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Course of negotiations at the Congress

[1712-3

March, 1712) had brought so much nearer the danger, still not removed, of a union between the French and Spanish Crowns.

For the rest, it may be said that the Government of Philip V had no voice at the Congress distinct from that of France, and that the Bourbon King of Spain's personal action was of importance only at the particular point of the negotiations when he made up his mind. to prefer the retention of a diminished Spanish to the expectancy of an enlarged French monarchy (May, 1712). Portugal was absolutely tied to England, and, instead of deriving any advantage from the entire course of negotiations, had to console herself with the heavy subsidies paid to her during the course of the War. Promises had been made and prospects held out which gained Savoy over to the side of peace. The States General had to concentrate their energies, as it had been all along intended by the English Government that they should, upon the question of their Barrier; on December 29, 1712, they finally agreed to accept the Anglo-French preliminaries. Thus, in the progress of the negotiations everything depended on the maintenance of the understanding between France and England; and for this purpose the conclusion of a truce between them was of the utmost importance. The cession of Dunkirk by the French before the conclusion of the peace enabled Ormond to proclaim this truce on July 16, 1712. An Anglo-French pacification was henceforth a virtual certainty; Bolingbroke's journey to France (August 7) and subsequent interviews with Torcy removed all remaining doubts; and, Savoy being more or less satisfied, the remainder of the negotiations chiefly turned on the satisfaction of the Dutch and of the Emperor. On February 2, 1713, the conferences were formally resumed. The Dutch were, as will be seen, not really contented till the conclusion of the Third Barrier Treaty, nearly eighteen months later; nor was the satisfaction of the Emperor at present accomplished. His demands remained unsupported by England; and, though on March 14, 1713, Sinzendorf had signed a truce at Utrecht by which the Emperor undertook to withdraw his troops from Catalonia and to concede the neutrality of the whole of Italy, he could not obtain the terms on which he insisted. A last attempt made on his behalf by Shrewsbury at Paris (March, 1713) fell through; and peace was signed at Utrecht without him (April 11). When the middle of June had been reached, and no message of acceptance had arrived from Vienna, the last of the plenipotentiaries quitted Utrecht; though the proceedings there were, as will be seen, not yet at an end.

The earliest in date, then, as well as the most important of the Treaties, which it is proposed now briefly to examine was the Peace between France and Great Britain (April 11, 1713). William III had bequeathed to Marlborough and Godolphin, the true inheritors of his statesmanship, a foreign policy which meant war with France, so

1713]

France and Great Britain

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long as France was resolved to unsettle the peace of Europe in general, and the condition of things established in Great Britain in particular. The English nation had deeply resented the arrogant interference of Louis in the matter of the succession to its throne; and but for this interference, William would hardly have been able to screw to the sticking-point such warlike feeling as then existed in England. Thus it was appropriate that the first article of importance in the Anglo-French Treaty was concerned with the English Succession question. Whatever may be thought of the account given in the so-called Minutes of the Negotiations of Mesnager of the intrigues for obtaining, with Queen Anne's consent, the insertion in the Treaty of a secret clause relieving Louis from the obligation of keeping his promise to recognise the Hanoverian Succession "beyond the Queen's death," these intrigues, if they were actually carried on, broke down; and Article IV of the Treaty may be regarded as both sincere and conclusive. France in this Article recognised the order of succession in England established by the Act of 1702; and King Louis undertook, both for himself and for his descendants, never to acknowledge as King or Queen of Great Britain anyone claiming to succeed unless in the order thus settled; while taking every care that the son of King James II (the "Old Pretender") should not at any time or on any pretext return into the realm of France, from which he had departed voluntarily," according to the Treaty; in reality after many delays on his own part, and after much hesitation on that of Louis XIV, whose truly royal nature made it difficult for him to let his guest go.

