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LET XXIII.]

MODERN EUROPE.

347

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He was succeeded, not only in all his hereditary honours and dominions, but also in the imperial throne, by his brother Charles, and as it was contrary to the spirit of the grand alliance, that the same person should possess Spain and the empire, Harley and his associates were no longer afraid to avow their pacific sentiments. The fears of mankind were in a moment changed; the liberties of Europe seemed now to be in more danger from the power of the house of Austria, than that of Bourbon.

Meanwhile, hostilities were carried on in every quarter. Dispositions had been made by the allies, for taking the field early, in Flanders; but the rigour of the season, and the unexpected delay of some reinforcements, prevented the duke of Marlborough from forming his army before the beginning of May. His plan was, to open the campaign with the siege of Arras and Cambray; the taking of which two important places would have laid Picardy naked to the banks of the Somme. And the army originally destined for the service of the confederates would, in all probability, have been sufficient to enable him to accomplish this great design. But the death of the emperor, at the same time that it opened a prospect of peace, obstructed the operations of war. Prince Eugene being obliged to march towards the banks of the Rhine, with the greater part of the German troops, in order to prevent the French and their partisans from taking advantage of that event, by disturbing the deliberations of the electors assembled at Frankfort, the duke of Marlborough was under the necessity of limiting his views. But his vigour and activity were not diminished. Though now inferior in numbers to the enemy, he anxiously sought a battle, in hopes of overwhelming his political adversaries, or, at least, closing his military exploits, with a splendid victory. But the caution of mareschal Villars, who was strongly posted near Arleux, deprived the English commander of any opportunity of acquiring this satisfaction. By the most masterly movements, however, Marlborough eluded the vigilance of that able general, and got within the French lines, without the loss of a man. He sat down before Bouchain, in sight of the enemy; and concluded the campaign with the taking of that important place.(1)

Nothing memorable, in the military line, was transacted in Germany: prince Eugene having defeated the hostile designs of the French, the electors proceeded coolly to the choice of a new chief; and the archduke, who had so long contended for the crown of Spain, and even assumed, as we have seen, the title of Charles III., was unanimously raised to the imperial dignity, by the name of Charles VI. On the side of Piedmont, the duke of Berwick, as formerly, successfully defended France against the forces of the duke of Savoy. In Spain, the taking of Gironne, by the duke de Noailles, and the raising of the siege of Cardona, by Staremberg, in defiance of a greatly superior army, under Vendome, were the only events of any consequence. No action happened at sea, nor any thing worthy of notice, except the failure of an expedition, from Old and New-England against Quebec, the capital of Canada, or New France. This enterprise miscarried, partly from the late season at which it was undertaken, and partly from an ignorance of the navigation of the river St. Lawrence, where ten transports and two thousand five hundred men were lost.(2)

The general languor of the campaign, together with the elevation of the archduke Charles, to the head of the empire, inspired the British ministry and the house of Bourbon with the most sanguine hopes of peace. They had even negotiated secretly during the summer: and preliminaries were privately signed at London, on the 27th of September, by Menager, the French agent, and St. John, the English secretary. This insidious transaction, so disgraceful to Great Britain, being accidentally brought to light, all the other allies were alarmed. They saw themselves ready to be deserted by a power, which had been the chief support of the war. And though not altogether. averse to peace, they could place no confidence in the negotiations of men capable of such disingenuity; and whose sole object seemed to be the se

(1) Burnet, book vii

State of Europe, 1711.

curing to themselves and their adherents the emoluments of office, by putting a speedy end to hostilities, instead of endeavouring to procure for their country and the confederates the fruits of so many glorious victories, acquired at an enormous expense of blood and treasure. (1)That," says M. de Torcy, speaking of the secret proposal of the English ministry to negotiate with France, without the intervention of Holland, "was like asking a sick person, labouring under a long and dangerous illness, if he would be cured!""

