Chapter I: THE REIGN OF ANNE (concluded) (1)

Meeting of Parliament--Eugene's Visit to England--Ministerial
Attacks on the Dutch--Meeting of the Negotiators at Utrecht--The
Question of the Spanish Throne--Sham Fighting against the
French--Debates on the Peace in Parliament--Withdrawal of the
English Troops--Consequent Triumph of the French--Bolingbroke's
Visit to Paris--Break-up of the Grand Alliance--More Negotiations
with the Pretender--Death of Godolphin--Marlborough retires
to the Continent--Signature of the Peace--The Treaty of
Commerce--Its Rejection by the Commons--The Whereabouts
of the Pretender--Dissolution of Parliament--The General
Election--Intrigues with St. Germains--Bolingbroke's Activity--His
Friends in Office--The Empire and Spain make Peace--The Pretender
declines Overtures to Change his Religion--Illness of the
Queen--Tax on Newspapers--Attack upon the "Public Spirit of the
Whigs"--Steele expelled the House--Proposals against the Pretender
and for bringing over the Electoral Prince--Counter-scheme for
bringing over the Pretender--Obstacles to the Scheme--The Queen's
Letter to the Elector--Death of the Electress Sophia--The Schism
Bill--Its Progress through the Houses--Reward for the Apprehension
of the Pretender--Fall of Oxford--Bolingbroke's Jacobite
Cabinet--Illness of the Queen--The Whig _Coup d'État_--Ruin and
Desperation of the Jacobites--Death of Anne--Proclamation of George
I.

The Houses of Parliament reassembled on the 17th of January, 1712, and Anne sent word that she was not able to attend in person, not having recovered sufficiently from her attack of the gout. She announced that the plenipotentiaries were now assembled at Utrecht, and were already engaged in endeavouring to procure just satisfaction to all the Allies according to their several treaties, and especially with relation to Spain and the Indies. This was a delusion, for, by our treaty with the Emperor, we had engaged to secure Spain and the Indies for his son; and it was now, notwithstanding the assurance in her message regarding them, fully determined to give them up to Philip. There was a strong protest in the message against the evil declarations that there had been an intention to make a separate peace, though nothing was more notorious than that the Ministers were resolved, if the Allies did not come to their terms, to go on without them. The message ended by recommending a measure for the restriction of the liberty of the press. Much alarm was expressed at the great licence in the publishing of false and scandalous libels, though the Ministers themselves did not scruple to employ the terrible pen of Swift.

On the 6th of January there landed at Greenwich an illustrious visitor to the Court on an unwelcome errand--namely, Prince Eugene. The Allies, justly alarmed at the Ministerial revolution which had taken place in England, and at the obvious design of the Tories to render abortive all the efforts of the Whigs and the Allies through the war, from mere party envy and malice, sent over Eugene to convince the queen and the Government of the fatal consequences of such policy. Harley paid obsequious court to the prince as long as he hoped to win him over. He gave a magnificent dinner in his honour, and declared that he looked on that day as the happiest of his life, since he had the honour to see in his house the greatest captain of the age. The prince, who felt that this was a mean blow at Marlborough, replied with a polite but cutting sarcasm, which must have sunk deep in the bosom of the Lord Treasurer, "My lord, if I am the greatest captain of the age, I owe it to your lordship." That was to say, because he had deprived the really greatest captain of his command. The queen, though she was compelled to treat Eugene graciously, and to order the preparation of costly gifts to him as the representative of the Allies, regarded him as a most unwelcome guest, and in her private circle took no pains to conceal it. The whole Tory party soon found that he was not a man to be seduced from his integrity, or brought to acquiesce in a course of policy which he felt and knew to be most disgraceful and disastrous to the peace of Europe; and being fully convinced of this, they let loose on the illustrious stranger all the virulence of the press. Eugene returned to the Continent, his mission being unaccomplished, on the 13th of March.

Whilst Prince Eugene had been labouring in vain to recall the English Government from its fatal determination to make a disgraceful peace, the Dutch envoy Van Buys had been equally active, and with as little success. The Ministers incited the House of Commons to pass some severe censures on the Dutch. They alleged that the States General had not furnished their stipulated number of troops both for the campaigns in the Netherlands and in Spain; that the queen had paid above three millions of crowns more than her contingent. They attacked the Barrier Treaty, concluded by Lord Townshend with them in 1709, and declared that it contained several Articles destructive to the trade and interests of Great Britain; that Lord Townshend was not authorised to make that treaty; and that both he and all those who advised it were enemies to the queen and kingdom. They addressed a memorial to the queen, averring that England, during the war, had been overcharged nineteen millions sterling--which was an awful charge of mismanagement or fraud on the part of the Whig Ministers. They further asserted that the Dutch had made great acquisitions; had extended their trade as well as their dominion, whilst England had only suffered loss. Anne gave her sanction to this address by telling the House that she regarded their address as an additional proof of their affection for her person and their attention to the interests of the nation; and she ordered her ambassador at the Hague, the new Earl of Strafford, to inform the States of these complaints of her Parliament, and to assure them that they must increase their forces in Flanders, or she must decrease hers.

