THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE X. First Experiences in America XI. A Brilliant but Fruitless Campaign 102 XII In the Vicinity of New York . III XIII. The Campaigns in South Carolina 120 XXX. The Progress of the Siege XXXII. Central Indian Mutiny Service XXXIII. Preparing for the Expedition 378 389 409 HISTORY OF THE THIRTY-THIRD FOOT WHEN CHAPTER I THE RAISING OF THE REGIMENT Charles the Second, the feeble-minded and childless King of Spain, died, it was discovered that he had made a will calculated to create the gravest excitement in the diplomatic world. The Courts of Europe were taken by surprise; for when the document was read it was in absolute contradiction of what the Powers had been led to expect from the words which had fallen from the monarch's lips less than two years before. In an assembly within the palace at Madrid Charles, having first pledged his councillors to secrecy, told them that his successor to the Crown would be the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. Neither by word nor by letter did the monarch, during the remainder of his life, give any hint of a change of purpose; yet, when the actual will was read, within an hour of his death, it was discovered that the Electoral Prince was set aside, and that the choice of the dead king had fallen on Philip, Duke of Anjou, the second son of the Dauphin. The situation thus produced was one which Germany and William the Third, as representing Holland and England, could not tolerate, since it meant that with France and Spain so closely united, they would count |