No More Learning

Minorca
and Havanna were mentioned as what might satisfy England.

Against these terms Lewis exclaimed loudly. Nobody, he said, who knew
with how sensitive a jealousy the Spaniards watched every encroachment
on their colonial empire would believe that they would ever consent to
give up any part of that empire either to England or to Holland. The
demand which was made upon himself was altogether inadmissible. A
barrier was not less necessary to France than to Holland; and he never
would break the iron chain of frontier fastnesses which was the defence
of his own kingdom, even in order to purchase another kingdom for his
grandson. On that subject he begged that he might hear no more. The
proposition was one which he would not discuss, one to which he would
not listen.

As William, however, resolutely maintained that the terms which he had
offered, hard as they might seem, were the only terms on which England
and Holland could suffer a Bourbon to reign at Madrid, Lewis began
seriously to consider, whether it might not be on the whole for his
interest and that of his family rather to sell the Spanish crown dear
than to buy it dear. He therefore now offered to withdraw his opposition
to the Bavarian claim, provided a portion of the disputed inheritance
were assigned to him in consideration of his disinterestedness and
moderation. William was perfectly willing and even eager to treat
on this basis. The first demands of Lewis were, as might have been
expected, exorbitantly high. He asked for the kingdom of Navarre,
which would have made him little less than master of the whole Iberian
peninsula, and for the duchy of Luxemburg, which would have made him
more dangerous than ever to the United Provinces. On both points he
encountered a steady resistance. The impression which, throughout these
transactions, the firmness and good faith of William made on Tallard
is remarkable. At first the dexterous and keen witted Frenchman was
all suspicion. He imagined that there was an evasion in every phrase, a
hidden snare in every offer. But after a time he began to discover that
he had to do with a man far too wise to be false. "The King of England,"
he wrote, and it is impossible to doubt that he wrote what he thought,
"acts with good faith in every thing. His way of dealing is upright and
sincere. " [13] "The King of England," he wrote a few days later, "has
hitherto acted with great sincerity; and I venture to say that, if he
once enters into a treaty, he will steadily adhere to it. " But in the
same letter the Ambassador thought it necessary to hint to his
master that the diplomatic chicanery which might be useful in other
negotiations would be all thrown away here. "I must venture to observe
to Your Majesty that the King of England is very sharpsighted, that his
judgment is sound, and that, if we try to spin the negotiation out, he
will very soon perceive that we are trifling with him. " [14]

During some time projects and counterprojects continued to pass and
repass between Kensington and Versailles. Something was conceded on both
sides; and when the session of Parliament ended there seemed to be fair
hopes of a settlement. And now the scene of the negotiation was again
changed. Having been shifted from France to England, it was shifted from
England to Holland. As soon as William had prorogued the Houses, he
was impatient to be again in his native land. He felt all the glee of a
schoolboy who is leaving harsh masters and quarrelsome comrades to pass
the Christmas holidays at a happy home. That stern and composed face
which had been the same in the pursuit at the Boyne and in the rout at
Landen, and of which the keenest politicians had in vain tried to read
the secrets, now wore an expression but too intelligible. The English
were not a little provoked by seeing their King so happy. Hitherto his
annual visits to the Continent had been not only pardoned but approved.
It was necessary that he should be at the head of his army. If he had
left his people, it had been in order to put his life in jeopardy for
their independence, their liberty, and their religion. But they had
hoped that, when peace had been restored, when no call of duty required
him to cross the sea, he would generally, during the summer and autumn,
reside in his fair palaces and parks on the banks of the Thames, or
travel from country seat to country seat, and from cathedral town to
cathedral town, making himself acquainted with every shire of his realm,
and giving his hand to be kissed by multitudes of squires, clergymen and
aldermen who were not likely ever to see him unless he came among them.
It now appeared that he was sick of the noble residences which had
descended to him from ancient princes; that he was sick even of those
mansions which the liberality of Parliament had enabled him to build and
embellish according to his own taste; that he was sick of Windsor, of
Richmond, and of Hampton; that he promised himself no enjoyment from a
progress through those flourishing and populous counties which he
had never seen, Yorkshire and Norfolk, Cheshire, Shropshire and
Worcestershire. While he was forced to be with us, he was weary of us,
pining for his home, counting the hours to the prorogation. As soon as
the passing of the last bill of supply had set him at liberty, he turned
his back on his English subjects; he hastened to his seat in Guelders,
where, during some months, he might be free from the annoyance of seeing
English faces and hearing English words; and he would with difficulty
tear himself away from his favourite spot when it became absolutely
necessary that he should again ask for English money.

Thus his subjects murmured; but, in spite of their murmurs, he set
off in high spirits. It had been arranged that Tallard should speedily
follow him, and that the discussion in which they had been engaged at
Kensington should be resumed at Loo.

Heinsius, whose cooperation was indispensable, would be there. Portland
too would lend his assistance. He had just returned. He had always
considered his mission as an extraordinary mission, of which the object
was to put the relations between the two great Western powers on a
proper footing after a long series of years during which England had
been sometimes the enemy, but never the equal friend, of France. His
task had been well performed; and he now came back, leaving behind
him the reputation of an excellent minister, firm yet cautious as to
substance, dignified yet conciliating in manner. His last audience at
Versailles was unusually long; and no third person was present. Nothing
could be more gracious than the language and demeanour of Lewis.
He condescended to trace a route for the embassy, and insisted that
Portland should make a circuit for the purpose of inspecting some of
the superb fortresses of the French Netherlands. At every one of those
fortresses the governors and engineers had orders to pay every attention
to the distinguished stranger. Salutes were everywhere fired to welcome
him. A guard of honour was everywhere in attendance on him. He stopped
during three days at Chantilly, and was entertained there by the Prince
of Condé with all that taste and magnificence for which Chantilly had
long been renowned. There were boar hunts in the morning and concerts in
the evening. Every gentleman of the legation had a gamekeeper specially
assigned to him. The guests, who, in their own island were accustomed
to give extravagant vails at every country house which they visited,
learned, with admiration, that His Highness's servants were strictly
forbidden to receive presents. At his luxurious table, by a refinement
of politeness, choice cider from the orchards round the Malvern Hills
made its appearance in company with the Champagne and the Burgundy.