The preliminaries, when communicated to the ministers of the confederate princes and states, served only to increase their jealousies and fears. The resignation of Philip V. was no longer insisted on. This omission particularly offended the emperor: and count de Galas, the imperial ambassador at the court of London, in the heat of his zeal for his master's interest, having published a copy of the articles in a newspaper, as an appeal to the public, all England was thrown into a ferment. The people, always jealous of national honour, were filled with indignation at the new ministry, for negotiating secretly with France; a power whose ambition had so long disquieted her neighbours, and whose humiliation had been the declared object of the grand alliance. They justly suspected the court of sinister designs; especially as the stipulations in the preliminaries, fell infinitely below their expectations, after so successful a war. The more moderate tories, ashamed of the meanness, if not the baseness of their leaders, also took part with the offended allies; and the whigs, while they allowed the season for negotiating to be arrived, execrated the mode, and attempted to render odious the men by whom the negotiation was conducted. (2)

The English ministry, however, were not without their abettors. The pens of the most celebrated writers of the age were employed in vindication of their measures, and to render contemptible their political enemies. Defended by such powerful advocates, and encouraged by the favour of their sovereign, they determined to support the preliminaries. The queen accordingly told the parliament, on its meeting, in a speech from the throne, that, notwithstanding the arts of those that delight in war, both time and place were appainted for opening the treaty of a general peace; that she was resolved to improve and enlarge, by the advantages to be obtained, the interest of her subjects in trade and commerce; and that she would not only endeavour to procure all reasonable satisfaction to her allies, but to unite them in the strictest engagements, in order to render permanent the public tranquillity. The best way, however, she added, to treat of peace with effect, was to make an early provision for carrying on the war; she therefore demanded the usual supplies, and recommended unanimity.(3)

The supplies were readily granted by the commons, who also echoed back the queen's speech in an affectionate address. The lords were less complaisant. They clogged their address with a clause, "That no peace could be safe or honourable, should Spain and the Indies be allowed to remain with any branch of the house of Bourbon:" and this addition to the address was carried, by a majority of the house, in spite of all the arguments of the ministry, who opposed it with the whole weight of government. The queen returned an ambiguous answer to an address so subversive of her measures; and as the vote for the obnoxious clause was known to have been procured chiefly by the influence and intrigues of the duke of Marlborough, she saw the necessity of depriving him of his employments, or of dismissing her minister, and stopping the progress of the treaty of peace. Choosing the first of those alternatives, she sent the duke a letter, telling him that she had no more occasion for his service; and in order to secure a majority

(1) This accusation is even, in some measure, admitted by St. John himself, who was deeply concerned in these secret negotiations. "I am afraid," says he, "that the principal spring of our actions was to have the government of the state in our hands; that our principal views were the conservation of this power, great employments to ourselves, and great opportunities of rewarding those who had helped to raise us; to break the body of the whigs," adds he; "to render their supports (the Dutch and the other allies) useless to them, and to fill the employments of the kingdom, down to the meanest, with tories." (Letter to Sir William Wyndham.) "Peace," continues he, "had been judged, with reason, to be the only solid foundation whereupon we could erect a tory system." Ibid.

(2) Publications of the times,

(3) Journals, Dec. 7, 1711.

in the house of lords, twelve gentlemen, devoted to the court, were created peers.(1)

This was an extraordinary stretch of prerogative, and could not fail to give alarm to the independent part of the nobility; as it was evident that the sovereign, by such an arbitrary exertion of royalty, could at all times overrule their resolutions. But as law was on the side of the crown, they were obliged to submit to the indignity put upon them. The body of the whigs were filled with consternation at these bold measures; and as their leaders now despaired of being able to reinstate themselves in the administration by more gentle means, they are said to have planned a new revolution. It is at least certain, that the heads of the party held frequent cabals with the Dutch and imperial ambassadors, as well as with the baron de Bothmar, envoy from the elector of Hanover, who presented, in the name of his master, a strong memoriál against the projected peace; declaring, that the fruits of a glorious war would be lost, should Spain and the Indies be abandoned to the duke of Anjou.(2) And every method was taken, particularly by the earl of Sunderland and lord Halifax, to impress the people with a belief, not seemingly without reason, that the chief view of the present ministry was the restoration of the excluded family. They therefore affirmed that the Protestant succession was in danger, and urged the necessity of sending for the elector of Hanover or his son.(3)

