to open a new congress at Aix la-Chapelle, as soon as the plenipotentiaries could receive their instructions.

In the mean time, vigorous preparations for war were made in every quarter; but the preliminaries of a general pacification were signed at Aixla-Chapelle, and a cessation of arms took place, before any enterprise of consequence was undertaken, except the siege of Maestricht. Mareschal Saxe invested that important place in the beginning of April; and he concerted his measures with so much judgment, that Lowendahl was enabled to carry on his operations without interruption, though the army of the confederates under the duke of Cumberland, to the number of a hundred and ten thousand men, lay in the immediate neighbourhood. The town was defended by twenty-four battalions of Dutch and Austrian troops commanded by baron d'Aylva, who opposed the besiegers with great skill and resolution. They prosecuted their approaches, however, with incredible ardour; and effected, at last, a lodgement in the covered way, after an obstinate dispute, in which they lost two thousand of their best troops. But they were dislodged next day, by the gallantry of the garrison, which acquired fresh courage from this

success.

Such was the doubtful, and even unfavourable state of the siege of Maestricht, when intelligence arrived of the signing of the preliminaries, and orders for a cessation of arms. Yet was it agreed by the plenipotentiaries, "that for the glory of the arms of his most Christian majesty," the place should be immediately surrendered to his general, but restored, on the conclusion of the peace, with all its magazines and artillery. Mareschal Saxe accordingly took possession of Maestricht, while the garrison marched out with the customary honours of war.

But although the negotiation was thus far advanced in the beginning of summer, so many were the difficulties started by the plenipotentiaries of the different powers, that it was the month of October before matters could be finally settled. Meanwhile, hostilities were carried on both in the East and West Indies; but no memorable event took place. Admiral Boscawen failed in an attempt to reduce the French settlement of Pondicherry, on the coast of Coromandel; and admiral Knowles, in an attack upon St. Jago de Cuba. Knowles, however, took Port Lewis, on the south side of Hispaniola, and demolished the fortifications. (1) He also defeated, off the Havana, a Spanish squadron of equal force with his own, and took one ship of the line. At length the definitive treaty was signed, and hostilities ceased in all quarters. This treaty had for its basis a general confirmation of all preceding treaties, from that of Westphalia downward; and for its immediate object, as the means of a general pacification, a mutual restitution of all conquests made since the beginning of the war, with a release of prisoners without ransom. The principal stipulations provide, That the dutchies of Parma, Placenza, and Guastalla, shall be ceded, as a sovereignty, to the infant Don Philip, and the heirs male of his body (but it was also stipulated, that, in case he or his descendants shall succeed to the crown of Spain or that of the Two Sicilies, or die without male issue, those territories shall return to the present possessors, the empress-queen of Hungary and the king of Sardinia, or their descendants); that the subjects of his Brittanic majesty shall enjoy the assiento contract, with the privilege of the annual ship, during the reversionary term of four years, which has been suspended by the war (but no mention was made of the right of English ships to navigate the American seas without being subject to search, though the indignation occasioned by the violation of that contested right had solely given rise to the war between Great Britain and Spain): that all the contracting powers shall guarantee to his Prussian majesty the dutchy of Silesia and the county of Glatz, as he now possesses them and that such of the same powers as have guaranteed the pragmatic sanction of the emperor Charles VI.. for securing to his daughter, the present empress-queen of Hungary and Bohemia, the undi

(1) Contin. of Rapin vol ix.

vided succession of the house of Austria, shall renew their engagements in the most solemn manner, with the exception of the cessions made by this and former treaties.(1)

Such was the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which has been so generally and so unjustly censured by English writers, who ought rather to have censured the wanton war, and the wasteful and unskilful manner of conducting it. The peace was as good as the confederates had any right to expect. They had been, upon the whole, exceedingly unfortunate. They had never hazarded a battle, in the Netherlands, without sustaining a defeat; and there was no prospect of their being more successful, had they even been reinforced with the thirty thousand Russians hired, while the same generals commanded on both sides. But matters were so ill managed, that the Rusgians could not have joined them till the season of action would have been nearly over; and had they been ready more early, it is believed that the king of Prussia would have interposed, from a jealousy of the aggrandizement of the house of Austria, on whose embarrassments he depended for the quiet possession of his conquests. The resources of France were indeed nearly exhausted:-her navy was destroyed: and Lewis XV. made sacrifices proportioned to his necessities. But great as his necessities were, he could have continued the war another year; and the progress of his arms during one campaign, it was feared, might awe the Dutch into submission. A confederacy, always ill combined, would have been broken to pieces; and the hostile powers, left separately at the mercy of the house of Bourbon, must have acceded to worse conditions; or England must have hired new armies of mercenaries, to continue a ruinous continental war, in which she had properly no interest.

