A LETTER TO THE Paris Gazetteer, UPON THE SIEGE AND TAKING OF NAMUR.  
By the Author of the Safety of Europe.  
London, Printed for Richard Baldwin at the Oxford Arms in Warwick-lane, 1695.   

A LETTER TO THE Paris Gazetteer Upon the Taking of NAMUR.  
SIR,  
YOU will undoubtedly stand in need of all your Wit, to put a handsome gloss in your Gazettes upon the Taking of Namur. It is attended with so many mortifying Circumstances for your Court, which not only your Enemies and your Allies, but your own People are perfectly well acquainted with, that notwithstanding all your Skill in disguising the truth, and the long Experience you have added to your natural talents to make yourself Master of that Art, it will prove a hard Task for you to impose upon the World on that Subject.  
Though your Nation is famed for making a great deal of noise for a very small matter, and for exalting its least Advantages up to the Skies, I believe I may be allowed to say, that no Frenchman ever strained that Character to such a height as you have done. With what Emphasis did not you cry up the Glory of having made new Lines in Flanders, to cover those places of yours which were most exposed. That Evidence of your Weakness and Fear has received the same Eulogies from your Pen, as you had given before to your greatest Conquests; and as if the Ministers of your Crown were proud of being the echoes of a poor Gazetteer: they talked of those Lines in the Northern Courts, as of an inpenetrable bulwark, which would secure France against all the Endeavours of her Enemies. The Confederates, said those Gentlemen, will be convinced at last, that they can expect nothing from the continuation of the War but the ruin of their People, and the exhausting of their Treasures: They will find the utmost Efforts of their Arms useless in the Low-Countries, where they have their most formidable Armies and where they are Commanded by a Prince who is the Head and Soul of their League. These Discourses seasoned with some forced Reflections upon the immense Sums which the Poll-Tax was to have produced, together with the fair Appearances they had in France of a fertile Year, were the perpetual common places of the conversation of those great Ministers, who seemed to have no Instructions, but your Gazettes.  
Confess, Sir, that at that time you were very far from believing that the Confederates were in a Condition, to perform so great an enterprise as that of the Siege of Namur successfully, and that it was not without the utmost astonishment, your Court received the News of our having a design upon that place. It is true that your surprise soon gave way to the flattering hopes of seeing that great design miscarry, upon the account of the great obstacles which could not fail of rendering the Execution of it difficult, and by reason of the potent Diversion which you did propose to make in Flanders. The Prince of Orange, said your Emissaries in all parts, performs an Act of Despair, this project of his savours of something beyond Rashness, and his Allies will soon discover the Vanity of the hopes he endeavours to feed them with.  
Without doubt you did not consider that in daily representing the vast difficulties of the enterprise, you heightened the Glory of the Success; but besides your being persuaded that the Confederates would miscarry in it, you could not have the confidence to talk of the siege of Kamur, as of a design of small Importance, after having made so great a Noise throughout all Europe of the taking of that Place, when you took it from the Spaniards.  
It is sufficiently known, that of all his Conquests your King valued himself most upon that. Of all the Sieges he has made in Person, none ever cost him so much time, nor has any acquired so much Reputation to his Arms. And yet you must needs grant that he had not the third part of those Obstacles to overcome, which our great Prince has now triumphed over.  
Your Frontiers were defended by such strong Places, and those so well provided every way, that you had certainly no manner of Diversions to fear when you besieged Namur. Your Army of opposition was superior to that with which we might have endeavoured the relief of it. It was not obliged to keep at a distance from that which was employed at the siege, since your Country was secure, and thus your two Armies made but one, and were at liberty to assist each other mutually at all times. Add to this the advantage of the Posts, in which you could not be attacked without rashness, the weakness of the Garrisons, the ill condition of the place, which was commanded on the side of St. Nicholas, where you have made new Fortifications since, and the little care that was taken of transporting into the Castle the Beer, Brandy, and the other Provisions which are necessary to animate a soldier to make a vigorous Resistance.  
We have found all things in a very different Condition from this. You are sensible that 80 battalions are hardly sufficient to guard the line of Circumvallation of the Town and Castle of Namur, since it requires 3 separate Camps, and contains 5 Leagues Circumferrence. Therefore the King of England being necessitated to employ such a vast body of Foot, could leave no Army in Flanders, but such a one as was very inferior to the marshal de Villercy's. The distance from those two Armys did not permit that which was before Namur, to sand any succours to the other. Nevertheless that Army was obliged to cover large Towns which were either quiter open, or ill fortified. This was undoubtedly sufficient to slatter your Court with the hopes of a considerable Diversion, and even with the gain of a decisive Battle.  