Portland was welcomed by his master with all the kindness of old times.
But that kindness availed nothing. For Albemarle was still in the royal
household, and appeared to have been, during the last few months, making
progress in the royal favour. Portland was angry, and the more angry
because he could not but perceive that his enemies enjoyed his anger,
and that even his friends generally thought it unreasonable; nor did he
take any pains to conceal his vexation. But he was the very opposite
of the vulgar crowd of courtiers who fawn on a master while they betray
him. He neither disguised his ill humour, nor suffered it to interfere
with the discharge of his duties. He gave his prince sullen looks, short
answers, and faithful and strenuous services. His first wish, he said,
was to retire altogether from public life. But he was sensible that,
having borne a chief part in the negotiation on which the fate of Europe
depended, he might be of use at Loo; and, with devoted loyalty, though
with a sore heart and a gloomy brow, he prepared to attend William
thither.

Before the King departed he delegated his power to nine Lords Justices.
The public was well pleased to find that Sunderland was not among them.
Two new names appeared in the list. That of Montague could excite no
surprise. But that of Marlborough awakened many recollections and gave
occasion to many speculations. He had once enjoyed a large measure of
royal favour. He had then been dismissed, disgraced, imprisoned. The
Princess Anne, for refusing to discard his wife, had been turned out of
the palace, and deprived of the honours which had often been enjoyed
by persons less near to the throne. Ministers who were supposed to have
great influence in the closet had vainly tried to overcome the dislike
with which their master regarded the Churchills. It was not till he had
been some time reconciled to his sister in law that he ceased to regard
her two favourite servants as his enemies. So late as the year 1696
he had been heard to say, "If I had been a private gentleman, my Lord
Marlborough and I must have measured swords. " All these things were now,
it seemed, forgotten. The Duke of Gloucester's household had just been
arranged. As he was not yet nine years old, and the civil list was
burdened with a heavy debt, fifteen thousand pounds was thought for
the present a sufficient provision. The child's literary education
was directed by Burnet, with the title of Preceptor. Marlborough was
appointed Governor; and the London Gazette announced his appointment,
not with official dryness, but in the fervid language of panegyric.
He was at the same time again sworn a member of the Privy Council from
which he had been expelled with ignominy; and he was honoured a few days
later with a still higher mark of the King's confidence, a seat at the
board of Regency.

Some persons imagined that they saw in this strange reconciliation
a sign that the influence of Portland was on the wane and that the
influence of Albemarle was growing. For Marlborough had been many years
at feud with Portland, and had even--a rare event indeed--been so much
irritated as to speak of Portland in coarse and ungentlemanlike
terms. With Albemarle, on the other hand, Marlborough had studiously
ingratiated himself by all the arts which a mind singularly observant
and sagacious could learn from a long experience in courts; and it is
possible that Albemarle may have removed some difficulties. It is hardly
necessary, however, to resort to that supposition for the purpose of
explaining why so wise a man as William forced himself, after some delay
caused by very just and natural resentment, to act wisely. His opinion
of Marlborough's character was probably unaltered. But he could not help
perceiving that Marlborough's situation was widely different from what
it had been a few years before. That very ambition, that very avarice,
which had, in former times, impelled him to betray two masters, were now
sufficient securities for his fidelity to the order of things which had
been established by the Bill of Rights. If that order of things could be
maintained inviolate, he could scarcely fail to be, in a few years, the
greatest and wealthiest subject in Europe. His military and political
talents might therefore now be used without any apprehension that they
would be turned against the government which used them. It is to be
remembered too that he derived his importance less from his military
and political talents, great as they were, than from the dominion which,
through the instrumentality of his wife, he exercised over the mind of
the Princess. While he was on good terms with the Court it was certain
that she would lend no countenance to any cabal which might attack
either the title or the prerogatives of her brother in law. Confident
that from this quarter, a quarter once the darkest and most stormy in
the whole political horizon, nothing but sunshine and calm was now to
be expected, William set out cheerfully on his expedition to his native
country.




CHAPTER XXIV

Altered Position of the Ministry--The Elections--First Partition
Treaty--Domestic Discontent--Littleton chosen Speaker--King's Speech;
Proceedings relating to the Amount of the Land Force--Unpopularity of
Montague--Bill for Disbanding the Army--The King's Speech--Death of
the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. --Renewed Discussion of the
Army Question--Naval Administration--Commission on Irish
Forfeitures. --Prorogation of Parliament--Changes in the Ministry and
Household--Spanish Succession--Darien

THE Gazette which informed the public that the King had set out for
Holland announced also the names of the first members returned, in
obedience to his writ, by the constituent bodies of the Realm. The
history of those times has been so little studied that few persons are
aware how remarkable an epoch the general election of 1698 is in the
history of the English Constitution.

We have seen that the extreme inconvenience which had resulted from the
capricious and headstrong conduct of the House of Commons during the
years immediately following the Revolution had forced William to resort
to a political machinery which had been unknown to his predecessors, and
of which the nature and operation were but very imperfectly understood
by himself or by his ablest advisers. For the first time the
administration was confided to a small body of statesmen, who, on
all grave and pressing questions, agreed with each other and with the
majority of the representatives of the people. The direction of war and
of diplomacy the King reserved to himself; and his servants, conscious
that they were less versed than he in military affairs and in foreign
affairs, were content to leave to him the command of the army, and to
know only what he thought fit to communicate about the instructions
which he gave to his own ambassadors and about the conferences which he
held with the ambassadors of other princes. But, with these important
exceptions, the government was entrusted to what then began to be called
the Ministry.