But although the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, all circumstances considered, eannot be deemed unfavourable to the confederates, or by any means an ill-timed measure, it must be lamented that it was the necessary consequence of such a long and fruitless war-of a war, singular in the annals of mankind; by which, after a prodigious destruction of the human species, and a variety of turns of fortune, all parties (the king of Prussia excepted, whose selfish and tem porizing policy it is impossible to justify) may be said to have been losers.(2) This reflection more particularly strikes us, in contemplating the infa tuation of France and Great Britain: of the former, in lavishing such a quantity of blood and treasure, in order to give an emperor to Germany; and of the latter, in neglecting her most essential interests, in withdrawing her attention from Spanish America, and loading her subjects with an immense public debt, in order to preserve entire the succession of the house of Austria! but more especially the folly of both in continuing the war, for several years after the object of it was lost on one side, and attained on the other. Nor can we, as Englishmen, in taking such a survey, help looking back, with peculiar regret, to the peaceful administration of sir Robert Walpole; when the commerce and manufactures of Great Britain flourished to so high a degree, that the balance of trade in her favour amounted, on an average, to the immense sum of four millions sterling annually.(3)

Let us not, however, my dear Philip, dwell wholly on the dark side of the picture. So great an influx of wealth, without any extraordinary expenditure, or call to bold enterprise, must soon have produced a total dissolution of manners; and the British nation, overwhelmed with luxury and effeminacy, might have sunk into an early decline. The martial spirit, which seemed to languish for want of exercise, was revived by the war. The English navy, which had been suffered to go to decay, was restored, and that of

(1) Articles of Peace. Contin. of Rapin, vol. ix.

(2) The settlement procured for Don Philip in Italy might have been obtained on the death of the emperor Charles VI., if the house of Bourbon had confuled its views merely to that object; and admitting that it could not, it was a very inadequate equivalent for the expenses and losses of the two branches of that house, by land and sea, during the course of the war. The king of Sardinia, after all his subsidies, and some cessions made to him, was a loser; and the queen of Hungary could have dictated better conditions in 1742, when the French were driven out of Bohemia, than she at last acceded to. Even the king of Prussia obtained no more than was ceded to him by the treaty of Breslaw, concluded the same year. (3) Chalmer's Estimate, p. 37.

France ruined. This last advantage was, in itself, worth many millions of treasure: and it was eventually productive of a multitude of beneficial consequences. A desire of re-establishing their marine was one of the chief motives that induced the French ministry to grant such favourable conditions to the confederates at Aix-la-Chapelle; they having already formed the design, as will afterward more fully appear, of extending their settlements

both in America and the East Indies

LETTER XXXI.

France, Spain, and Great Britain, from the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle_to_the Renewal of Hostilities in 1755, with a general View of the Disputes in the East Indies, and a particular Account of the Rise of the War in America.

THE few years of peace that followed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle were the most prosperous and happy that Europe had ever known. Arts and letters were successfully cultivated; manufactures and commerce flourished; society was highly polished; and the intercourse of mankind, of nations and of ranks, was rendered more facile and general than in any former period, by means of new roads, new vehicles, and new amusements. This was more especially the case in France and England, and between the people of the two rival kingdoms; who, forgetting past animosities, seemed only to contend for pre-eminence in gayety, refinement, and mutual civilities.

That harmony, however, was disturbed for a time, by alarming tumults in England, and by a violent dispute between the clergy and the parliaments of France, which threatened a rebellion in the two kingdoms. But both subsided without any important or lasting consequence. The first were the effects of the wantonness of the common people of England, rioting in opulence and plenty, and not sufficiently restrained by a regular police: the second, the indication of a rising spirit of liberty among the more enlightened part of the French laity; as I shall have occasion to show, in carrying forward the progress of society, where the particulars of the dispute will be mentioned.(1) Meanwhile, the two governments turned on one another a watchful eye; and a long season of tranquillity was expected from the awe with which one half of Europe seemed to inspire the other.