This naturally roused the States, who made a very different statement; contending that, by the treaties, every ally was bound to do all in its power to bring the common enemy to terms; that England, being more powerful than Holland, ought to bear a larger share of the burden of the war; yet that the forces of Holland had been in the Netherlands often upwards of a hundred thousand, whilst those of England had not amounted to seventy thousand; that this had prevented the Dutch from sending more soldiers to Spain; and that, whilst England had been at peace in her own territory, they (the Dutch) had suffered severely in the struggle. To this a sharp answer was drawn up by St. John, and despatched on the 8th of March, of which the real gist was that, according to the Dutch, England could never give too much, or the United Provinces too little. Nothing could exceed the bitterness of tone which existed between England and the Allies, with whom it had so long manfully contended against encroaching France; for the whole world felt how unworthily the English generally were acting under the Tory Ministry, and this did not tend to forward the negotiations, which had been going on at Utrecht since the 29th of January. To this conference had been appointed as the British plenipotentiaries, the new Earl of Strafford--whom Swift, a great partisan of the Tory Ministry, pronounced a poor creature--and Robinson, Bishop of Bristol, Lord Privy Seal. On the part of France appeared the Marshal d'Uxelles, the Abbé de Polignac, and Mesnager, who had lately been in England settling the preliminaries. On the part of the Dutch were Buys and Vanderdussen; and, besides these, the Emperor, the Duke of Savoy, and the lesser German princes had their representatives.

France and England being already agreed, independently of the consent of the rest of the Allies, the conference began on a basis which was sure to lead to immediate confusion and contention. The Dutch plenipotentiaries were astonished to see the different tone displayed by the French ambassadors. They were no longer the humble personages that they had been at Gertruydenberg. The Abbé Polignac, who was the chief speaker, assumed a high and confident manner. The French envoys, therefore, when the Dutch deputies demanded that the treaty should be carried out on the basis of the terms offered at Gertruydenberg, told them plainly that matters were now quite altered, and that the conditions offered at Gertruydenberg could not be entertained by France at all, but those to which the Queen of England had agreed in London; that unless the Dutch were willing to treat on these conditions, they would find their allies concluding peace without them, and that on the spot. The chief article to which the Allies objected was the concession of Spain to Philip; and they were the more resolute because it had become imminently necessary from changes that had now taken place in France. The Dauphin had died of the smallpox during the last year. The title had been conferred on his son, the Duke of Burgundy; but the Duke of Burgundy had just expired, too, in the sixth year of his age; and of the Dauphin's children there only now remained the Duke of Anjou, a sickly child of two years old. This child was the only remaining obstacle to Philip, the King of Spain, mounting the throne of France. The danger was so obvious of the union of France and Spain in a very few years--to prevent which had been the object of the war--that the English Government was compelled to demand from Philip a distinct renunciation of all claims on the French Crown, and from France as distinct a one in the treaty that any such claim should be resisted. St. John entered into a correspondence with De Torcy, the French minister, on this point; and the answers of De Torcy must have shown the English Government how useless it was to attempt to bind Frenchmen on such matters. He replied that any renunciation on the part of Philip or any French prince would be utterly null and void according to the laws; that on the king's death the next heir male of the royal blood succeeded, independently of any disposition or restriction of the late king, or any will of the people, or of himself, even; that he was, by the laws of France, sovereign by right of succession, and must be so, in spite of any circumstances to the contrary; that neither himself, the throne, nor the people had anything to do with it, but to obey the constitution. Therefore, even if Philip did bind himself to renounce the Crown of France, should the present Dauphin die, he would be king, independently of any circumstances whatever. Another expedient, however, was proposed by the English ministry, who must have seen clearly enough the folly of their treating on such hollow ground. That was, if Philip did not like to renounce the Crown of France, he should at once quit the throne of Spain, and agree that the Duke of Savoy should take it and the Indies, surrendering his own territories to Philip, to which should be added Naples, Sicily, Montserrat, and Mantua, all of which, whenever Philip succeeded to the French Crown, should be annexed to France, with the exception of Sicily, which should be made over to Austria. Louis XIV. professed to be delighted with this arrangement, but Philip would not listen to it, showing plainly that he meant, notwithstanding any renunciation, to retain his claim to both France and Spain.

On such utterly unsubstantial ground did the English ministers continue this negotiation. They assured De Torcy that the Queen of England insisted on Philip's renunciation of one throne or the other, and he at length renounced that of France, everybody seeing that the sense in which he renounced it was no renunciation at all, but a pretence to get the peace effected; and thus the English ministers, with their eyes open to the fraud, went on urging the Allies to come into these most delusive and unsatisfactory terms. But as the renunciation of Philip did not arrive till after midsummer, the negotiators at Utrecht continued to talk without advancing, and the armies in the field continued to look at each other without fighting.

