The English ministry however, were not without their abettors. The pens of the most celebrated writers of the age were employed in vindication of their measures, and to render contemptible their political enemies. Defended by such powerful advocates, and encouraged by the favour of their sovereign, they determined to support the preliminaries. The queen accordingly told the parliament, on its meeting, in a speech from the throne, that, notwithstanding the arts of those that delight in war, both time and place were appointed for opening the treaty of a general peace; that she was resolved to improve and enlarge, by the advantages to be obtained, the interest of her subjects in trade and commerce; and that she would not only endeavour to procuré all reasonable satisfaction to her allies, but to unite them in the strictest engagements, in order to render permanent the public tranquility. The best way, however, she added, to treat of peace with effect, was to make an early provision for carrying on the war; she therefore demanded the usual supplies, and recommended unanimity29. The supplies were readily granted by the commons, who also echoed back the queen's speech in an affectionate address. The lords were less complaisant. They clogged their address with a clause, " that no peace could be safe or honourable, should Spain and the Indies be allowed to remain with any branch of the house of Bourbon:" and this addition to the address was carried, by a majority of the house, in spite of all the arguments of the ministry, who opposed it with the whole weight of government. The queen returned an ambiguous answer to the address so subversive of her measures; and as the vote for the obnoxious clause was known to have been procured chiefly by the influence and intrigues of the duke of Marlborough, she saw the necessity of depriving him of his employments, or of dismissing her minister, and stopping the progress of the VOL. IV. 29. Journals, Dec. 7, 1711. 3 E treaty treaty of peace. Choosing the first of those alternatives, she sent the duke a letter, telling him that she had no more occasion for his service; and in order to secure a majority in the house of lords, twelve gentlemen, devoted to the court were created peers3o. This was an extraordinary stretch of prerogative, and could not fail to give alarm to the independent part of the nobility; as it was evident, that the sovereign, by such an arbitrary exertion of royalty, could at all times over-rule their resolutions. But as law was on the side of the crown, they were obliged to submit to the indignity put upon them. The body of the whigs was filled with consternation at these bold measures; and as their leaders now despaired of being able to reinstate themselves in the administration by more gentle means, they are said to have planned a new revolution. It is at least certain, that the heads of the party held frequent cabals with the Dutch and Imperial ambassadors, as well as with the baron de Bothmar, envoy from the elector of Hanover, who presented, in the name of his master, a strong memorial against the projected peace; declaring, that the fruits of a glorious war would be lost, should Spain and the Indies be abandoned to the duke of Anjou31. And every method was taken, particularly by the earl of Sunderland and lord Halifax, to impress the people with a belief, not seemingly without reason, that the chief view of the present ministry was the restoration of the excluded family. They therefore affirmed, that the protestant succession was in danger, and urged the necessity of sending for the elector of Hanover, or his son32. On the other hand, the tories employed all the force of wit and satire, of which they were in full possession, against their political adversaries; but especially to degrade the character and ridicule the conduct of the duke of Marlborough ; 30. Burnet. Boyer. Swift. Bolingbroke. 31. Ibid. whose whose dismission from the command of the army, after such extraordinary success, without so much as an imputation of misbehaviour in his military capacity, they were afraid would rouse the resentment of the nation against the ministry.... Their chief accusation against him was, that, in order to favour his own operations in Flanders, to gratify his ambition, and to glut his inordinate avarice, he had starved the war in Spain; alluding to the strength of the French barrier, they used a vulgar phrase, which made great impression on the people they said, that to endeavour to subdue France, by attacking her strong towns on the side of Flanders, was "taking the bull by the horns ;" that the troops and treasures of the confederates, instead of being employed in expelling Philip V. from the throne of Spain, had been thrown away on unimportant sieges, and attacks upon almost impregnable lines; that prince Eugene, having profited like Marlborough by these hostilities, had united with him in influencing the councils of the States, through