The French ministry had formed the plan of dispossessing the English of their principal settlements both in America and the East Indies, or at least of considerably extending their own (as I have already had occasion to hint), when they concluded the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In these ambitious projects they were encouraged by two able and enterprising men; by la Ga lissoniere, governor of Canada, and M. Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry. But in order to ensure success in such distant expeditions, it was necessary for France to restore her marine, and even to raise it, if possible, to a superiority over that of Great Britain. With this view, prodigious efforts were made: naval stores were imported from all the northern kingdoms; a great number of ships were built at Brest and Toulon; and contracts were entered into with different companies in Sweden, for building eighteen sail of the line. But nothing is attended with so much expense as the raising or restoring a navy. The French finances, though recruiting fast, were not equal to the extraordinary drain. Repeated attempts were therefore made, by the leading men in France, to engage the court of Spain, whose American treasures were now got home in safety, to enter into their ambitious views; and proposals for a family-compact, such as has since been formed, were exhibited to the Spanish ministry, in 1753, by the duke de Duras, the French ambassador at the court of Madrid, under the direction of the duke de Noailles. When the duke de Duras insisted on the importance of a union between

(1) See Let. XXXVI.

the two crowns, he was told that such a union was already established by the treaty of Fontainebleau; an irrevocable family-compact, and to perfect which it was only necessary to cut off what related to last war. The duke de Duras was ignorant such a treaty existed, and St. Contest, the French minister for foreign affairs, seemed inclined to keep him in the dark; but the duke de Noailles furnished him with a copy of it, accompanied with observations, which may be considered as the basis of that formidable familycompact which was afterward concluded. He maintained, that the treaty of Fontainebleau, almost all the articles of which related to the late war, and the execution of which, in many particulars (such as the recovery of the island of Minorca and the fortress of Gibraltar to Spain), had been rendered impossible by circumstances, was in a manner annulled by the treaty of Aixla-Chapelle; that a true family-compact, such as it was equally the interest of France and Spain to contract for their mutual advantage, which should have for its objects the securing the two branches of the house of Bourbon on the two thrones, and the preservation of their dominions; the glory and greatness of both kingdoms; ought not only to be irrevocable, but independent of time and circumstances; to be affected neither by peace nor war.(1)

All the French intrigues, however, were defeated by the penetration, vigilance, and address of Mr. Keene, the British minister at Madrid, supported by the credit of the judicious and intelligent Mr. Wall, a gentleman of Irish extraction, who had long resided as Spanish ambassador at the court of London; and by the still more powerful influence of Farinelli the famous Italian singer, who entirely governed the queen, a princess of Portugal, whose ascendant over her husband was absolute and uncontrollable.(2)

The naturally pacific Ferdinand, though well affected towards the elder branch of his family, was thus induced to disregard all the splendid allurements of the court of Versailles, and all insinuations to the disadvantage of that of Great Britain, as insidious attempts to drag him into a new war. In answer to a memorial presented by the French ambassador, in 1754, on the subject of the family-compact, and accompanied with a letter, in which Lewis XV. mentions the patience, beyond measure, with which he had suffered the unjust proceedings of England for four years, the Catholic king declared, that he was sensible of the importance of the harmony between the two crowns, and between the two branches of the house of Bourbon; but having always an eye to the general tranquillity of Europe, and the jealousy which a formal compact would excite, he thought it the interest of the two monarchies to avoid such a measure; and that the difference with England would be better composed, through the mediation of the allied powers, than by a threatening league.(3)

Withdrawing his heart wholly from ambition, the Spanish monarch therefore placed all his glory in reviving commerce, and encouraging arts and manufactures, too long neglected among his subjects. He disgraced the marquis de la Encenada, his prime minister, for endeavouring, in conjunction with Elizabeth Farnese, the queen-dowager, to alter his measures; and, Wall being placed at the head of the administration, the same wise and pacific measures were pursued during the subsequent part of the reign of Ferdinand VI.