Marshal Villars, like the French plenipotentiaries, had made a great display of forces, pretty certain, from private information, that there was little fear of being attacked. The Allies had a fine army of one hundred and twenty thousand men opposed to him; but so far as the English were concerned, their commander had his hands tied. The Duke of Ormonde was sent to take the place of the Duke of Marlborough--a certain indication that he was meant only for a mere show general. He was a staunch Jacobite, but no general of talents or experience fit to succeed a man like Marlborough. On arriving at the Hague he assured the States General that his instructions were to act zealously with the Allies, and especially the Dutch, and from his letters it would appear that such were his orders. But before his arrival, Mr. Thomas Harley, a relative of Oxford's, and the Abbé Gualtier, had reached the Hague, and had assured the plenipotentiaries that the Government had determined on peace, and would not allow the army to fight. They also brought over with them the scheme of the Treaty, which was not yet to be made known to the Dutch. But the States General were too well aware of the hollow proceedings of the English Court, and, disgusted at the withdrawal of Marlborough and the substitution of Ormonde, they would not entrust their troops to him, but appointed Eugene as their own general. Thus, instead of one generalissimo of consummate genius, the army was divided under two chiefs, the abler chief, the Prince Eugene, having the utmost contempt for the martial talents of his colleague. All on the part of England, both in the conference and in the army, was hollow, treacherous, and disgraceful. Yet, though there was to be no fighting, the pretence of it was kept up. The Earl of Albemarle marched with a detachment of the army to Arras, where he burnt and destroyed some magazines of the French. Ormonde, too, joined Prince Eugene on the 26th of May, and the united army passed the Scheldt, and encamped between Haspres and Solennes. Eugene proposed to attack Villars in his lines, and Ormonde consented to it, but he immediately received a peremptory order from Mr. Secretary St. John against engaging in any siege or battle, and he was directed to keep this order profoundly secret from the Allies. Ormonde was also instructed that if Villars should intimate that he was aware of these secret proceedings, he was to take no notice of them; nor was Villars long in letting him know that they might now consider each other as friends. The situation of Ormonde thus became one of extreme embarrassment. On the one hand, Eugene urged him to prepare for an engagement; on the other, the Dutch were impatient to see some stroke which should humble the French and make negotiation more easy; but Ormonde was as unable to move, notwithstanding previous assurances, as if he had been a mere image of wood. He wrote to St. John, expressing in strong terms the embarrassing nature of his situation, assuring him that the Dutch were exclaiming that they were betrayed; but St. John encouraged him to hold out as well as he could, and Ormonde condescended to play this false and degrading part, equally disgraceful to him as a general and a man of any pretences to honour. The prince urged forward the necessity of laying siege to Quesnoy, and Ormonde was allowed, for the sake of keeping up appearances, to furnish a considerable detachment for the purpose. But there was so evident a backwardness in the duke's movements, that the Dutch deputies complained vehemently to the English plenipotentiaries at Utrecht of his refusal to act in earnest against the enemy. Thereupon Robinson, the bishop, took high ground, and retorted that the States General had met the queen's proposals for peace so strangely, that her Majesty now felt herself released from any further obligation to maintain the treaties and engagements between herself and them. This roused the States to great and indignant activity. They entered into communication with the Electors of Hanover, of Hesse-Cassel, and other princes of the Empire, regarding the effective service of their troops in the pay of Great Britain. They sent off warm remonstrances to the Queen of England, and Anne was obliged to summon a council, in which it was agreed that Ormonde should appear as much as possible to concur with Eugene in the siege.

Accordingly, on the 5th of June, the queen proceeded to the House of Lords, and stated in a long speech the terms on which it was proposed to make the peace with France--namely, that Louis XIV. should acknowledge the Protestant succession and remove the Pretender out of France; that Philip should renounce the Crown of Spain, should that of France devolve on him; and that the kings of both France and Spain should make solemn engagements for themselves and their heirs that the two kingdoms should never be united under one crown; that Newfoundland, with Placentia, Hudson's Bay, Nova Scotia, or Acadia, as it was then termed by the French, as well as Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and the whole island of Minorca, should be ceded to England; that the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Sardinia, the Duchy of Milan, and the places on the Tuscan coast, formerly belonging to Spain, should be yielded to Austria, the appropriation of Sicily being not so far determined; that France would make the Rhine the barrier of the Empire, yielding up all places beyond it, and razing the fortresses on the German side as well as in the river; that the barriers of Savoy, the Netherlands, and Prussia, should be made satisfactory to the Allies. The Electoral dignity was to be acknowledged in the House of Hanover.

The House of Commons received the speech with enthusiasm, and carried up an address of thanks in a body. Very different, however, was the reception of the speech in the House of Lords. Lord Wharton proposed that in the address they should declare themselves against a separate peace, and the Duke of Marlborough supported that view. He said that for a year past the measures pursued were directly opposed to her Majesty's engagement with the Allies, had sullied the glories of her reign, and would render our name odious to all nations. Lord Strafford, who had come over from the Hague purposely to defend the Government policy, and his own share in it at Utrecht, asserted that the opposition of the Allies would not have been so obstinate had they not been encouraged by a certain member of that House who corresponded with them, and stimulated them by assurances that they would be supported by a large party in England. This blow aimed at Marlborough called up Lord Cowper, who directed his sarcasm against Strafford on the ground of his well-known illiterate character, observing that the noble lord had been so long abroad that he had forgotten not only the language but the constitution of his country; that according to our laws it could never be a crime in an individual to correspond with its allies, but that it was a crime to correspond, as certain persons did, with the common enemy, unknown to the allies, and to their manifest prejudice. The amendment of Lord Wharton, however, was rejected, and the protest, entered against its rejection by twenty peers and bishops, was voted violent and indecorous, and erased from the journal.