The first English ministry was gradually formed; nor is it possible to
say quite precisely when it began to exist. But, on the whole, the date
from which the era of ministries may most properly be reckoned is the
day of the meeting of the Parliament after the general election of 1695.
That election had taken place at a time when peril and distress had
called forth all the best qualities of the nation. The hearts of men
were in the struggle against France for independence, for liberty, and
for the Protestant religion. Everybody knew that such a struggle could
not be carried on without large establishments and heavy taxes. The
government therefore could hardly ask for more than the country was
ready to give. A House of Commons was chosen in which the Whig party had
a decided preponderance. The leaders of that party had presently been
raised, one by one, to the highest executive offices. The majority,
therefore, readily arranged itself in admirable order under the
ministers, and during three sessions gave them on almost every occasion
a cordial support. The consequence was that the country was rescued
from its dangerous position, and, when that Parliament had lived out
its three years, enjoyed prosperity after a terrible commercial crisis,
peace after a long and sanguinary war, and liberty united with order
after civil troubles which had lasted during two generations, and
in which sometimes order and sometimes liberty had been in danger of
perishing.

Such were the fruits of the general election of 1695. The ministers had
flattered themselves that the general election of 1698 would be equally
favourable to them, and that in the new Parliament the old Parliament
would revive. Nor is it strange that they should have indulged such a
hope. Since they had been called to the direction of affairs every thing
had been changed, changed for the better, and changed chiefly by their
wise and resolute policy, and by the firmness with which their party
had stood by them. There was peace abroad and at home. The sentinels had
ceased to watch by the beacons of Dorsetshire and Sussex. The merchant
ships went forth without fear from the Thames and the Avon. Soldiers had
been disbanded by tens of thousands. Taxes had been remitted. The value
of all public and private securities had risen. Trade had never been
so brisk. Credit had never been so solid. All over the kingdom the
shopkeepers and the farmers, the artisans and the ploughmen, relieved,
beyond all hope, from the daily and hourly misery of the clipped silver,
were blessing the broad faces of the new shillings and half crowns. The
statesmen whose administration had been so beneficent might be pardoned
if they expected the gratitude and confidence which they had fairly
earned. But it soon became clear that they had served their country only
too well for their own interest. In 1695 adversity and danger had made
men amenable to that control to which it is the glory of free nations to
submit themselves, the control of superior minds. In 1698 prosperity
and security had made men querulous, fastidious and unmanageable.
The government was assailed with equal violence from widely different
quarters. The opposition, made up of Tories many of whom carried Toryism
to the length of Jacobitism, and of discontented Whigs some of whom
carried Whiggism to the length of republicanism, called itself the
Country party, a name which had been popular before the words Whig and
Tory were known in England. The majority of the late House of Commons,
a majority which had saved the State, was nicknamed the Court party.
The Tory gentry, who were powerful in all the counties, had special
grievances. The whole patronage of the government, they said, was in
Whig hands. The old landed interest, the old Cavalier interest, had now
no share in the favours of the Crown. Every public office, every bench
of justice, every commission of Lieutenancy, was filled with Roundheads.
The Tory rectors and vicars were not less exasperated. They accused the
men in power of systematically protecting and preferring Presbyterians,
Latitudinarians, Arians, Socinians, Deists, Atheists. An orthodox
divine, a divine who held high the dignity of the priesthood and the
mystical virtue of the sacraments, who thought schism as great a sin as
theft and venerated the Icon as much as the Gospel, had no more chance
of a bishopric or a deanery than a Papist recusant. Such complaints
as these were not likely to call forth the sympathy of the Whig
malecontents. But there were three war cries in which all the enemies of
the government, from Trenchard to Seymour, could join: No standing
army; No grants of Crown property; and No Dutchmen. Multitudes of honest
freeholders and freemen were weak enough to believe that, unless the
land force, which had already been reduced below what the public safety
required, were altogether disbanded, the nation would be enslaved, and
that, if the estates which the King had given away were resumed, all
direct taxes might be abolished. The animosity to the Dutch mingled
itself both with the animosity to standing armies and with the animosity
to Crown grants. For a brigade of Dutch troops was part of the military
establishment which was still kept up; and it was to Dutch favourites
that William had been most liberal of the royal domains.

The elections, however, began auspiciously for the government. The first
great contest was in Westminster. It must be remembered that Westminster
was then by far the greatest city in the island, except only the
neighbouring city of London, and contained more than three times as
large a population as Bristol or Norwich, which came next in size. The
right of voting at Westminster was in the householders paying scot and
lot; and the householders paying scot and lot were many thousands. It
is also to be observed that their political education was much further
advanced than that of the great majority of the electors of the kingdom.
A burgess in a country town, or a forty shilling freeholder in an
agricultural district, then knew little about public affairs except
what he could learn from reading the Postman at the alehouse, and from
hearing, on the 30th of January, the 29th of May or the 5th of November,
a sermon in which questions of state were discussed with more zeal than
sense. But the citizen of Westminster passed his days in the vicinity of
the palace, of the public offices, of the houses of parliament, of the
courts of law. He was familiar with the faces and voices of ministers,
senators and judges. In anxious times he walked in the great Hall to
pick up news. When there was an important trial, he looked into the
Court of King's Bench, and heard Cowper and Harcourt contending, and
Holt moderating between them. When there was an interesting debate, in
the House of Commons, he could at least squeeze himself into the lobby
or the Court of Requests, and hear who had spoken, and how and what were
the numbers on the division. He lived in a region of coffeehouses, of
booksellers' shops, of clubs, of pamphlets, of newspapers, of theatres
where poignant allusions to the most exciting questions of the day
perpetually called forth applause and hisses, of pulpits where the
doctrines of the High Churchman, of the Low Churchman, of the Nonjuror,
of the Nonconformist, were explained and defended every Sunday by the
most eloquent and learned divines of every persuasion. At that time,
therefore, the metropolitan electors were, as a class, decidedly
superior in intelligence and knowledge to the provincial electors.