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Of superior, because of more pressing, importance was Article VI, which settled the nodus pacis — the cardinal difficulty of the Peace - the question which after passing through so many phases was now at last determined by the agreement between France and Great Britain. This Article recited the successive Acts of Renunciation precluding the possibility of a personal union between the French and Spanish kingdoms: the Act of Renunciation, performed by Philip V on November 5, 1712; its confirmation by the Cortes of Castile in the same month; and the Renunciations, also in November, performed by Philip's younger brother, Charles Duke of Berry (who died in May, 1714), and by Philip Duke of Orleans (afterwards Regent of France). It further recited the Reservation of the rights of Philip in the succession to the French Crown, declared by Louis XIV in December, 1700, when on the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession, and the Annulment of this Reservation — in other words, the solemn assent of Louis XIV to Philip V's abandonment of his claims to the French throne. These Renunciations were now hedged in by every possible solemnity of obligation; as it happened, owing to the unexpected survival of Louis' younger great-grandson, the future King Louis XV, there was never any question of contesting their validity. By the same Article, the King of France undertook never to accept in favour of his own subjects any advantage as to

commerce or navigation in Spain or Spanish America, without its being extended to the subjects of other Powers.

Article IX concerned Dunkirk, whose numerous vicissitudes had not ended with its sale to France by Charles II in 1662. Louis had greatly added to the strength of its fortifications, till it became beyond doubt a very serious menace to Great Britain's maintenance of her power in the Narrow Seas. It had now, as was seen, been evacuated by the French during the peace negotiations; and it was now stipulated that the King of France should within six months rase the fortifications and fill up the harbour, with an undertaking never to restore them. Louis XIV showed a want of good faith very dishonourable to him, by digging another harbour at Mardyk, a village near Dunkirk, which was intended to be deeper than that which had been filled up, and which was connected with a canal of considerable length. The complaints which at once arose in England obliged him to suspend the operations at Mardyk, on which not less than 12,000 workmen are said to have been employed; and under the Regency the works were demolished. The Dunkirk clause, to the importance of which English public feeling had shown itself so alive, made its reappearance in a succession of treaties before the Peace of Versailles in 1783, when France at last obtained its abolition.

Articles X, XII and XIII dealt with cessions made by France to Great Britain in the New World, which are justly regarded as the real beginnings of the expansion of the British colonial empire. The Hudson's Bay settlements, to which France had now finally to renounce her pretensions, were of French origin, though the Bay itself had been discovered by the English navigator whose name it bears; and the profitable fur-trade through Canada still remained largely in French hands. On the St Lawrence and in the wooded peninsula at the mouth of the great river French colonial enterprise had continued to progress, after in 1631 Richelieu had recovered both the earlier Canadian settlements and Acadia for France; and towards the end of the seventeenth century she claimed the entire region from the north of the Mississippi to the Great Lakes on the St Lawrence as her own - the title of New France being habitually given to it in the French maps of the time. It is therefore a notable event in the history of French and of English colonisation, and of the mutual relations between them, when the Utrecht Treaty once more assigned Acadia to England. At the same time recognition was given to her sole possession of St Kitt's (St Chris topher's) - one of the Leeward Islands, forming part of the seventeenth century Plantations." When, in 1660, England and France agreed to make a division between them of the West Indian Islands, St Kitt's, from which the Spaniards had at one time driven out the settlers of both nations, was retained by them in common; under William III each of the two nationalities had in turn worsted its rival, but the Peace of Ryswyk had re-established the system of joint occupation. To this confusion the

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1713] Anglo-French Treaty of Navigation and Commerce 443

Peace of Utrecht at last put an end. Article XIII provided in addition for the cession by France of Newfoundland and the adjacent islands; but Cape Breton Island and the other islands situate at the mouth of the St Lawrence were left in the possession of the French, who were to be still allowed to ply their fishing-trade north of Cape Bonavista, and to occupy the shore of Newfoundland for the purpose of curing their fish. The French fishing-trade in these regions thus continued to flourish, so that at the time of the Peace of Aachen in 1748 it very largely exceeded the English; nor was there up to the Peace of Paris in 1763to say nothing of later times any more constant source of irritation between the two Powers than this sore, which so many generations of diplomatists have exerted themselves to heal.