Notwithstanding these addresses and the confident tone of the Queen's Speech, the Funds fell, and there was general dissatisfaction at the conditions of the proposed pacification. In order to stimulate the proceedings and excite a jealousy of the Dutch, St. John professed to discover that they were themselves secretly negotiating with France, and urged that, if we did not take care, they would have the management of the negotiations and not her Majesty. Lord Strafford hastened back to the Hague, and from thence to Utrecht, where he proposed a cessation of arms, which was rejected by the Allies. He then went on to the army, where the Duke of Ormonde was in a situation of the utmost difficulty. He had received orders from Government, in consequence of the clamour in Parliament, to support Prince Eugene at the siege of Quesnoy, which he had invested on the 8th of June, and accordingly he had appeared before the place with such forces as threatened speedily to reduce it. At the same time he had received from the Marquis de Torcy a copy of the articles of peace signed by him, and from the Marquis of Villars the most bitter remonstrances on his conduct, which he did not hesitate to declare most perfidious and disgraceful. On the other hand, Prince Eugene, who did not find the English forces, notwithstanding their presence, rendering any active service, was equally irritated by his proceedings. Ormonde could but reply to each party that such were his orders, and leave the Government to bear the ignominy of it. To extricate themselves from the just censures on this dishonourable policy, St. John instructed Ormonde to demand from Villars the surrender of Dunkirk, which, it was asserted, must be put into the hands of the queen's troops, as a pledge that France would perform all that she had promised, before there could be a cessation of hostilities.

The French hastened to comply with this condition, on the understanding that Ormonde would immediately draw off his troops from Quesnoy; and the duke was obliged to announce to Prince Eugene that he was under this necessity, in consequence of the terms agreed upon between France and England; in fact, that he must cease all opposition to the French. Ormonde, therefore, not only gave the command for the retirement of the English troops, but also of all those belonging to the German princes which were in British pay. Eugene and the Dutch field deputies protested most indignantly against this proceeding, and the mercenary troops themselves refused to follow Ormonde. In vain did he endeavour to move the officers of those troops; they despised the conduct of England in abandoning the advantageous position at which they had arrived for terminating the war gloriously, and releasing the common enemy of Europe from his just punishment to gratify party spirit in England.

When the French saw that Ormonde could not induce the mercenary troops to move, they refused to surrender Dunkirk, and an English detachment which arrived there to take possession found the gates shut in their faces. At this insult the British troops burst out into a fury of indignation. The officers as well as the men were beside themselves with shame, and shed tears of mortification, remembering the glorious times under Marlborough. Ormonde himself, thus disgraced, thus helpless--for he had not the satisfaction, even, of being able to avenge himself on the French,--thus deserted by the auxiliaries, and made a laughing-stock to all Europe by the crooked and base policy of his Government, retired from before the walls of Dunkirk, and directed his course towards Douay. The Dutch shut their gates against him, and he finally retired in ignominy to England.

Eugene, during these affairs, had been actively prosecuting the fortunes of the Allies with his remnant of an army. He pushed on the siege of Quesnoy, and took it. He sent a flying detachment of one thousand five hundred cavalry, under Major-General Grovestein, to make an incursion into France. This force made a rapid raid in Champagne, passed the Noire, the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Saar, ravaged the country, reduced a great number of villages and towns to ashes, rode up to the very gate of Metz, and then retired to Traerbach with a load of rich booty. This was a proof of what might have been done in France at this period with the whole army united under a commander like Marlborough, in place of miserably giving up everything to that country in the moment of power. As it was, it created the utmost consternation in Paris, the people of which already saw the English at their gate; whilst Louis did not think himself safe at Versailles, but gathered all the troops in the neighbourhood of the capital around his palace, leaving the city to take care of itself.

But Harley and St. John had deprived the nation of its triumph, and left the way open to fresh insults and humiliations. No sooner did Villars see the English forces withdrawn from the Allies, than he seized the opportunity to snatch fresh advantages for France, and thus make all their demands on the Allies certain. He crossed the Scheldt on the 24th of July, and, with an overwhelming force, attacked the Earl of Albemarle, who commanded a division of the Allied army at Denain. Eugene, who, from the reduction of Quesnoy, had proceeded to lay siege to Landrey, instantly hastened to the support of Albemarle; but, to his grief, found himself, when in sight of him, cut off from rendering him any assistance by the breaking down of the bridge over the Scheldt; and he had the pain to see Albemarle beaten under his very eyes. Seventeen battalions of Albemarle's force were killed or taken. He himself and all the surviving officers were made prisoners. Five hundred wagons loaded with bread, twelve pieces of brass cannon, a large quantity of ammunition and provisions, horses and baggage, fell into the hands of the French. Villars then marched on to Marchiennes, where the stores of the Allies were deposited, and took it on the 31st of July, the garrison of five thousand being sent to Valenciennes prisoners. He next advanced to Douay, where Eugene would have given him battle, but was forbidden to do so by the States, and thus Douay fell into Villars' hands. Then came the fall of Quesnoy and Bouchain, which had cost Marlborough and Eugene so much to win.

