"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.