The News which was brought to Versailles, that Prince Vaudemont tarried for the marshal de Villeroy in the Camp of Wouterghem, prepared every body to receive an account of his defeat: They argued before hand upon the advantageous Consequences of a Victory which they looked upon as certain, and it was not without the utmost Indignation against the marshal de Villeroy the Court was informed, that in his presence, and when he looked upon his game as certain, Prince Vaudemont had made a retreat towards Ghent, worthy of the Admiration of the most experienced Generals.  
It is most vertain that had this Prince hastened his retreat towards Ghent but one day before, the marshal de Villeroy losing the hopes of fighting him, might have fallen upon Bruges or Newport; but Prince Vaudemont making a feint to come to Action, filled his Enemies head so full with thecare of a Battle which seemed to be at hand, that after his Glorious Retreat in view of your Forces, he had time enough to provide for the safety of the Places which were threatened, and to cover them by a Detachment which the marshal de Villeroy was very much surprised to find when he drew near those Places.  
This second disgrace obliged him to rest satisfied with the taking of Dixmuyde and D●ynse, Towns which he has not been able to keep, and of which he caused the Fortifications immediately to be destroyed; besides that those Garrisons surrendering themselves Prisoners of War, without any Defence, that Conquest has acquired no Honour to your Arms, and has only served to discover your Breach of Faith, which you have given fresh proofs of in forcing our Men to list themselves, and in refusing to sand them back again to us, by a manifest infraction of the Cartel.  
If a Prince de Vaudemont were necessary to defend Flanders, we may well be allowed to say that none less than a Prince so Powerful, so resolute, and so Brave as His Majesty of Great Britain, was necessary to overcome all the Obstacles which seemed to render the taking of Namur impossible.  
Namur was no longer a Town liable to be taken in Five or Six days time by its weak side. The Eminence which did command that Place, was secured and covered by your New Fortifications. There were four Redoubts well lined, in which you had Guns, which were so closely covered by the Top of the Rock, that they were hardly visible but from the Town. Each of these Redoubts had a strong Counterscarp, and were altogether covered by a double Envelope of well Pallissado'd Retrenchments. It was absolutely necessary to force your Men out of those Retrenchments in order to draw near to the Town, where you had not forgot to make new Works also; insomuch that before our Forces could come to the Bastion of St. Nicholas, and to the demi Bastion of St. Roch, they met with two Counterscarps fi'lld with little Trenches, a Countre-guard well lined, an Earthen Ravelin, and a Dam which kept the water within the Ditch; all these works covered the new Wall of the Town, after which one met the old Wall, which was divided from the new one by a very broad and very deep Ditch. If this was the weak side of the Town, what may we not judge of the rest, especially of the Fortifications of the Castle? Besides, the Old Tower, its two Walls and the Fort of Terra Nova which were very well repaired, they had enlarged and perfected the Fort of Coehorn, within which they had made several Traverses, and in order to cover the place through which you had formerly taken that Fort, and at the same time to secure its Communication with that of Terra Nova, they had built between the two extremitys of those Works a great Redoubt lined and Casemated. Besides all this they had improved the Casotte very much. All these Forts had good Cavities, they were defended by a double Counterscarp well Pallissado'd, and they had Communications from one to another, with good covered Ways. In fine, beyond all these Works, one met with a large Ditch designed to cover them, which was cut into the Rock with prodigious Labour and expense, and which extended almost from the Meuse to the Sambre.  
I own, Sir, that all those different Posts required abundance of Men to guard them; and you cannot deny but that you had a whole Army in Namur; insomuch that besides all the Works I have mentioned, you posted yourselves in the Subburb of Jambe, the House of the balance, and the abbey of Salsines. That was easy for you to do, since that according to the Calculation of your Gazett of the 9th. of July( which contrary to your usual Custom is very true in that particular) your Garrison consisted of 8 Regiments of Dragoons and 21 battalions, including the free Companys. You had also abundance of Gunners and Miners, 16 chosen Ingeneers, and at their head, Monsieur Megrini second Engeneer of France. Add to all this a great number of Officers of Note, several Volunteers who sought occasions to signalise themselves, a brave and vigilant Governor, beloved by his Garrison, and esteemed by his Enemies, lastly a marshal of France, whom you look upon as one of the greatest Captains of the Age.  