It was now the turn of the French to triumph, and of the Allies to suffer consternation. Louis, once more elate, ordered _Te Deum_ to be sung in Notre Dame, and all Paris was full of rejoicing. He declared that God had given a direct and striking proof of the justice of his cause and of the guilty obstinacy of the Allies. His plenipotentiaries assumed at Utrecht such arrogance that their very lacqueys imitated them; and those of Mesnager insulted one of the plenipotentiaries, Count von Richteren, and Louis justified them against all complaints. In such circumstances, all rational hope of obtaining peace except on the disgraceful terms accepted by England vanished.

In fact, though the Allies still held out, it was useless. Bolingbroke--for St. John had been called in this year to the Upper House as Viscount Bolingbroke--accompanied by Matthew Prior, had been in Paris since the beginning of August, where they were assisted also by the Abbé Gualtier, determined to close the negotiations for England, whether the Allies objected or not. To make this result obvious to the whole world, the troops which Ormonde had brought home were disbanded with all practicable speed. The ostensible cause of Bolingbroke's and Prior's visit to Paris was to settle the interests of the Duke of Savoy and the Elector of Bavaria; but the real one was to remove any remaining impediment to the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace. France and England were quite agreed; Bolingbroke returned to London, and Prior remained as resident at the Court of France, as if the Articles of Peace were, in fact, already signed. A truce, indeed, for four months longer by land and sea was proclaimed in Paris. It was agreed that the Pretender should return to Lorraine; that all hostilities should cease in Italy in consequence of the arrangement of the affairs of the Duke of Savoy; and that the Austrian troops should be allowed to quit Spain and return to Naples.

The secession of the Duke of Savoy only the more roused the indignation of the Allies. The Dutch breathed a hotter spirit of war just as their power of carrying it on failed; and even the experienced Heinsius made an energetic oration in the States General, declaring that all the fruits of the war would be lost if they consented to the peace proposed. But to avoid it was no longer possible. The English plenipotentiaries pressed the Allies more and more zealously to come in, so much so that they were scarcely safe from the fury of the Dutch populace, who insulted the Earl of Strafford and the Marquis del Borgo, the Minister of the Duke of Savoy, when the news came that the duke had consented to the peace. Every endeavour was made to detach the different Allies one by one. Mr. Thomas Harley was sent to the Elector of Hanover to persuade him to co-operate with her Majesty; but, notwithstanding all risk of injuring his succession to the English Crown, he declined. Similar attempts were made on the King of Prussia and other princes, and with similar results. The English Ministers now began to see the obstacles they had created to the conclusion of a general peace by their base desertion of the Allies. The French, rendered more than ever haughty in their demands by the successes of Villars, raised their terms as fast as any of the Allies appeared disposed to close with those already offered. The Dutch, convinced at length that England would make peace without them, and was bending every energy to draw away their confederates, in October expressed themselves ready to treat, and to yield all pretensions to Douay, Valenciennes, and Mauberg, on condition that Condé and Tournay were included in their barrier; that the commercial tariffs with France should be restored to what they were in 1664; that Sicily should be yielded to Austria, and Strasburg to the Empire. But the French treated these concessions with contempt, and Bolingbroke was forced to admit to Prior that they treated like pedlars, or, what was worse, like attorneys. He conjured Prior "to hide the nakedness of his country" in his intercourse with the French Ministers, and to make the best of the blunders of his countrymen, admitting that they were not much better politicians than the French were poets. But the fault of Bolingbroke and his colleagues was not want of talent, it was want of honesty; and, by their selfish desire to damage their political rivals, they had brought their country into this deplorable dilemma of sacrificing all faith with their allies, of encouraging the unprincipled disposition of the French, who were certain to profit by the division of the Allies, and of abandoning the glory and position of England, or confessing that the Whigs, however much they had erred in entering on such enormous wars, had in truth brought them to the near prospect of a far more satisfactory conclusion than what they were taking up with.

Whilst matters were in this discouraging condition, Lord Lexington was sent to Spain to receive the solemn renunciation of the Crown of France for Philip and his successors, in the presence of the Cortes, which accordingly took place on the 5th of November. Portugal, also, on the 7th of November, signed, at Utrecht, the suspension of arms, at the same time admitting to the Allies that she did it only as a matter of absolute necessity. The Portuguese had held out firmly till the English refused to give them any assistance, when the Marquis de Bay invaded the kingdom at the head of twenty thousand men, and laid siege to Campo-Major. The English troops in Spain were ordered to separate from those of the Allies under Count Stahremberg, and were marched into Catalonia to embark at Barcelona. The people of that province beheld the English depart with sentiments of indignant contempt. England had first incited them to take up arms and declare for King Charles under the most solemn engagements never to make peace without them. But now they had broken their faith in the most shameless manner, and left them to the vengeance of the French triumphant in Spain. Such on all sides were the facts which forced on the world the conviction of the perfidy of England, which had hitherto borne so fair a reputation.