On the other hand, the tories employed all the force of wit and satire, of which they were in full possession, against their political adversaries; but especially to degrade the character and ridicule the conduct of the duke of Marlborough, whose dismission from the command of the army, after such extraordinary success, without so much as an imputation of misbehaviour in his military capacity, they were afraid would rouse the resentment of the nation against the ministry. Their chief accusation against him was, that, in order to favour his own operations in Flanders, to gratify his ambition, and to glut his inordinate avarice, he had starved the war in Spain. Alluding to the strength of the French barrier, they used a vulgar phrase, which made great impression on the people: they said, that to endeavour to subdue France, by attacking her strong towns on the side of Flanders, was "taking the bull by the horns;" that the troops and treasures of the confederates, instead of being employed in expelling Philip V. from the throne of Spain, had been thrown away on unimportant sieges, and attacks upon almost impregnable lines; that prince Eugene, having profited, like Marlborough, by these hostilities, had united with him in influencing the councils of the states, through the pensionary Heinsius; and that all three meant nothing, by the undecisive campaigns in Flanders, but to protract the war, and perpetuate their own power, which was intimately connected with it.(4)

But now, my dear Philip, when the prejudices of party have subsided, this accusation appears to have been malicious and unjust. It is generally agreed (at the same time it is admitted those generals had an interest and a pride in prosecuting the war), that to push France on the side of Flanders, was the most effectual way of depriving the house of Bourbon of the Spanish throne. The distance of the confederates from Spain; its vicinity to France; the necessity of conveying every thing thither by sea; the sterility of the country by reason of the indolence of the inhabitants; and the obstinate aversion of the Spaniards, in general, to a prince supported by heretics, rendered it almost impracticable to conquer that kingdom, as experience had proved, after repeated victories. But Spain might have been compelled to receive another sovereign without being utterly subdued: the duke of Marlborough took the true method of dethroning Philip V.

Though the breaking of the strong barrier of France in the Netherlands had cost the confederates much blood and treasure, as well as time, the work was, at length, nearly completed. Another campaign would probably have

(1) Burnet. Bover. Swift. Bolingbroke.

(3) Mem. de Torcy, tom. ii. Stuart Papers, 1711, 1712.
(4) Parliamentary Debates, and publications of the times.

(2) Id. ibid.

enabled them, had they continued united, to penetrate into France, and even to take possession of Paris; so that Lewis XIV., in order to save his own kingdom, would have been obliged to relinquish the support of his grandson, and to pull him, in a manner, with his own hands, from the Spanish throne. Of this the king of France was as sensible as the duke of Marlborough ;(1) and hence his joy at the change of sentiments in the court of England, and the regret of the whigs at the loss of so glorious an opportunity of advancing the interests of their country, and of fully gratifying their vengeance against that monarch.

It is, indeed, sincerely to be lamented, and possibly may to the latest posterity, that such a change should have happened at this critical period. For, however impolitic it might be, in the English ministry, to continue the war, after the year 1706, as it surely was after 1709, when all the objects of the grand alliance might have been obtained; yet, as the war was carried on afterward, at a vast expense of blood and treasure, and with a degree of success, which, if foreseen, would, perhaps, have justified the prosecution of it, no proposals of peace should have been listened to, far less any desire to negotiate, secretly insinuated by a French spy, (2) till advantages equivalent to that additional expense had been offered. Since we had committed a successful folly, to use the words of my lord Bolingbroke, it was folly not to profit by it to the utmost. No stop should have been put to the career of victory, until the house of Bourbon had been completely humbled.

It was on this ground that the whigs now so violently opposed the peace, and urged the necessity of continuing the war, that they might have an opportunity of recovering the administration, and consequently of wresting the negotiations out of the hands of men whom they considered as enemies to the Protestant succession, to the liberties of mankind, and to the common cause of the confederates. They admitted, that the elevation of the archduke to the imperial throne had made a material alteration in the political state of Europe; that the power of the house of Austria, which all centred in the person of the emperor Charles, was very great; but they affirmed, at the same time, that was no sufficient reason for negotiating prematurely with the house of Bourbon, or accepting inadequate terms.

England and Holland held the balance; and as they had chiefly contributed towards the success of the war, they had a right to be the arbiters of peace. In order to preserve the equilibrium of power, and to effectually prevent the union of the kingdoms of France and Spain in the person of the same prince in any future time, Spain might be given, it was said, to the duke of Savoy; the most valuable of the Spanish possessions in America, to Great Britain; and Philip V. might be gratified with a principality in Italy; after which there would still remain enough to satisfy the emperor and the states, without dismembering the French monarchy.(3) But whether we had left Philip, or placed any other prince on the throne of Spain, we ought to have reduced the power of France to a state of depression from which it would not have recovered for generations to come.