This numerous Garrison neither wanted Money nor Provisions, nor Warlike Ammunitions. There were upwards of a hundred Guns in the Town and Castle, several Mortars, 13 Hundred Thousands of Powder, 10000 Muskets of change, Bombs, Granado's and Bullets without Number; in a word, you had all manner of Provisions for upwards of six Months.  
What a prodigious Army was required to form so many Sieges as were included in the bare Siege of Namur? How many Mortars and Bombs were necessary to be sent for? How many pioners were required? Indeed, Sir, if all these considerations joined to the great Forces, the marshal de Villeroy had with him do not prevail with you to confess that the second Siege of Namur is quiter different from the first; I own that I have nothing more to say to you, and that I despair of proving to you that the Sun shines at Noon day.  
I do not wonder considering all these circumstances, that marshal de Boufflers should look upon His Majesty's enterprise, as a piece of Rashness. The whole Garrison had the same Opinion, until the attack of Coquelet, in which a double Retrenchment well Pallissado'd and Defended by 5000 of your best Men, who could every Moment receive fresh succours from the City, were not capable to stop the Eagerness of our Infantry. The resistance of your Men, the mines and Fougaes which they sprung only served to animate ours the more, who remained masters of the Retrenchments, and pursued those who guarded them to the very Counterscarp of the City. After that attack, all those we made, had such good success, that we had reason to question whither the Consternation of your Forces had not almost as great a share in it, as the Bravery of ours. The besieged made neither Sallies nor any other Vigorous Actions. We took with little loss both the first and second Counterscarp, the Counter-guard, and the Dam. We made ourselves masters of the abbey of Salsines, and of the House of the balances, which were Posts of great consequence for the attack of the Castle, in which we met but with very little Resistance. In short, we driven the French out of the great Retrenchment cut into of the Rock, without losing any Men in that Action except a few of those who were a little too eager in the pursuit of them.  
So many successses astonished the besieged, and oblg'd them to surrender the Town before we had made ourselves masters of the Ravelin, or of any of the Bastions of the first Wall. This event enabled his Majesty to sand a considerable Reinforcement to the Prince de Vaudemont. But as I have more sincerity than you, I will own that that Reinforcement could not come soon enough to prevent the Bombardment of brussels. The marshal de Villeroy had already made himself master of Posts in order to the Execution of that enterprise, out of which it was impossible to force him. I will examine in another Letter, whether France has acquired much Honour and Advantage by that Expedition. Permit me, Sir, at present to return before the Castle of Namur, which marshal de Boufflers seconded by Monsieur de Megrini did propose to defend much longer than he had done the Town, expecting no less than to force us to raise the Siege.  
He did ground those hopes chiefly on the positive assurances your Court gave him of a speedy Relief. And indeed that design was become public. They talked of the succours of Namur at Versailles, as of an infallible thing: and the people reckoned already that this new success of their King's Arms would oblige the Confederates to sue to him for a Peace. All things were in motion in the Kingdom for the Execution of that great Project. A Detachment form the Army of Germany, the Forces of the Coasts, the Guards and Mousqueteers which had been kept for the Guard of the King's Person, the Arriere Ban, the Militia, all in a word, even the very Guards established for the Subsides of the Salt marched to the same Rendezvouse. The marshal de Villerey proud of those Reinforcements, advances towards Gemblours, with a train of Artillery consisting of a hundred pieces of Cannon. 'tis given out that he has positive orders to fight the Confederates whatever Post he finds them in. The French talk with all the confidence imaginable, of the success of the Battle he is going to Fight. They give out every where, that he is going to relieve Namur at the head of a 100 Thousand Men. The Prayers of forty Hours are ordered more for form-sake, than out of any doubt of the Event. They study before hand what siege they shall form, after having raised that of Namur. In a word, the two Armys are in sight of each other, and the great Day appears on which the Fate of Europe is to be decided. How many Fathers are going to Weep for the loss of their Children, and Wives for their Husbands? But let them lay aside their Fears, and let the Prudence of marshal de Villeroy secure them. If he be within sight of our Army, he is the better able to judge the Imposibility of attacking it. He discovers the wise precautions our Great King has taken to fortify the Avenues of his Camp; and whilst he hears 160 pieces of Ordinance, and 40 Mortars thunder against the Castle of Namur, he without Intermission sees that our Army of Opposition has above a 100 Guns in Battery to receive him, and that being almost equal to his in Number of Men, it must be considered as superior to it by the Advantage of the Post.  