Another dishonourable characteristic of the Ministers of Queen Anne at this period was that they were in secret zealous partisans of the Pretender, and whilst openly professing a sacred maintenance of the Protestant succession, were doing all in their power to undermine it. They had given mortal offence to the Elector George of Hanover, the heir to the Throne, by their treachery to the Allies; and, as the health of the queen was most precarious from her excessive corpulence and gout, which was continually menacing a retreat to her stomach, this was equally a cause for their hastening the peace, however disgracefully, and for paving the way, if possible, for the return of the Pretender at the queen's death. Bolingbroke was the great correspondent with St. Germains, as his letters in the Stuart Papers abundantly show. But Oxford, although always more cunning and mysterious, was equally concerned in it; nor was the queen, if we may believe these remarkable papers, by any means averse from the succession of the Pretender, in spite of his stubborn adhesion to Popery. The Jacobite party was numerous, powerful, and indefatigable. They were in the Ministry and in both Houses of Parliament. At this moment a public appointment was made which filled the Whigs with consternation and rage. This was no other than that of the Duke of Hamilton--a supposed partisan of the Pretender--to be Ambassador to the Court of Versailles. Prior was still there, and had all the requisites of a clever and painstaking Envoy; but, being only a commoner and a poet, it did not suit the aristocratic notions of England that he should be accredited Ambassador. Hamilton was appointed, and would thus have had the amplest opportunity of concerting the return of the Stuarts with the base ministers at home. But he was not destined to see Versailles, for, as readers of Thackeray's "Esmond" will remember, he was killed in a duel by Lord Mohun.

Instead of Hamilton, the Duke of Shrewsbury was sent to Versailles, where Matthew Prior remained to lend his superior knowledge of French affairs and superior address to the negotiations. The weight of Tory vengeance now fell on the Duke of Marlborough, whom the ministers justly regarded as the most dangerous man amongst the Whigs by his abilities and the splendour of his renown. The Earl of Godolphin died in September of this year. He had always been a staunch friend of the Marlboroughs. His son, Lord Rialton, was married to Marlborough's eldest daughter, and during Godolphin's later years he was nearly a constant resident with the Marlboroughs, and died at their lodge in Windsor Park. Godolphin was one of the best of the Whigs; of a clear, strong judgment, and calm temper. He had rendered the most essential services during the conflict against France, by ably and faithfully conducting affairs at home, whilst Marlborough was winning his victories abroad; and that great general knew that he should be supported against all his enemies and detractors so long as Godolphin remained in power. The highest eulogium on Godolphin's honesty lies in the fact that he died poor. But at Godolphin's death Marlborough stood a more exposed object to the malice of his foes. They did not hesitate to assert that he had had a deep concern in the plot for Hamilton's death. He was also harassed by debt. He therefore resolved to retire to the Continent, where he continued to keep up a correspondence with the Elector of Hanover and the Pretender to the last, so that whichever came in he might stand well with him. He wrote to St. Germains, showing that though he had appeared to fight against the King of England, as he styled the Pretender, it was not so. He had fought to reduce the power of France, which would be as much to the advantage of the king when he came to the throne as it was to the present queen. He gave his advice to the Pretender for his security and success. "The French king and his ministers," he says, "will sacrifice everything to their own views of peace. The Earl of Oxford and his associates in office will probably insist upon the king's retiring to Italy; but he must never consent. He must neither yield to the French king, nor to the fallacious insinuations of the British Ministry, on a point which must inevitably ruin his cause. To retire to Italy, by the living God! is the same thing as to stab himself to the heart. Let him take refuge in Germany, or in some country on this side of the Alps. He wants no security for his person; no one will touch a hair of his head. I perceive such a change in his favour, that I think it is impossible but that he must succeed. But when he shall succeed, let there be no retrospect towards the past. All that has been done since the Revolution must be confirmed." He added that Queen Anne had no real aversion from her brother's interests, but that she must not be alarmed, as she was very timid.

At length it was announced that peace was signed with France at Utrecht, and it was laid before the Council (March 31, 1713). Bolingbroke had made another journey to the Continent to hasten the event, but it did not receive the adhesion of the Emperor at last. Holland, Prussia, Portugal, and Savoy had signed, but the Emperor, both as king of Austria and head of the Empire, stood out, and he was to be allowed till the 1st of June to accept or finally reject participation in it. This conclusion had not been come to except after two years' negotiation, and the most obstinate resistance on the part of all the others except England. Even in the English Cabinet it did not receive its ratification without some dissent. The Lord Cholmondeley refused to sign it, and was dismissed from his office of Treasurer of the Household. On the 9th of April the queen opened Parliament, though she was obliged to be carried thither and back in a chair in consequence of her corpulence and gout. She congratulated the country on this great treaty, declared her firm adherence to the Protestant succession, advised them to take measures to reduce the scandalous licentiousness of the Press, and to prevent duelling, in allusion to the tragic issue of that between Hamilton and Mohun. She finally exhorted them to cultivate peace amongst themselves, to endeavour to allay party rage; and as to what forces should be necessary by land and the sea, she added, "Make yourselves safe; I shall be satisfied. Next to the protection of Divine Providence, I depend on the loyalty and affection of my people; I want no other guarantee." On the 4th of May the proclamation of peace took place. It was exactly eleven years since the commencement of the war. The conditions finally arrived at were those that have been stated, except that it was concluded to confer Sicily on the Duke of Savoy for his services in the war; on the Elector of Bavaria, as some equivalent for the loss of Bavaria itself, Sardinia, with the title of king; and that, should Philip of Spain leave no issue, the Crown of Spain should also pass to him.