While the whigs were occupied in contemplating those extensive plans of policy, and encouraged in their schemes by the imperial and Dutch ministers, little wonder they embraced rash resolutions, and adopted violent counsels, in order to obstruct the negotiation of a treaty, which was destined to extinguish all their hopes; to strike the sword of conquest from the hand of the confederates, and the wreath of victory from their brows; to deprive them of an opportunity, that fortune and valour had conspired to produce, and which might never return, of utterly breaking the power of their ambitious enemies, and effectually securing the civil and religious liberties of Europe.

As a last effort to recover their authority, and to prevent the ills they feared, the whigs invited over prince Eugene to London. No less bold and

(1) Mem. de Torcy, tom. ii.

(2) Gaultier, who was first employed to signify to the court of Versailles the inclinations of the tory ministry towards peace, was a Catholic priest, and a spy for France in London. Mem. de Torcy, tom. ii. (3) Publications of the times.

intelligent as a politician, than able and intrepid as a commander, he made no doubt of defeating the projected treaty of peace, by embarrassing the British ministry with splendid offers of advantage, provided the queen would agree to continue the war. Among other things, he meant to propose, in the name of the emperor, that the imperial forces in Spain should be augmented to the number of thirty thousand, and that Great Britain should be put in full possession of the commerce of that kingdom, and of the Spanish dominions in America.(1)

But, unfortunately for the whigs, as well as for the confederates, and for the grandeur and prosperity of the united kingdoms, the duke of Marlborough was dismissed from all his employments before the arrival of prince Eugene, and rendered incapable to second his views. The commons, being chiefly tories, were firm in their support of the ministry; and a majority had been secured in the house of lords, by the introduction of the twelve new peers. That great man was therefore obliged to return to the continent without being able to do any thing for the interest of the allies; though, during his stay in England, it is affirmed that he suggested many desperate expedients, and some violent and even inhuman measures, for depriving the tories of the administration.(2) But these were all prudently rejected by the Hanoverian resident and the leaders of the whigs; as an insurrection, or popular tumult, if not finally successful, besides the mischief it might otherwise have occasioned, would have endangered the Protestant succession. They refused to employ any but legal means.

During those ineffectual intrigues, the English ministry gained a new vic tory over their political adversaries. Lord Townshend, who had been employed in the negotiations for peace, in 1709, had concluded a treaty with the states of the United Provinces, by which Lisle, Tournay, Menin, Douay, and several places on the Lys and the Scheldt, were guaranteed to the Dutch as a barrier, at the end of the war. And they undertook to guarantee, in return, the Protestant succession; to aid with their fleets and armies the presumptive heirs of the British crown, whenever that succession should appear to be in danger.(3)

These engagements were perfectly conformable to the declared views of the late ministry, who had ratified the treaty, but utterly inconsistent with those of the present, as well as with their safety. They were not ignorant that the whigs, and perhaps even the states, pretended that this perilous period was already arrived. They were also sensible, that France would with difficulty yield cities and towns that were essential to her own defence. And being determined to remove every obstacle that might retard the peace, they brought the barrier treaty, and all the transactions relative to it, before the house of commons, under pretence that Townshend had exceeded his instructions. The commons, entirely governed by the court, voted that several articles of the treaty were destructive to the interests of Great Britain; and therefore, that he who negotiated and signed the treaty, having no autho rity to insert those pernicious articles, was an enemy to the queen and the kingdom.

It is not a little surprising, that at the same time the late ministry were concluding this treaty, which had solely for its object, on the part of Great Britain, the security of the Hanoverian succession, Marlborough and Godolphin, who directed the measure, were still holding out hopes to the court of St. Germains. Godolphin is said only to have regretted his fall, as it deprived him of the power of serving effectually the excluded family. "Harley, I hope," said he, "will restore the king," for so he called the pretender-" but

(1) Mem. de Torcy, tom. ii. (2) Mem, de Torcy, tom. ii.

Stuart Papers, 1713.

Stuart Papers, 1713. He is said to have proposed to set fire to London, in different places, in the night; that in the midst of the confusion, the duke of Marlborough should appear the head of a party in arms; that he should first possess himself of the tower, the bank, the exchequer, and then seize the person of the queen; force her to dissolve the parliament, to call a new representative, to make a free inquiry into the clandestine correspondence with France, and to punish the guilty with death. Id. ibid.

(3) Mem. de Torcy, tom. ii. Burnet, book vii.

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