, and all else shall be added
to you!' Stair's plan might have answered,--had Stair been the master to
execute it; which he was not. D'Ahremberg's also, who protested, 'Wait
till your 12,000 join, and you have your provisions,' was the orthodox
plan, and might have much to say for itself. But the two plans
collapsing into one,--that was the clearly fatal method! Magnanimous
Stair never made the least explanation, to an undiscerning Public or
Parliament; wrapt himself in strict silence, and accepted in a grand way
what had come to him. [His Papers, to voluminous extent, are still in
the Family Archives;--not inaccessible, I think, were the right student
of them (who would be a rare article among us!) to turn up.] Clear it
is, the Pragmatic Army had come across again, at Aschaffenburg,
Sunday, June 16th; and was found there by his Majesty on the Wednesday
following, with its two internecine plans fallen into mutual death; a
Pragmatic Army in truly dangerous circumstances.

"The English who were in and round Aschaffenburg itself, Hanoverians
and Austrians encamping farther down, had put a battery on the Bridge of
Aschaffenburg; hoping to be able to forage thereby on the other side of
the Mayn. Whereupon Noailles had instantly clapt a redoubt, under
due cover of a Wood, at his end of the Bridge, 'No passage this way,
gentlemen, except into the cannon's throat!'--so that Marshal Stair,
reconnoitring that way, 'had his hat shot off,' and rapidly drew back
again. Nay, before long, Noailles, at the Village of Seligenstadt, some
eight miles farther down, throws two wooden or pontoon bridges
over; [Sketch of Plan at p. 257.] can bring his whole Army across at
Seligenstadt; prohibits all manner of supply to us from Hanau or our
Magazines by his arrangement there:"--(Notable little Seligenstadt,
"City of the Blessed;" where Eginhart and Emma, ever since Charlemagne's
time, lie waiting the Resurrection; that is the place of these Noailles
contrivances!)--"Furthermore, we learn, Noailles has seized a post
twenty miles farther up the river (Miltenberg the name of it); and will
prevent supplies from coming down to us out of Branken or the Neckar
Country. We had forgotten, or our COLLAPSE of plans had done it, that
'an army moves on its stomach' (as the King of Prussia says), and that
we have nothing to live upon in these parts!

"Such has the unfortunate fact turned out to be, when Britannic Majesty
arrives; and it can now be discover