Montague and Secretary Vernon were the ministerial candidates for
Westminster. They were opposed by Sir Henry Colt, a dull, surly,
stubborn professor of patriotism, who tired everybody to death with
his endless railing at standing armies and placemen. The electors were
summoned to meet on an open space just out of the streets. The first
Lord of the Treasury and the Secretary of State appeared at the head of
three thousand horsemen. Colt's followers were almost all on foot.
He was a favourite with the keepers of pot-houses, and had enlisted a
strong body of porters and chairmen. The two parties, after exchanging
a good deal of abuse, came to blows. The adherents of the ministers were
victorious, put the adverse mob to the rout, and cudgelled Colt himself
into a muddy ditch. The poll was taken in Westminster Hall. From the
first there was no doubt of the result. But Colt tried to prolong the
contest by bringing up a voter an hour. When it became clear that this
artifice was employed for the purpose of causing delay, the returning
officer took on himself the responsibility of closing the books, and of
declaring Montague and Vernon duly elected.

At Guildhall the junto was less fortunate. Three ministerial Aldermen
were returned. But the fourth member, Sir John Fleet, was not only
a Tory, but was Governor of the old East India Company, and had
distinguished himself by the pertinacity with which he had opposed the
financial and commercial policy of the first Lord of the Treasury. While
Montague suffered the mortification of finding that his empire over the
city was less absolute than he had imagined, Wharton, notwithstanding
his acknowledged preeminence in the art of electioneering, underwent a
succession of defeats in boroughs and counties for which he had expected
to name the members. He failed at Brackley, at Malmesbury and at
Cockermouth. He was unable to maintain possession even of his own
strongholds, Wycombe and Aylesbury. He was beaten in Oxfordshire. The
freeholders of Buckinghamshire, who had been true to him during many
years, and who in 1685, when the Whig party was in the lowest state of
depression, had, in spite of fraud and tyranny, not only placed him at
the head of the poll but put their second votes at his disposal, now
rejected one of his candidates, and could hardly be induced to return
the other, his own brother, by a very small majority.

The elections for Exeter appear to have been in that age observed by
the nation with peculiar interest. For Exeter was not only one of
the largest and most thriving cities in the Kingdom, but was also the
capital of the West of England, and was much frequented by the gentry of
several counties. The franchise was popular. Party spirit ran high; and
the contests were among the fiercest and the longest of which there
is any record in our history. Seymour had represented Exeter in the
Parliament of James, and in the two first Parliaments of William.
In 1695, after a struggle of several weeks which had attracted much
attention not only here but on the Continent, he had been defeated by
two Whig candidates, and forced to take refuge in a small borough.
But times had changed. He was now returned in his absence by a large
majority; and with him was joined another Tory less able and, if
possible, more unprincipled than himself, Sir Bartholomew Shower. Shower
had been notorious as one of the hangmen of James. When that cruel King
was bent on punishing with death soldiers who deserted from the army
which he kept up in defiance of the constitution, he found that he could
expect no assistance from Holt, who was the Recorder of London. Holt was
accordingly removed. Shower was made Recorder, and showed his gratitude
for his promotion by sending to Tyburn men who, as every barrister in
the Inns of Court knew, were guilty of no offence at all. He richly
deserved to have been excepted from the Act of Grace, and left to the
vengeance of the laws which he had so foully perverted. The return which
he made for the clemency which spared him was most characteristic. He
missed no opportunity of thwarting and damaging the Government which had
saved him from the gallows. Having shed innocent blood for the purpose
of enabling James to keep up thirty thousand troops without the consent
of Parliament, he now pretended to think it monstrous that William
should keep up ten thousand with the consent of Parliament. That a great
constituent body should be so forgetful of the past and so much out of
humour with the present as to take this base and hardhearted pettifogger
for a patriot was an omen which might well justify the most gloomy
prognostications.

When the returns were complete, it appeared that the new House of
Commons contained an unusual number of men about whom little was known,
and on whose support neither the government nor the opposition could
with any confidence reckon. The ranks of the staunch ministerial Whigs
were certainly much thinned; but it did not appear that the Tory ranks
were much fuller than before. That section of the representative body
which was Whiggish without being ministerial had gamed a great accession
of strength, and seemed likely to have, during some time, the fate of
the country in its hands. It was plain that the next session would be
a trying one. Yet it was not impossible that the servants of the Crown
might, by prudent management, succeed in obtaining a working majority.
Towards the close of August the statesmen of the junto, disappointed and
anxious but not hopeless, dispersed in order to lay in a stock of health
and vigour for the next parliamentary campaign. There were races at
that season in the neighbourhood of Winchenden, Wharton's seat in
Buckinghamshire; and a large party assembled there.
Orford, Montague and
Shrewsbury repaired to the muster. But Somers, whose chronic maladies,
aggravated by sedulous application to judicial and political business,
made it necessary for him to avoid crowds and luxurious banquets,
retired to Tunbridge Wells, and tried to repair his exhausted frame with
the water of the springs and the air of the heath. Just at this moment
despatches of the gravest importance arrived from Guelders at Whitehall.

The long negotiation touching the Spanish succession had at length been
brought to a conclusion. Tallard had joined William at Loo, and had
there met Heinsius and Portland. After much discussion, the price in
consideration of which the House of Bourbon would consent to waive all
claim to Spain and the Indies, and to support the pretensions of the
Electoral Prince of Bavaria, was definitively settled. The Dauphin was
to have the Province of Guipuscoa, Naples, Sicily and some small Italian
islands which were part of the Spanish monarchy. The Milanese was
allotted to the Archduke Charles. As the Electoral Prince was still a
child, it was agreed that his father, who was then governing the Spanish
Netherlands as Viceroy, should be Regent of Spain during the minority.
Such was the first Partition Treaty, a treaty which has been during five
generations confidently and noisily condemned, and for which scarcely
any writer has ventured to offer even a timid apology, but which it may
perhaps not be impossible to defend by grave and temperate argument.