the pensionary Heinsius; and that all three meant nothing, by the undecisive campaigns in Flanders, but to protract the war, and to perpetuate their own power, which was intimately connected with it33. But now, my dear Philip, when the prejudices of party have subsided, this accusation appears to have been malicious and unjust. It is generally agreed, (at the same time it is admitted those generals had an interest and a pride in prosecuting the war) that to push France on the side of Flanders, was the most effectual way of depriving the house of Bourbon of the Spanish throne. The distance of the confederates from Spain; its vicinity to France; the necessity of conveying every thing thither by sea; the sterility of the country, by reason of the indolence of the inhabitants; and the obstinate aversion of the Spaniards, in general, against prince supported by heretics, rendered it almost impracti 33. Parliamentary Debates, and publications of the times. cable cable to conquer that kingdom, as experience had proved, after repeated victories. But Spain might have been compelled to receive another sovereign, without being utterly subdued: the duke of Marlborough took the true method of dethroning Philip V. Though the breaking of the strong barrier of France in the Netherlands had cost the confederates much blood and treasure, as well as time, the work was, at length, nearly completed. Another campaign would probably have enabled them, had they continued united, to penetrate into France, and even to take possession of Paris; so that Lewis XIV. in order to save his own kingdom, would have been obliged to relinquish the support of his grandson, and to pull him, in a manner with his own hands, from the Spanish throne. Of this the king of France was as sensible as the duke of Marlborough34; and hence his joy at the change of sentiment in the court of England, and the regret of the whigs at the loss of so glorious an opportunity of advancing the interests of their country, and of fully gratifying their vengeance against that monarch. It is, indeed, sincerely to be lamented, and possibly may to the latest posterity, that such a change should have happened at this critical period. For, however impolitic it might be, in the English ministry, to continue the war, after the year 1706, as it surely was after 1709, when all the ob jects of the grand alliance might have been obtained; yet as the war was carried on afterward, at a vast expence of blood and treasure, and with a degree of success, which, if foreseen, would perhaps have justified the prosecution of it, no proposals of peace should have been listened to, far less any desire to negociate, secretly insinuated by a French spy35, till advantages equivalent to that additional expence had been 34. Mem. de Torcy, tom. ii. 35. Gaultier, who was first employed to signify to the court of Ver. sailles the inclinations of the tory ministry toward peace, was a catholic priest, and a spy for France, in London. Mem. de Torcy, tom. ii. offered offered. Since we had committed a successful folly, to use the words of my lord Bolingbroke, it was folly not to profit by it in the utmost. No stop should have been put to the career of victory, until the house of Bourbon had been completely humbled. It was on this ground that the whigs now so violently opposed the peace, and urged the necessity of continuing the war, that they might have an opportunity of recovering the administration, and consequently of wresting the negociations out of the hands of men, whom they considered as enemies to the protestant succession, to the liberties of mankind, and to the common cause of the confederates. They admitted that the elevation of the archduke to the Imperial throne had made a material alteration in the political state of Europe; that the power of the house of Austria, which allcentered in the person of the emperor Charles, was very great; but they affirmed, at the same time, that was no sufficient reason for negociating prematurely with the house of Bourbon, or accepting inadequate terms. England and Holland held the balance; and as they had chiefly contributed toward the success of the war, they had a right to be the arbiters of peace. In order to preserve the equilibrium of power, and effectually to prevent the union of the kingdoms of France and Spain in the person of the same prince in any future time, Spain might be given, it was said, to the duke of Savoy; the most valuable of the Spanish possessions in America, to Great Britain; and Philip V. might be gratified with a principality in Italy; after which there would still remain enough to satisfy the emperor and the States, without dismembering the French monarchy 36. But whether we had left Philip, or placed any other prince on the throne of Spain, we ought to have reduced the power of France to a state of depression from which it would not have recovered for generations to come. 36. Publications of the times. While |