The Treaty of Peace received the sanction of the Parliament; not so the Treaty of Commerce. By this treaty it was provided that a free trade should be established according to the tariff of 1664, except as it related to certain commodities which were subjected to new regulations in 1669. This went to abolish all the restrictions on the importation of goods from France since that period, and within two months a law was also to be passed that no higher duties should be levied on goods brought from France than on the like goods from any other country in Europe. Commissioners were appointed to meet in London to carry these propositions into effect; but there immediately appeared a violent opposition to these regulations, which were contained in the eighth and ninth articles of the Treaty of Commerce. It was declared that these articles violated the Treaty of Methuen, according to which the duties on Portuguese wines were always to be lower by one-third than the duties on the French wines.

On the 9th of June, when the House of Commons went into committee on the Bill, a large number of merchants desired to be heard against it. For several days their statements were heard, and the Portuguese Ambassador also presented a memorial declaring that should the duties on French wines be lowered to those of Portugal, his master would renew the woollen and other duties on the products of Great Britain. This seemed to enforce the mercantile opinions; the sense of the whole country was against the treaty, and the speech of Sir Thomas Hanmer, a Tory, made a deep impression. There was, however, a growing rumour, during the latter days of the debate, that Oxford had given the treaty up--a rumour probably not without foundation, for Oxford and Bolingbroke were no longer in unity. The latter, ambitious and unprincipled, was intriguing to oust his more slow and dilatory colleague; and, as the Bill was ostensibly the work of Bolingbroke, probably Oxford was by no means unwilling that it should be thrown out to damage him. When the question, therefore, was put on the 18th of June, that the Bill be engrossed, it was negatived by a majority of one hundred and ninety-four to one hundred and eighty-five. Thus the commercial treaty was lost, much to the joy of the nation, and certainly to its immediate benefit.

The defeated party, however, did not give up the idea of the Treaty of Commerce. Another Bill was introduced to modify, or, as it was called, to render the commercial treaty more effectual; but such a host of petitions was presented against it, that it was abandoned. Sir Thomas Hanmer, however, proposed and carried an address to the queen, which was intended to cover, in some degree, the defeat of the Ministers; and, as he had got rid of the Bill itself, he did not hesitate to move for what appeared inconsistent with his proceedings, namely, thanks to her Majesty for the care she had taken of the security and honour of the kingdom by the Treaty of Peace, and also by her anxiety for a Treaty of Commerce; and, further, recommending her to appoint Commissioners to meet those of France, and endeavour to arrange such terms of commerce as should be for the good and welfare of her people. This was laid hold of, as was no doubt intended, in the queen's reply, which assumed this to be a declaration of a full approbation of the Treaty of Commerce, as well as that of Peace; and she thanked them in the warmest terms for their address.

Encouraged by their success against the commercial treaty, the Whigs demanded that the Pretender, according to the Treaty of Peace, should be requested to quit France. It had been proposed by the French Court, and privately acceded to by Anne, that he should take up his residence at Bar-le-duc or Lorraine. The Duke of Lorraine had taken care to inquire whether this would be agreeable to the queen, and was assured by her Minister that it would be quite so. As his territory--though really a portion of France--was nominally an independent territory, it seemed to comply with the terms of the Treaty; but the Whigs knew that this was a weak point, and on the 29th of June Lord Wharton, without any previous notice, moved in the Peers that the Pretender should remove from the Duke of Lorraine's dominions. The Court party was completely taken by surprise, and there was an awkward pause. At length Lord North ventured to suggest that such a request would show distrust of her Majesty; and he asked where was the Pretender to retire to, seeing that most, if not all, the Powers of Europe were on as friendly terms with the king as the Duke of Lorraine. Lord Peterborough sarcastically remarked that as the Pretender had begun his studies at Paris, he might very fitly go and finish them at Rome. No one, however, dared to oppose the motion, which was accordingly carried unanimously. On the 1st of July, only two days afterwards, General Stanhope made a similar motion in the House of Commons, which was equally afraid to oppose it, seeing that the House was still under the Triennial Act, and this was its last session. The slightest expression in favour of the Pretender would have to be answered on the hustings, and there was a long silence. Sir William Whitelock, however, was bold enough to throw out a significant remark, that he remembered the like address being formerly made to the Protector to have King Charles Stuart removed out of France, "leaving to every member's mind to suggest how soon after he returned to the throne of England notwithstanding." The addresses carried up from both Houses were received by the queen with an air of acquiescence, and with promises to do her best to have the Pretender removed. Prior, in Paris, was directed to make the wishes of the public known to the French Government. But this was merely _pro formâ_; it was understood that there was no real earnestness on the part of the English queen or ministry. Prior, writing to Bolingbroke, said that De Torcy asked him questions, which for the best reason in the world he did not answer; as, for instance, "How can we oblige a man to go from one place when we forbid all others to receive him?" In fact, the Abbé Gualtier, in his private correspondence, assures us that Bolingbroke himself suggested to the Duke of Lorraine the pretexts for eluding the very commands that he publicly sent him.