It is not therefore to be wondered at that he should retire without Fighting at the sight of so many difficulties. Neither is he justly to be blamed for his Retreat; but the Noise which your Court has so unseasonably made of the great design which they had projected is to be condemned. What will all Europe say which expected the even: of that Important Grisis? What will the Northern Crowns think who had been prepared for a very different success by your Ministers? What will your People say in the just dread of seeing a Continuation of the War by the Repugnancy which your Court will doubtless have to consent to the new pretensions which the Conquest of Namur does authorize us to form? What will even your Court say to excuse the Confidence where with they have spoken of the relief of that place? Were they ignorant of the force of the Posts were they pretended their Army was to force us? Were they no informed of the precautions we might take to preserve them? Had they a false Idea of our Forces? I own, that if they have really thought them to be as considerably lessened as your Gazettes have published it, they had reason to believe that we were no longer in a Condition to make head against the marshal de Villeroy. In Truth, Sir, this is a dismal passage for you; those who will give themselves the trouble to calculate to what the loss amounts, which you pretend we have sustained before the Town or Castle of Namur, will find that it amounts to upwards of 40000 Men killed or Wounded. I could easily prove it to you by a faithful extract of each of your gazettes of the Months of July, August and September, but that would be a useless trouble since they are in the hands of every Body. Moreover it is certain that our Army of opposition, and that which was employed at the Siege, did not consist of more than one Hundred Thousand effective Men, even after the arrival of the Detachment from Germany. This is also a fact, the g] DESC=" missing" extend=" 1 span" truth of which is to be found in your gazettes, when you make the Calculation of our battalions and of our Squadrons. Of these 100000 there were but 70000 Foot, out of which we must bait near 30000 which the Siege had already cost us according to your Reckoning, when the marshal de Villeroy drew near to fight us. His march towards the Mehaign, did not make us discontinue the Siege, to the carrying on of which, about 20000 Foot remained constantly employed; insomuch that on the 30th. of August we gave a general Assault to the Works of the Castle with 15000 men, as you relate it in your Gazette of the 10th. of September, so that our Army, besides the Cavalry which was of no use for the defence of our Retrenchments, could not according to your Calculation exceed the number of 20000 Foot. Give me leave to tell you, Sir, that you have but little regard to the marshal de Villeroy's Reputation. What? with 120 battalions gathered from the four corners of the Kingdom, he contents himself with barely viewing lines made in hast, and only defended by 20000 Men, whom he has a positive order to attack? He suffers a Place to be taken before his Face of such Importance to his King, the Garrison of which deserves so well to be succoured by the Noble Defence you say they have made? But that is not all yet. You add in the same Gazett of the 10th. of September, that the 15000 Men which had given the Assault on the 30th. of August, being repulsed with the loss of near 6000, we made a second Assault on the 1st. of September with 20000 Men. Without doubt, Sir, those that were remaining of the 15000 men which made the attack on the 30th. of August, were too much disheartened, and too much fatigued to make a new Assault two days after it. Therefore the 20000 Men which were employed on that new attack, must of necessity be taken out of our Army of Opposition, at least the mayor part of them. And thus this Army is reduced to nothing, and I defy you, according to your Calculation, to find 6000 Foot remaining there. Nevertheless the marshal de Villeroy is present with 100000 men without endeavouring to improve so favourable an Occasion, and though as you say, we have 9000 men killed and wounded in this 2d. Assault, and are repulsed every where, Monsieur de Boufflers desires to capitulate that very day, and Monsieur de Villeroy retires the very next towards Mons with the utmost Speed. Do not you fancy, Sir, in reading this, that Miracles are not ceased, and that all this has been done by enchantment?  
Therefore it follows of necessity, either that the marshal de Villeroy is the most unworthy General that ever was, or that you are a great Romancer without Truth or judgement. I am very apt to believe, Sir, the storm will fall upon your own head. The Capitulation of Namur is a sad Commentary for your gazettes, and I am of Opinion that many men will curse you for the disappointment of the hopes they had built upon your false Relations.  
As for the marshal de Villeroy, it will be easy for him to justify himself, and to prove that while we gave a general Assault to the Castle with 10000 men( and not with 15000 as you relate it) we had 95 good battalions and upwards of 200 Squadrons behind the Lines which he was ordered to force, he will prove that he could not give a Battle without exposing his Army to an absolute Defeat, and that he was in the right not to hazard the success of so rash an Enterprise.  