On the same day (April 11) was also signed a Treaty of Navigation and Commerce between Great Britain and France which, besides placing each of them, as towards the other, in the footing of the most favoured nation, contained certain stipulations of considerable significance for the progress of international law. The ordinance, issued by Louis XIV in 1681, when in his pride he already regarded himself as master of the seas, declaring any vessel a fair prize which should contain goods belonging to enemies of France, controverted the principle of "free ships, free goods," which France herself had accepted in her Treaty with the Dutch of 1646, and to which England had agreed in a succession of treaties. A rude shock had thus been administered to a principle hitherto generally, though not universally, acknowledged; and during the ensuing period (including that of the War of the Spanish Succession) the further encroachment came into vogue, that all goods produced in an enemy's land or by an enemy's industry remained enemy's goods, even if in the possession of a neutral, and were thus liable to seizure at sea. Finally, the interpretation was actually extended to the very ships of neutrals loaded in an enemy's port and proceeding to a port not in their own country; and such ships were actually seized. To these interpretations or proceedings the Utrecht Treaty opposed the provision that, so far as British and French vessels were concerned, the flags of the nation to which they belonged should respectively cover all goods (except contraband of war), without distinction of ownership, even in the case of vessels bound for a port belonging to an enemy of that nation. Inasmuch as a treaty of the same purport was signed a few weeks later between France and the States General, maritime commerce might seem to have thus obtained an important boon at Utrecht. But, as a matter of fact, the question was still very far removed from a settlement. The pretensions of France had been negatived; but Great Britain, whose maritime ascendancy was now at last assured, paid very little attention to the principles which she had at Utrecht been instrumental in asserting. Though she could not ignore them altogether, she chose to treat them, not as the assertion of a general international principle, but as an agreement

444 Great Britain and Spain: Gibraltar and Minorca [1713

with a particular Power which would expire with the particular treaty in which it was included. Though France had agreed on the same head with the States General, no analogous agreement was contained in any of the other compacts concluded by Great Britain at Utrecht, not even in her Commercial Treaty with Spain. The principle of the Commercial Treaty between Great Britain and France thus awaited its revival half a century later-in circumstances very different alike for Great Britain and for Europe at large.

The Peace between Great Britain and Spain may conveniently be next considered, though it was not actually concluded till July 13, 1713. Obviously, the plenipotentiaries of Philip V could not make their appearance at Utrecht till the Treaties of Peace between France and Great Britain and the other principal negotiating Powers had been signed, and till Philip had been recognised by them as King of Spain. It is pointed out in the work of Koch and Schoell, to which this summary is throughout indebted, that this Treaty between Great Britain and Spain is the first international instrument to make mention of what had been the real question of the War - namely, the imminent danger which had threatened the independence and welfare of Europe through so close a union as that which had been brought about between the kingdoms of France and Spain; it was for this reason, as Article II recites, that both the King of France and the King of Spain had consented to the requisite precautious being taken, and that the latter had for himself and his heirs and successors renounced for ever his claims to the French Crown, which renunciation he now solemnly confirmed. In further Articles he expressly approved the succession established in Great Britain by Act of Par liament; and promised to prevent the transfer of any land or lordship in America by Spain to France or to any other nation.

Among the remaining Articles, that which confirmed the cession by Spain to Great Britain of the town, citadel, and port of Gibraltar is of special interest. Spanish pride and a well-warranted national feeling had to accept this sanction of an acquisition which, after having been made almost gratuitously, had been held with so much pertinacity. It was, however, accompanied by stipulations which guaranteed the free exercise of the Catholic religion in Gibraltar, and prohibited Jews and Moors from settling there, and by an engagement on the part of the British Crown securing the refusal of Gibraltar to the Spanish — should the British ever contemplate selling or otherwise alienating it.

By another Article (XI) the sovereignty of the island of Minorca, captured by Stanhope and Leake in 1708, was likewise ceded to Great Britain by Spain. The history of the acquisition of Minorca, with its fortified harbour of Port Mahon, differed greatly from that of Gibraltar, inasmuch as it underwent both recapture and recovery before it was finally given up at the Peace of Amiens in 1802, together with Malta, the retention of which has rendered the loss of it a matter of indifference to Great Britain.