If we consider that the English general, in the execution of his plan, was obliged to form lines, erect regular forts, raise batteries, throw bridges over a river, make a causeway through a deep morass, provide for the security of convoys against a numerous army on the one side, and the garrisons of Conde and Valenciennes on the other, we must allow this was the boldest enterprise of the whole war; that it required all the fortitude, skill, and resolution of a great general, and all the valour and intrepidity of the confederate troops, who had scarce ever exhibited such amazing proofs of courage upon any other occasion as they now displayed at the siege of Bouchain.

In twenty days after the trenches were opened, the garrison were obliged to surrender themselves prisoners of war; and this conquest was the last military exploit performed by the duke of Marlborough: the breaches of Bouchain were no sooner repaired than the opposite armies began to separate, and the allied forces were quartered in the frontier towns, that they might be at hand to take the field early in the spring.

They were now in possession of the Maese, almost as far as the Sambre; of the Schelde from Tournay; and of the Lys as far as it is navigable.

They had reduced Spanish Guelderland, Limburg, Brabant, Flanders, and the greatest part of Hainault; they were masters of the Scarpe; and by the conquest of Bouchain, they had opened to themselves a way into the very bowels of France.

All these acquisitions were owing to the valour and conduct of the duke of Marlborough, who now returned to the Hague, and arrived in England about the middle of November.
DUKE OF ARGYLE COMMANDS THE BRITISH TROOPS IN SPAIN.
The queen had conferred the command of her forces in Spain upon the duke of Argyle, who was recalled from the service in Flanders for that purpose.