But that which in my Opinion, Sir, is of most dangerous consequence for you, is, That some Fool or other may chance to have a Crotchet to make a Description of the Siege of Namur, exactly according to the relation of your gazettes. That would certainly afford a large field to turn you into redicule; for instance, it would be easily proved, that in the Assault of the 30th. of August, our Forces were not repulsed every where since they took the Counterscarp of the Castle, and that of the Cochorn Fort, and that they lodged themselves at the foot of the Breach of that last Work, which obliged the besreged to Capitulate within two days after it. It would be easy to convince you that you must bait upwards of 4000 of the 6000 men which you pretend we lost on that occasion. Monsieur de Boufflers himself could witness that there was no attack at all the 1st. of September, and that nothing happened considerable that Day, but his desire to Capitulate. And therefore, that the second Assault which you mention, made by 20000 Men, which cost us 9000 Men and you 3000, and in which the slaughter was so great, that there has been none like it, as you say, in Europe for upwards of an Age; is nothing but a fiction of your Brain, and so poorly invented, that no Man of common sense could ever be persuaded that our Army of Opposition should have weakened itself by so considerable a Detachment, at a time when they were still liable to be attacked by yours. We could make you sensible how ridiculous it is to say that the besieged had the Advantage of the Sally they made the Night between the 19th. and 20th. of August, in which you maintain that they ruined divers Works towards the end of the Trenches, and that they routed those who did defend them, whereas they were repulsed themselves, and pursued as far as the Counterscarp of Coehorn Fort, where they retired in disorder, not having been able to sustain the Vigour wherewith they were charged by the Spanish Dragoons, whose Bravery our Chiefs did Reward, by giving each Dragoon two Pistols, and advancing the Officers who did command them, which is a convincing proof that we had reason to be pleased with the success of that Action. Neither can I omit to observe that the other Sallys which you make so much noise about, have never exceeded 30 or 40 Men, who after having made a Discharge at a great distance towards the place where they heard our men at Work, retired immediately into their Forts. It would be easy to demonstrate to you that the attack of the Retrenchments of the Castle in which you make us lose several Thousand Men, did not cost us above 200, who in the heat of the pursuit advanced as far as the Counterscarp of your Works. But what might not one say about the Assault which was made, as you say, on the 25th. of August by 12000 Men, who having attacked the Cazotte and the Coehorn Fort were repulsed three several times, and of which 4 or 5000 were killed wounded or taken? With what confusion would you be forced to own that the said attack was wholly of your own invention, and that it must be reduced to the taking of a small Redout, in which we took a Lieutenant and 16 Soldiers, without losing above three of ours. That which is most Blame-worthy in your Behaviour, is that you never disabuse the Reader in your gazettes of the falsities you have imposed upon him in the preceding, and that on the contrary you continue to suppose that they are all Truths which are not in the least to be questioned.  
In looking back on the Siege of the Town we should find several other Examples like these of Impudence and Disingenuity. You suppose an imaginary attack on the Eminence of budge the Night between the 12th. and 13th. of July. We lost 500 Men there at the first on-set, according to your Calculation, and being, as you say, returned to the Attack with six battalions, the besieged abandoned that Post; but having soon after it put fire to the Bombs and Granado's which they had buried there, and falling upon the Confederates with Sword in Hand, they beat them out of it, and killed upwards of 900 Men, and did not lose above 4 or 5 Soldiers themselves. In Truth, when Men of sense red things like these, they are at a loss to think which is the most surprising, to find that there are Writers who have Impudence enough to tell them, or to see that there are Readers so credulous as to believe them. For every one knows that there was no Attack the Night between the 12th. and 13th. of July, and that the first of all was that of the 18th. which you have not had much reason to boast of; since your men were driven out of the Retrenchments they had on the Eminence of budge, and that ours lodged themselves there. It is most certain that this Vigorous Action did not cost us 1500 men, and that your Garrison lost upwards of 2000 there. Nevertheless allowing your disingenous way of relating that Action, according to your wonted custom, it is amazing to think, that an Army so considerably weakn'd as you suppose ours to have been in that Action, should have been capable to continue the Siege, and to make so many other Attacks, and so much the more seeing that in the Sally which the besieged made that day upon the Trenches of the Brandenburghers, you make us lose 1200 Men. It is true that they must be reduced to less than 200, and that those who made the Sally did not lose much less in making their Retreat, but that is a Circumstance you have thought fit to suppress.  
