"One day, 'middle of October last,' the Seventy-fours of Haddock
and perfidious Albion,--Spanish official persons, looking out from
Cadiz Light-house, ask themselves, 'Where are they? Vanished from
these waters; not a Seventy-four of them to be seen!'--Have got
foul in the underworks, or otherwise some blunder has happened;
and the blockading Fleet of perfidious Albion has had to quit its
post, and run to Gibraltar to refit. That, I guess, was the
Machiavellian stroke of Art they had done; without investigating
Haddock and Company [as indignant Honorable Members did], I will
wager, That and nothing more!

"In any case, the Termagant, finding no Seventy-fours there, and
the wind good, despatches swiftly her Transports and War-ships to
Barcelona; swiftly embarks there her 15,000, France cautiously
assisting; and lands them complete, 'by the middle of December,'
Haddock feebly opposing, on the Genoa coast: 'Have at the Milanese,
my men!' Which obliges Charles Emanuel to end his cunctations, and
rank at once in defence of that Country, [Adelung, ii. 535, 538
(who believes in the "stroke of art"): what kind of "art" it was,
learn sufficiently in Gentleman's Magazine,
&c. of those months.] lest he get no share of it whatever. And so
the game began. Europe admired, with a shudder, the refined stroke
of art; for in cunning they equal Beelzebub, those perfidious
Islanders;--and are always at it; hence their greatness in the
world. Imitate them, ye Peoples, if you also would grow great.
That is our Gazetteer Evangel, in this late epoch of
Man's History." ...


OTHER SCENE, BAY OF NAPLES, 19th~20th August, 1742: KING OF TWO