It was said, when first the terms of the Partition Treaty were made
public, and has since been many times repeated, that the English and
Dutch Governments, in making this covenant with France, were guilty of
a violation of plighted faith. They had, it was affirmed, by a secret
article of a Treaty of Alliance concluded in 1689, bound themselves to
support the pretensions of the Emperor to the Spanish throne; and they
now, in direct defiance of that article, agreed to an arrangement by
which he was excluded from the Spanish throne. The truth is that the
secret article will not, whether construed according to the letter or
according to the spirit, bear the sense which has generally been put
upon it. The stipulations of that article were introduced by a preamble,
in which it was set forth that the Dauphin was preparing to assert by
arms his claim to the great heritage which his mother had renounced, and
that there was reason to believe that he also aspired to the dignity of
King of the Romans. For these reasons, England and the States General,
considering the evil consequences which must follow if he should succeed
in attaining either of his objects, promised to support with all their
power his Caesarean Majesty against the French and their adherents.
Surely we cannot reasonably interpret this engagement to mean that,
when the dangers mentioned in the preamble had ceased to exist, when the
eldest Archduke was King of the Romans, and when the Dauphin had, for
the sake of peace, withdrawn his claim to the Spanish Crown, England
and the United Provinces would be bound to go to war for the purpose of
supporting the cause of the Emperor, not against the French but against
his own grandson, against the only prince who could reign at Madrid
without exciting fear and jealousy throughout all Christendom.

While some persons accused William of breaking faith with the House
of Austria, others accused him of interfering unjustly in the internal
affairs of Spain. In the most ingenious and humorous political satire
extant in our language, Arbuthnot's History of John Bull, England and
Holland are typified by a clothier and a linendraper, who take upon
themselves to settle the estate of a bedridden old gentleman in their
neighbourhood. They meet at the corner of his park with paper and
pencils, a pole, a chain and a semicircle, measure his fields, calculate
the value of his mines, and then proceed to his house in order to take
an inventory of his plate and furniture. But this pleasantry, excellent
as pleasantry, hardly deserves serious refutation. No person who has
a right to give any opinion at all about politics can think that the
question, whether two of the greatest empires in the world should be
virtually united so as to form one irresistible mass, was a question
with which other states had nothing to do, a question about which
other states could not take counsel together without being guilty of
impertinence as gross as that of a busybody in private life who should
insist on being allowed to dictate the wills of other people. If the
whole Spanish monarchy should pass to the House of Bourbon, it was
highly probable that in a few years England would cease to be great and
free, and that Holland would be a mere province of France. Such a danger
England and Holland might lawfully have averted by war; and it would be
absurd to say that a danger which may be lawfully averted by war
cannot lawfully be averted by peaceable means. If nations are so deeply
interested in a question that they would be justified in resorting to
arms for the purpose of settling it, they must surely be sufficiently
interested in it to be justified in resorting to amicable arrangements
for the purpose of settling it. Yet, strange to say, a multitude of
writers who have warmly praised the English and Dutch governments for
waging a long and bloody war in order to prevent the question of the
Spanish succession from being settled in a manner prejudicial to them,
have severely blamed those governments for trying to attain the same end
without the shedding of a drop of blood, without the addition of a crown
to the taxation of any country in Christendom, and without a moment's
interruption of the trade of the world by land or by sea.

It has been said to have been unjust that three states should have
combined to divide a fourth state without its own consent; and, in
recent times, the partition of the Spanish monarchy which was meditated
in 1698 has been compared to the greatest political crime which stains
the history of modern Europe, the partition of Poland. But those who
hold such language cannot have well considered the nature of the Spanish
monarchy in the seventeenth century. That monarchy was not a body
pervaded by one principle of vitality and sensation. It was an
assemblage of distinct bodies, none of which had any strong sympathy
with the rest, and some of which had a positive antipathy for each
other. The partition planned at Loo was therefore the very opposite of
the partition of Poland. The partition of Poland was the partition of a
nation. It was such a partition as is effected by hacking a living man
limb from limb. The partition planned at Loo was the partition of an ill
governed empire which was not a nation. It was such a partition as
is effected by setting loose a drove of slaves who have been fastened
together with collars and handcuffs, and whose union has produced only
pain, inconvenience and mutual disgust. There is not the slightest
reason to believe that the Neapolitans would have preferred the Catholic
King to the Dauphin, or that the Lombards would have preferred the
Catholic King to the Archduke. How little the Guipuscoans would have
disliked separation from Spain and annexation to France we may judge
from the fact that, a few years later, the States of Guipuscoa actually
offered to transfer their allegiance to France on condition that their
peculiar franchises should be held sacred.

One wound the partition would undoubtedly have inflicted, a wound on the
Castilian pride. But surely the pride which a nation takes in exercising
over other nations a blighting and withering dominion, a dominion
without prudence or energy, without justice or mercy, is not a feeling
entitled to much respect. And even a Castilian who was not greatly
deficient in sagacity must have seen that an inheritance claimed by two
of the greatest potentates in Europe could hardly pass entire to one
claimant; that a partition was therefore all but inevitable; and
that the question was in truth merely between a partition effected by
friendly compromise and a partition effected by means of a long and
devastating war.

There seems, therefore, to be no ground at all for pronouncing the terms
of the Treaty of Loo unjust to the Emperor, to the Spanish monarchy
considered as a whole, or to any part of that monarchy. Whether those
terms were or were not too favourable to France is quite another
question. It has often been maintained that she would have gained more
by permanently annexing to herself Guipuscoa, Naples and Sicily than by
sending the Duke of Anjou or the Duke of Berry to reign at the Escurial.
On this point, however, if on any point, respect is due to the opinion
of William. That he thoroughly understood the politics of Europe is
as certain as that jealousy of the greatness of France was with him a
passion, a ruling passion, almost an infirmity. Before we blame him,
therefore, for making large concessions to the power which it was the
chief business of his life to keep within bounds, we shall do well to
consider whether those concessions may not, on close examination, be
found to be rather apparent than real. The truth is that they were so,
and were well known to be so both by William and by Lewis.