You talk just in the same manner of the Attacks that followed, for you tell us that the Attack of the first Counterscarp cost us 4000 men, and that of the second near 5000, tho' the truth is that we did not lose 900 in both Actions. Moreover it is observable, that in all those different occasions, the besieged according to your Relations, never lost but a very inconsiderable number of Officers and Soldiers, for I do not reckon 3000 men you pretend to have lost in the general Assault of the 1st. of September, since I have already proved that it never had a being but in your Imagination. Nevertheless, after a Siege of two Months, that Garrison which at first consisted of 14 or 15000 men, and has suffered so little in all the Attacks, is according to your Gazett of the 10th. of September reduced to 5003 Soldiers, of which there are but 2300 in a condition to Fight, while those poor Confederates of whom you barbarously kill and wound upwards of 40000 foot, are yet strong enough to take Namur within sight of an Army of 100000 men, who dares not attack them.  
I will not insist in this place to prove that the loss of the besieged has been far greater than that of the Besiegers, tho I could easily convince you of it, desiring you only to reflect on the great Fire of our Cannons and of our Bombs, and upon the good success of our Attacks; neither will I reflect on the extraordinary praises you bestow on the Garrison, saying, that they have made the most glorious defence that ever was heard of. Others will put you in mind that we only began to batter the Castle in order to make a breach on the 17th. of August, and that they desired to capitulate on the 1st. of September. tho we had not as yet taken any of their Works, but only the Counterscarp of 2 Forts. For my part, Sir, I am willing to grant, you, that the besieged have done as much as it was natural to believe they would do; they did Capitulate at a time when they had lost all hopes of relief, at a time when the Breaches were so large, and the small remainder of the Garrison so tired and so dishearten'd, that unless they would have run the hazard of being taken by Storm, they could not have sustained a second Attack. Moreover, I will grant you, if you will have it so, that they have defended themselves like Hero's, since that will place the Princes who have triumphed over their Resistance above the degree of Hero's.  
What may be said without flattering any Body is, that it is no small mortification for your Court to be convinced by the loss of Namur, that the Confederates can take Towns as well as the French. The World has beholded a Train of Artillery at this Siege far superior to any your King has ever been able to assemble at any of the Sieges he has made; Ingeneers who have immediately found the weak side of the place; and what seems almost incredible, a Castle taken in Ten Days time, which your Garrison had boasted they would defend three Months. It has beholded our Infantry, performing all maintaining the Posts they had taken with an equal Bravery. It has also seen the English march with so much undauntedness, that we may assure ourselves that for the future, whenever your Forces shall Engage with them, they will conclude themselves vanquished before they Fight. But that which is yet far more surprising,( though it is no Novelty to us,) the World has beholded a King there, whose sacred Life is so precious to Us, exposing his Person every Moment, visiting the Trenches twice every day, present in all the Attacks, and by an Indefatigable care Triumphing over Difficulties which offered themselves in crowds. In short, it has beholded an undaunted Elector, passing whole Nights in the Trenches, and sharing the Fatigues and Perils of the Siege with his Soldiers.  
These without doubt are strong Arguments to oblige your Court to fear the continuation of the War; but yet these are not the only Reasons they have to fear, since the Low Countrys are not the only place in which France has appeared inferior to her Enemies. She has abandoned part of her Conquests in Catalonia. She has laboured under strange disquiets for her Army in Germany, even so far as to reckon its having been able to pass the Rhine without being beaten as a kind of Victory. Infine you have lost Cazal, a place of the utmost consequence which you had Bought and Fortified with so much Treasure, and in which you had such a Noble Train of Artillery. You have not been happier on the Sea-side. All your Coasts alarmed from Nice to Dunkirk, your Maritime Provinces ruined by the Marches and Countermarches of your Forces, and of your Milicias, St. Malo, Calis and Grandville Bombarded: Your Trade in the two Seas ruined, and your Fleet disarmed and shut up in Toulon, are speaking Instances of your weakness, which even you, Sir,( and that speaks all) dare not deny.  
If you do but cast your Eyes on the Future, it looks far worse yet. It is most certain that the great Events of this Campaign will increase the Union of the Confederates, and will induce them to prosecute the War with more Vigour than ever. Besides those that are acquainted with the interior state of France, who know the misery of the People, and to what degree the Finances are exhausted will hardly be persuaded that they can be able to resist the Forces of the Confederates much longer. Therefore since you seem to be acquainted with the Ministers, I will tell you like a Friend, that you will do well to advice them, to dispose your Court as speedily as can be, to be satisfied with a reasonable Peace, for otherwise they may chance to be reduced to accept less advantageous Conditions. I am,  
Sir, Yours, &c. Sept. the 25th. 1695.  
FINIS.