s it known to the world that Talmash
had perished by the basest of all the hundred villanies of Marlborough.
[533]

Yet never had Marlborough been less a Jacobite than at the moment when
he rendered this wicked and shameful service to the Jacobite cause. It
may be confidently affirmed that to serve the banished family was not
his object, and that to ingratiate himself with the banished family was
only his secondary object. His primary object was to force himself into
the service of the existing government, and to regain possession of
those important and lucrative places from which he had been dismissed
more than two years before. He knew that the country and the Parliament
would not patiently bear to see the English army commanded by foreign
generals. Two Englishmen only had shown themselves fit for high military
posts, himself and Talmash. If Talmash were defeated and disgraced,
William would scarcely have a choice. In fact, as soon as it was known
that the expedition had failed, and that Talmash was no more, the
general cry was that the King ought to receive into his favour the
accomplished Captain who had done such good service at Walcourt, at Cork
and at Kinsale. Nor can we blame the multitude for raising this cry.
For every body knew that Marlborough was an eminently brave, skilful
and successful officer; but very few persons knew that he had, while
commanding William's troops, while sitting in William's council, while
waiting in William's bedchamber, formed a most artful and dangerous plot
for the subversion of William's throne; and still fewer suspected the
real author of the recent calamity, of the slaughter in the Bay of
Camaret, of the melancholy fate of Talmash. The effect therefore of the
foulest of all treasons was to raise the traitor in public estimation.
Nor was he wanting to himself at this conjuncture. While the Royal
Exchange was in consternation at this disaster of which he was the
cause, while many families were clothing themselves in mourning for the
brave men of whom he was the murderer, he repaired to Whitehall; and
there, doubtless with all that grace, that nobleness, that suavity,
under which lay, hidden from all common observers, a seared conscience
and a remorseless heart, he professed himself the most devoted, the most
loyal, of all the subjects of William and Mary, and expressed a hope
that he might, in this emergency, be permitted to offer his sword to
their Majesties. Shrewsbury was very