Naples and Sicily formed indeed a noble kingdom, fertile, populous,
blessed with a delicious climate, and excellently situated for trade.
Such a kingdom, had it been contiguous to Provence, would indeed have
been a most formidable addition to the French monarchy. But a glance at
the map ought to have been sufficient to undeceive those who imagined
that the great antagonist of the House of Bourbon could be so weak as to
lay the liberties of Europe at the feet of that house. A King of France
would, by acquiring territories in the South of Italy, have really bound
himself over to keep the peace; for, as soon as he was at war with his
neighbours, those territories were certain to be worse than useless to
him. They were hostages at the mercy of his enemies. It would be easy to
attack them. It would be hardly possible to defend them. A French army
sent to them by land would have to force its way through the passes of
the Alps, through Piedmont, through Tuscany, and through the Pontifical
States, in opposition probably to great German armies. A French fleet
would run great risk of being intercepted and destroyed by the squadrons
of England and Holland. Of all this Lewis was perfectly aware. He
repeatedly declared that he should consider the kingdom of the Two
Sicilies as a source, not of strength, but of weakness. He accepted it
at last with murmurs; he seems to have intended to make it over to one
of his younger grandsons; and he would beyond all doubt have gladly
given it in exchange for a thirtieth part of the same area in the
Netherlands. [15] But in the Netherlands England and Holland were
determined to allow him nothing. What he really obtained in Italy
was little more than a splendid provision for a cadet of his house.
Guipuscoa was then in truth the price in consideration of which France
consented that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria should be King of Spain
and the Indies. Guipuscoa, though a small, was doubtless a valuable
province, and was in a military point of view highly important. But
Guipuscoa was not in the Netherlands. Guipuscoa would not make Lewis a
more formidable neighbour to England or to the United Provinces. And,
if the Treaty should be broken off, if the vast Spanish empire should
be struggled for and torn in pieces by the rival races of Bourbon and
Habsburg, was it not possible, was it not probable, that France might
lay her iron grasp, not on Guipuscoa alone, but on Luxemburg and Namur,
on Hainault, Brabant and Antwerp, on Flanders East and West? Was it
certain that the united force of all her neighbours would be sufficient
to compel her to relinquish her prey? Was it not certain that the
contest would be long and terrible? And would not the English and
Dutch think themselves most fortunate if, after many bloody and costly
campaigns, the French King could be compelled to sign a treaty, the
same, word for word, with that which he was ready uncompelled to sign
now?

William, firmly relying on his own judgment, had not yet, in the whole
course of this momentous negotiation, asked the advice or employed the
agency of any English minister. But the treaty could not be formally
concluded without the instrumentality of one of the Secretaries of State
and of the Great Seal. Portland was directed to write to Vernon. The
King himself wrote to the Chancellor. Somers was authorised to consult
any of his colleagues whom he might think fit to be entrusted with
so high a secret; and he was requested to give his own opinion of the
proposed arrangement. If that opinion should be favourable, not a day
must be lost. The King of Spain might die at any moment, and could
hardly live till the winter. Full powers must be sent to Loo, sealed,
but with blanks left for the names of the plenipotentiaries. Strict
secresy must be observed; and care must be taken that the clerks whose
duty it was to draw up the necessary documents should not entertain any
suspicion of the importance of the work which they were performing.

The despatch from Loo found Somers at a distance from all his political
friends, and almost incapacitated by infirmities and by remedies from
attending to serious business, his delicate frame worn out by the
labours and vigils of many months, his head aching and giddy with the
first draughts from the chalybeate spring. He roused himself, however,
and promptly communicated by writing with Shrewsbury and Orford.
Montague and Vernon came down to Tunbridge Wells, and conferred fully
with him. The opinion of the leading Whig statesmen was communicated
to the King in a letter which was not many months later placed on the
records of Parliament. These statesmen entirely agreed with William
in wishing to see the question of the Spanish succession speedily and
peaceably settled. They apprehended that, if Charles should die leaving
that question unsettled, the immense power of the French King and
the geographical situation of his dominions would enable him to
take immediate possession of the most important parts of the great
inheritance. Whether he was likely to venture on so bold a course, and
whether, if he did venture on it, any continental government would have
the means and the spirit to withstand him, were questions as to which
the English ministers, with unfeigned deference, submitted their opinion
to that of their master, whose knowledge of the interests and tempers
of all the courts of Europe was unrivalled. But there was one important
point which must not be left out of consideration, and about which his
servants might perhaps be better informed than himself, the temper of
their own country. It was, the Chancellor wrote, their duty to tell His
Majesty that the recent elections had indicated the public feeling in a
manner which had not been expected, but which could not be mistaken. The
spirit which had borne the nation up through nine years of exertions and
sacrifices seemed to be dead. The people were sick of taxes; they hated
the thought of war. As it would, in such circumstances, be no easy
matter to form a coalition capable of resisting the pretensions of
France, it was most desirable that she should be induced to withdraw
those pretensions; and it was not to be expected that she would withdraw
them without securing for herself a large compensation. The principle of
the Treaty of Loo, therefore, the English Ministers cordially approved.
But whether the articles of that treaty were or were not too favourable
to the House of Bourbon, and whether the House of Bourbon was likely
faithfully to observe them, were questions about which Somers delicately
hinted that he and his colleagues felt some misgivings. They had their
fears that Lewis might be playing false. They had their fears also that,
possessed of Sicily, he would be master of the trade of the Levant; and
that, possessed of Guipuscoa, he would be able at any moment to push
an army into the heart of Castile. But they had been reassured by the
thought that their Sovereign thoroughly understood this department of
politics, that he had fully considered all these things, that he had
neglected no precaution, and that the concessions which he had made
to France were the smallest which could have averted the calamities
impending over Christendom. It was added that the service which His
Majesty had rendered to the House of Bavaria gave him a right to ask for
some return. Would it be too much to expect, from the gratitude of the
prince who was soon to be a great king, some relaxation of the rigorous
system which excluded the English trade from the Spanish colonies? Such
a relaxation would greatly endear His Majesty to his subjects.

With these suggestions the Chancellor sent off the powers which the King
wanted. They were drawn up by Vernon with his own hand, and sealed
in such a manner that no subordinate officer was let into the secret.
Blanks were left, as the King had directed, for the names of two
Commissioners. But Somers gently hinted that it would be proper to
fill those blanks with the names of persons who were English by
naturalisation, if not by birth, and who would therefore be responsible
to Parliament.

