty's service, in the concluding sentence of the Don: "That he
and his council had the generous example of their ancestors to follow,
who had never yet sought their elevation in the blood or in the flight
of their kings. 'Mori pro patria' was his device, which the Duke might
communicate to the Princess who governed E