Anne prorogued Parliament on the 16th of July in a speech, in which she felicitated herself on having closed a long and bloody war, which she had inherited, and not occasioned. She trusted also that before the meeting of the next Parliament the commercial interests of France and England would be better understood, so that there would be no longer any obstacle to a good commercial treaty. She said not a word regarding the Pretender, so that it was felt by the Whigs that she had followed the dictates of nature rather than of party in regard to him. On the 8th of August she dissolved Parliament by proclamation, its triennial term having expired. Burnet says it had acquired the name of the Pacific Parliament; and he winds up his own history with the remark that "no assembly but one composed as this was could have sat quiet under such a peace." There was every effort made, however, to impress on the constituencies the high merit of the Parliament in making an advantageous and glorious peace, medals being cast for that purpose bearing the effigy of the queen and a Latin motto laudatory of peace.

The elections were now carried on with all the fire and zeal of the two parties. The Tories boasted of their successful efforts to stem the tide of expenditure for the war, to staunch the flow of blood, and restore all the blessings of peace. The Whigs, on the contrary, made the most of their opposition to the Treaty of Commerce, which they represented as designed to sacrifice our trade to the insane regard now shown to the French. To show their interest in trade, they wore locks of wool in their hats; and the Tories, to show their attachment to the Restoration and the Crown, wore green twigs of oak. Never was shown more completely the want of logical reason in the populace, for whilst they were declaring their zeal for the Protestant succession, and whilst burning in effigy on the 18th of November--Queen Bess's day--the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender, they sent up a powerful majority of the men who were secretly growing more and more favourable to the Pretender's return. Never, indeed, had the chances of his restoration appeared so great. General Stanhope, on the close of the elections, told the Hanoverian minister that the majority was against them, and that if things continued ever so short a time on the present footing, the Elector would not come to the Crown unless he came with an army.

In the Macpherson and Lockhart Papers we have now the fullest evidence of what was going on to this end. The agents of both Hanover and St. Germains were active; but those of Hanover were depressed, those of St. Germains never in such hope. The Jesuit Plunkett wrote: "The changes go on by degrees to the king's advantage; none but his friends advanced or employed in order to serve the great project. Bolingbroke and Oxford do not set their horses together, because Oxford is so dilatory, and dozes over things, which is the occasion there are so many Whigs chosen this Parliament. Though there are four Tories to one, they think it little. The ministry must now swim or sink with France." In fact, Oxford's over-caution, and his laziness, at the same time that he was impatient to allow any power out of his own hands, and yet did not exert it when he had it, had disgusted the Tories, and favoured the ambitious views which Bolingbroke was cherishing. The latter had now managed to win the confidence of Lady Masham from the Lord Treasurer to himself; and, aware that he had made a mortal enemy of the Elector of Hanover by his conduct in compelling a peace and deserting the Allies, he determined to make a bold effort to bring in the Pretender on the queen's decease, which every one, from the nature of her complaint, felt could not be far off. To such a pitch of openness did the queen carry her dislike, that she seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in the most derogatory terms of both the old Electress Sophia and her son. Oxford's close and mysterious conduct disgusted the agents of Hanover, without assuring those of the Pretender, and threw the advantage with the latter party more and more into the hands of Bolingbroke. Baron Schutz, the Hanoverian agent, wrote home that he could make nothing of Oxford, but that there was a design against his master; and when Lord Newcastle observed to the agent of the Pretender that, the queen's life being so precarious, it would be good policy in Harley to strike up with the king and make a fair bargain, the agent replied, "If the king were master of his three kingdoms to-morrow, he would not be able to do for Mr. Harley what the Elector of Hanover had done for him already." Thus Oxford's closeness made him suspected of being secured by the Elector at the very moment that the Elector deemed that he was leaning towards the Pretender.

Meanwhile the changes made in the Government offices betrayed the rising influence of Bolingbroke. The Duke of Shrewsbury was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; the Duke of Ormonde, a noted Jacobite, was appointed Warden of the Cinque Ports and Governor of Dover Castle, as if for the avowed purpose of facilitating the landing of the Pretender; Lord Lansdowne was made Treasurer of the Household; Lord Dartmouth, Privy Seal; Mr. Bromley, the Tory leader of the Commons, joint secretary with Bolingbroke; Benson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was created Lord Bingley, and sent as ambassador to Spain; and Sir William Wyndham, till now a friend of Bolingbroke's, succeeded Benson as Chancellor. Thus Bolingbroke was surrounded by his friends in office, and became more daring in his rivalry with Oxford, and in his schemes to supplant the House of Hanover and introduce the Pretender to the British throne.