The King now had what he wanted from England. The peculiarity of the
Batavian polity threw some difficulties in his way; but every difficulty
gelded to his authority and to the dexterous management of Heinsius. And
in truth the treaty could not but be favourably regarded by the States
General; for it had been carefully framed with the especial object
of preventing France from obtaining any accession of territory, or
influence on the side of the Netherlands; and Dutchmen, who remembered
the terrible year when the camp of Lewis had been pitched between
Utrecht and Amsterdam, were delighted to find that he was not to add to
his dominions a single fortress in their neighbourhood, and were quite
willing to buy him off with whole provinces under the Pyrenees and
the Apennines. The sanction both of the federal and of the provincial
governments was given with ease and expedition; and in the evening of
the fourth of September 1698, the treaty was signed. As to the blanks in
the English powers, William had attended to his Chancellor's suggestion,
and had inserted the names of Sir Joseph Williamson, minister at the
Hague, a born Englishman, and of Portland, a naturalised Englishman. The
Grand Pensionary and seven other Commissioners signed on behalf of the
United Provinces. Tallard alone signed for France. He seems to have
been extravagantly elated by what seemed to be the happy issue of the
negotiation in which he had borne so great a part, and in his next
despatch to Lewis boasted of the new treaty as destined to be the most
famous that had been made during many centuries.

William too was well pleased; and he had reason to be so. Had the King
of Spain died, as all men expected, before the end of that year, it is
highly probable that France would have kept faith with England and the
United Provinces; and it is almost certain that, if France had kept
faith, the treaty would have been carried into effect without any
serious opposition in any quarter. The Emperor might have complained and
threatened; but he must have submitted; for what could he do? He had
no fleet; and it was therefore impossible for him even to attempt to
possess himself of Castile, of Arragon, of Sicily, of the Indies, in
opposition to the united navies of the three greatest maritime powers in
the world. In fact, the only part of the Spanish empire which he could
hope to seize and hold by force against the will of the confederates
of Loo was the Milanese; and the Milanese the confederates of Loo had
agreed to assign to his family. He would scarcely have been so mad as
to disturb the peace of the world when the only thing which he had any
chance of gaining by war was offered him without war. The Castilians
would doubtless have resented the dismemberment of the unwieldy body
of which they formed the head. But they would have perceived that by
resisting they were much more likely to lose the Indies than to preserve
Guipuscoa. As to Italy, they could no more make war there than in the
moon. Thus the crisis which had seemed likely to produce an European war
of ten years would have produced nothing worse than a few angry notes
and plaintive manifestoes.

Both the confederate Kings wished their compact to remain a secret while
their brother Charles lived; and it probably would have remained secret,
had it been confided only to the English and French Ministers. But
the institutions of the United Provinces were not well fitted for the
purpose of concealment. It had been necessary to trust so many deputies
and magistrates that rumours of what had been passing at Loo got abroad.
Quiros, the Spanish Ambassador at the Hague, followed the trail with
such skill and perseverance that he discovered, if not the whole truth,
yet enough to furnish materials for a despatch which produced much
irritation and alarm at Madrid. A council was summoned, and sate long in
deliberation. The grandees of the proudest of Courts could hardly fail
to perceive that their next sovereign, be he who he might, would find
it impossible to avoid sacrificing part of his defenceless and widely
scattered empire in order to preserve the rest; they could not bear to
think that a single fort, a single islet, in any of the four quarters of
the world was about to escape from the sullen domination of Castile. To
this sentiment all the passions and prejudices of the haughty race were
subordinate. "We are ready," such was the phrase then in their mouths,
"to go to any body, to go to the Dauphin, to go to the Devil, so that we
all go together. " In the hope of averting the threatened dismemberment,
the Spanish ministers advised their master to adopt as his heir the
candidate whose pretensions it was understood that France, England and
Holland were inclined to support. The advice was taken; and it was soon
every where known that His Catholic Majesty had solemnly designated as
his successor his nephew Francis Joseph, Electoral Prince of Bavaria.
France protested against this arrangement, not, as far as can now be
judged, because she meant to violate the Treaty of Loo, but because it
would have been difficult for her, if she did not protest, to insist on
the full execution of that treaty. Had she silently acquiesced in the
nomination of the Electoral Prince, she would have appeared to admit
that the Dauphin's pretensions were unfounded; and, if she admitted the
Dauphin's pretensions to be unfounded, she could not, without flagrant
injustice, demand several provinces as the price in consideration
of which she would consent to waive those pretensions. Meanwhile the
confederates had secured the cooperation of a most important person, the
Elector of Bavaria, who was actually Governor of the Netherlands, and
was likely to be in a few months, at farthest, Regent of the whole
Spanish monarchy. He was perfectly sensible that the consent of France,
England and Holland to his son's elevation was worth purchasing at
almost any cost, and, with much alacrity, promised that, when the time
came, he would do all in his power to facilitate the execution of the
Treaty of Partition. He was indeed bound by the strongest ties to the
confederates of Loo. They had, by a secret article, added to the treaty,
agreed that, if the Electoral Prince should become King of Spain, and
then die without issue, his father should be his heir. The news that
young Francis Joseph had been declared heir to the throne of Spain was
welcome to all the potentates of Europe with the single exception of his
grandfather the Emperor. The vexation and indignation of Leopold were
extreme. But there could be no doubt that, graciously or ungraciously,
he would submit. It would have been madness in him to contend against
all Western Europe on land; and it was physically impossible for him to
wage war on the sea. William was therefore able to indulge, during some
weeks, the pleasing belief that he had by skill and firmness averted
from the civilised world a general war which had lately seemed to be
imminent, and that he had secured the great community of nations against
the undue predominance of one too powerful member.

