rched upon Blenheim, advancing with great gallantry, the
Major-General on foot, with his officers, at the head of the column, and
marching, with his hat off, intrepidly in the face of the enemy, who was
pouring in a tremendous fire from his guns and musketry, to which our
people were instructed not to reply, except with pike and bayonet when
they reached the French palisades. To these Wilkes walked intrepidly,
and struck the woodwork with his sword before our people charged it.
He was shot down at the instant, with his colonel, major, and several
officers; and our troops cheering and huzzaing, and coming on, as they
did, with immense resolution and gallantry, were nevertheless stopped by
the murderous fire from behind the enemy's defences, and then attacked
in flank by a furious charge of French horse which swept out of
Blenheim, and cut down our men in great numbers. Three fierce and
desperate assaults of our foot were made and repulsed by the enemy; so
that our columns of foot were quite shattered, and fell back, scrambling
over the little rivulet, which we had crossed so resolutely an hour
before, and pursued by the French cavalry, slaughtering us and cutting
us down.

And now the conquerors were met by a furious charge of English horse
under Esmond's general, General Lumley, behind whose squadrons the
flying foot found refuge, and formed again, whilst Lumley drove back the
French horse, charging up to the village of Blenheim and the palisades
where Wilkes, and many hundred more gallant Englishmen, lay in
slaughtered heaps. Beyond this moment, and of this famous victory, Mr.
Esmond knows nothing; for a shot brought down his horse and our young
gentleman on it, who fell crushed and stunned under the animal, and came
to his senses he knows not how long after, only to lose them again from
pain and loss of blood. A dim sense, as of people groaning round about
him, a wild incoherent thought or two for her who occupied so much of
his heart now, and that here his career, and his hopes, and misfortunes
were ended, he remembers in the course of these hours. When he woke up,
it was with a pang of extreme pain, his breastplate was taken off, his
servant was holding his head up, the good and faithful lad of Hampshire*
was blubbering over his master, whom he found and had thought dead, and
a surgeon was probing a wound in the shoulder, which he must have got
at the same moment when his horse was shot and fell over him. The battle