The disgrace of Encenada, which happened when all things seemed ride for a perpetual league between France and Spain, gave a fatal blow to the projects of the court of Versailles. But the French ministry had already gone too far to be tamely forgiven by Great Britain. They were sensible of it; and as their navy was not yet in full force, they attempted, though too late, to disarm resentment, and conciliate favour, by a hypocritical appearance of moderation. Their views were obvious to all Europe. And when they found they could no longer deceive or sooth the court of London, they attempted to intimidate it, by threatening the German dominions of George

(1) Mém. Politiq. et Militaires, composés sur les Pieces Originales, recueillies par Adrien Maurice Duc de Noailles, Mareschal de France, et Ministre d'Etat, par M. l'Abbé Millot, tom. iv. (2) Id. ibid. (3) Noailles, ubi supra.

LET, XXXI.]

MODERN EUROPE.

UNIVERSITY

II., in hopes that the apprehension of this danger would make their encroach ments in America be winked at, until they were in a condition to avow their purpose. But before we enter upon that subject, a variety of others must be discussed. A view must be taken of the state of the settlements of the rival powers in both extremities of the globe.

Though Madras was restored to the English East India company, and Louisburg to the French monarchy, agreeably to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, hostilities between the subjects of France and England could never be said properly to have ceased, either in North America or the East Indies. The taking of those two important places, and the ineffectual attempts to recover them, had irritated the spirit of the two nations. And plans were laid by each, as we have seen, during the latter years of the war, for the conquest of the principal settlements belonging to the other, both in the East Indies and in North America. But those plans proved abortive. And all such ambitious projects seem to have been relinquished on the part of Great Britain at the peace; for although she gave up Louisburg with reluctance, that reluctance proceeded less from any purpose of extending her possessions in North America, than from an apprehension of the injuries and inconveniences to which it would again expose her colonies, in case of a new war. The views of France were very different, when she, with no less reluctance, restored Madras to the English East India company.

M. Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry, having gallantly defended that place against the British armament under Boscawen, in 1748, immediately conceived the great idea of advancing the interests of the French East India company, by acquiring for France large territorial possessions in the south of Asia; and even of making himself master, by degrees, of the whole peninsula of India Proper. On the two sides of that vast peninsula, which projects out into the sea to the extent of a thousand miles, and occupies the immense space between the widely-separated mouths of the Indus and the Ganges, the European companies have established many factories. The west side is called the Malabar, and the east the Coromandel coast. This extensive and fertile territory chiefly belongs to the great Mogul. But the successors of Aurengzebe (the last of the descendants of Tamerlane, the illustrious Tartar conqueror of Hindostan, who maintained with vigour supreme dominion in the East) had sunk into a state of indolence and effeminacy; and since the irruption of the famous Kouli Khan, in 1738, had possessed so little authority, that all the great officers of the crown were become in a manner independent princes. The subahs, or Mahometan viceroys of provinces, the nabobs, or governors of inferior districts, and even the rajahs, or tributary Indian princes, now began to consider themselves as absolute sovereigns; paying to the Mogul emperors any homage they thought proper, and frequently making war on one another.

The better to carry his grand scheme into execution, Dupleix formed the project of making subahs and nabobs; and even of becoming a nabob himself. In this project he was encouraged by his own situation and the cir cumstances of the times. The late war had brought a number of French troops to Pondicherry, and the state of affairs in India was highly propitious to his views.

The subahship of the Deccan, which extends from Cape Comorin almost to the Ganges, having become vacant in 1748, and being claimed by different competitors, Dupleix and his associates, after a series of bold enterprises and singular events, in which the intrepidity of the French, the abject condition of the natives, and the weakness and corruption of the court of Delhi, were equally conspicuous, disposed of it in 1750, in favour of Murzafa Jing, grandson of the late subah. Murzafa, who had gallantly disputed the viceroyalty with his uncle, Nazir Jing, was slain soon after in battle, and succeeded in the subahship of the Deccan by Sallabat Jing, another uncle; who being conducted by a body of French troops to Aurengabad, the capital of the province, there governed in security, under the protection of France, independent of the great Mogul, to whose authority he bid defiance. Both