But the pleasure and the pride with which he contemplated the success of
his foreign policy gave place to very different feelings as soon as he
again had to deal with our domestic factions. And, indeed, those who
most revere his memory must acknowledge that, in dealing with these
factions, he did not, at this time, show his wonted statesmanship. For
a wise man, he seems never to have been sufficiently aware how much
offence is given by discourtesy in small things. His ministers had
apprised him that the result of the elections had been unsatisfactory,
and that the temper of the new representatives of the people would
require much management. Unfortunately he did not lay this intimation
to heart. He had by proclamation fixed the opening of the Parliament for
the 29th of November. This was then considered as a very late day. For
the London season began together with Michaelmas Term; and, even during
the war, the King had scarcely ever failed to receive the compliments of
his faithful Lords and Commons on the fifth of November, the anniversary
both of his birth and of his memorable landing. The numerous members of
the House of Commons who were in town, having their time on their hands,
formed cabals, and heated themselves and each other by murmuring at his
partiality for the country of his birth. He had been off to Holland,
they said, at the earliest possible moment. He was now lingering in
Holland till the latest possible moment. This was not the worst.
The twenty-ninth of November came; but the King was not come. It was
necessary that the Lords Justices should prorogue the Parliament to the
sixth of December. The delay was imputed, and justly, to adverse winds.
But the malecontents asked, with some reason, whether His Majesty had
not known that there were often gales from the West in the German Ocean,
and whether, when he had made a solemn appointment with the Estates of
his Realm for a particular day, he ought not to have arranged things in
such a way that nothing short of a miracle could have prevented him from
keeping that appointment.

Thus the ill humour which a large proportion of the new legislators had
brought up from their country seats became more and more aced every day,
till they entered on their functions. One question was much agitated
during this unpleasant interval. Who was to be Speaker? The junto wished
to place Sir Thomas Littleton in the chair. He was one of their ablest,
most zealous and most steadfast friends; and had been, both in the
House of Commons and at the Board of Treasury, an invaluable second to
Montague. There was reason indeed to expect a strong opposition. That
Littleton was a Whig was a grave objection to him in the opinion of the
Tories. That he was a placeman, and that he was for a standing army,
were grave objections to him in the opinion of many who were not Tories.
But nobody else came forward. The health of the late Speaker Foley had
failed. Musgrave was talked of in coffeehouses; but the rumour that he
would be proposed soon died away. Seymour's name was in a few mouths;
but Seymour's day had gone by. He still possessed, indeed, those
advantages which had once made him the first of the country gentlemen
of England, illustrious descent, ample fortune, ready and weighty
eloquence, perfect familiarity with parliamentary business. But all
these things could not do so much to raise him as his moral character
did to drag him down. Haughtiness such as his, though it could never
have been liked, might, if it had been united with elevated sentiments
of virtue and honour, have been pardoned. But of all the forms of pride,
even the pride of upstart wealth not excepted, the most offensive is the
pride of ancestry when found in company with sordid and ignoble vices,
greediness, mendacity, knavery and impudence; and such was the pride of
Seymour. Many, even of those who were well pleased to see the ministers
galled by his keen and skilful rhetoric, remembered that he had sold
himself more than once, and suspected that he was impatient to sell
himself again. On the very eve of the opening of Parliament, a little
tract entitled "Considerations on the Choice of a Speaker" was widely
circulated, and seems to have produced a great sensation. The writer
cautioned the representatives of the people, at some length, against
Littleton; and then, in even stronger language, though more concisely,
against Seymour; but did not suggest any third person. The sixth of
December came, and found the Country party, as it called itself, still
unprovided with a candidate. The King, who had not been many hours in
London, took his seat in the House of Lords. The Commons were summoned
to the bar, and were directed to choose a Speaker. They returned to
their Chamber. Hartington proposed Littleton; and the proposition was
seconded by Spencer. No other person was put in nomination; but there
was a warm debate of two hours. Seymour, exasperated by finding that no
party was inclined to support his pretensions, spoke with extravagant
violence. He who could well remember the military despotism of Cromwell,
who had been an active politician in the days of the Cabal, and who
had seen his own beautiful county turned into a Golgotha by the Bloody
Circuit, declared that the liberties of the nation had never been in
greater danger than at that moment, and that their doom would be fixed
if a courtier should be called to the chair. The opposition insisted on
dividing. Hartington's motion was carried by two hundred and forty-two
votes to a hundred and thirty-five, Littleton himself, according to
the childish old usage which has descended to our times, voting in the
minority. Three days later, he was presented and approved.

The King then spoke from the throne. He declared his firm conviction
that the Houses were disposed to do whatever was necessary for the
safety, honour and happiness of the kingdom; and he asked them for
nothing more. When they came to consider the military and naval
establishments, they would remember that, unless England were secure
from attack, she could not continue to hold the high place which she
had won for herself among European powers; her trade would languish;
her credit would fail; and even her internal tranquillity would be in
danger. He also expressed a hope that some progress would be made in the
discharge of the debts contracted during the War. "I think," he said,
"an English Parliament can never make such a mistake as not to hold
sacred all Parliamentary engagements. "

The speech appeared to be well received; and during a short time William
flattered himself that the great fault, as he considered it, of the
preceding session would be repaired, that the army would be augmented,
and that he should be able, at the important conjuncture which was
approaching, to speak to foreign powers in tones of authority, and
especially to keep France steady to her engagements. The Whigs of the
junto, better acquainted with the temper of the country and of the new
House of Commons, pronounced it impossible to carry a vote for a land
force of more than ten thousand men. Ten thousand men would probably be
obtained if His Majesty would authorise his servants to ask in his name
for that number, and to declare that with a smaller number he could
not answer for the public safety. William, firmly convinced that twenty
thousand would be too few, refused to make or empower others to make
a proposition which seemed to him absurd and disgraceful. Thus, at a
moment at which it was peculiarly desirable that all who bore a part in
the executive administration should act cordially together, there was
serious dissension between him and his ablest councillors. For that
dissension neither he nor they can be severely blamed. They were
differently situated, and necessarily saw the same objects from
different points of view. He, as was natural, considered the question
chiefly as an European question. They, as was natural, considered
it chiefly as an English question. They had found the antipathy to
a standing army insurmountably strong even in the late Parliament,
a Parliament disposed to place large confidence in them and in their
master.