ew hours
later is still extant. [452] "Though I hope to see you this evening, I
cannot help writing to tell you how rejoiced I am that you got off so
well. God grant that your health may soon be quite restored. These are
great trials, which he has been pleased to send me in quick succession.
I must try to submit to his pleasure without murmuring, and to deserve
his anger less."

His forces rallied fast. Large bodies of troops which he had, perhaps
imprudently, detached from his army while he supposed that Liege was the
object of the enemy, rejoined him by forced marches. Three weeks after
his defeat he held a review a few miles from Brussels. The number of men
under arms was greater than on the morning of the bloody day of Landen;
their appearance was soldierlike; and their spirit seemed unbroken.
William now wrote to Heinsius that the worst was over. "The crisis," he
said, "has been a terrible one. Thank God that it has ended thus." He
did not, however, think it prudent to try at that time the event of
another pitched field. He therefore suffered the French to besiege and
take Charleroy; and this was the only advantage which they derived
from the most sanguinary battle fought in Europe during the seventeenth
century.

The melancholy tidings of the defeat of Landen found England agitated by
tidings not less melancholy from a different quarter. During many
months the trade with the Mediterranean Sea had been almost entirely
interrupted by the war. There was no chance that a merchantman from
London or from Amsterdam would, if unprotected, reach the Pillars of
Hercules without being boarded by a French privateer; and the protection
of armed vessels was not easily to be obtained. During the year 1691,
great fleets, richly laden for Spanish, Italian and Turkish markets, had
been gathering in the Thames and the Texel. In February 1693, near
four hundred ships were ready to start. The value of the cargoes was
estimated at several millions sterling. Those galleons which had long
been the wonder and envy of the world had never conveyed so precious
a freight from the West Indies to Seville. The English government
undertook, in concert with the Dutch government, to escort the vessels
which were laden with this great mass of wealth. The French government
was bent on intercepting them.

The plan of the allies was that seventy ships of the line and about
thirty frigates and brigantines should assemble in the Channel under
the com