so he entered into an alliance with the king of Poland and the elector of Brandenburg, and, as was said, with the landgrave of Hesse and the duke of Wolfembuttel, to attack Sweden and Holstein at once on all hands. The king of Poland was to invade Livonia; the elector of Brandenburgh was to fall into the regal Pomerania, and the other princes were to keep the dukes of Zell and Hanover from assisting Holstein: the king of Denmark himself was to attack Holstein, but his father's chief minister and treasurer, the baron Plesse, did not like the concert, and apprehended it would not end well; so he withdrew from his post which he had maintained long with a high reputation, both for his capacity and integrity; which appeared in this, that though that king's power is now carried to be absolute, yet he never stretched it to new or oppressive taxes; and therefore seeing things were like to take another ply in a new reign, he resigned his employment. He was the ablest and the worthiest man that I ever knew belonging to those parts; he was much trusted and employed by prince George, so that I had great opportunities to know him.

The king of Sweden, seeing such a storm coming upon him from so many hands, claimed the effects of his alliance with England and Holland, who were guarantees of the several treaties made in the North, particularly of the last made at Altena but ten years before. The house of Lunenburgh was also engaged in interest to preserve Holstein as a barrier' between them and Denmark. The king of Poland thought the invasion of Livonia, which was to be begun with the siege of Riga, would prove both easy and of great advantage to him. Livonia was anciently a fief of the crown of Poland, and delivered itself for protection to the crown of Sweden by a capitulation: by that they were still to enjoy their ancient liberties; afterwards the pretension of the crown of Poland was yielded up about threescore years ago, so that Livonia was an absolute but legal government: yet the king of Sweden had treated that principality in the same rough manner in which he had oppressed his other dominions; so it was thought that the Livonians were disposed (as soon as they saw a power ready to protect them, and to restore them to their former liberties) to shake off the Swedish yoke; especially if they saw the king attacked in so many different places at once.

The king of Poland had a farther design in this invasion; he had an army of Saxons in Poland, to whom he chiefly trusted in carrying on his designs there; the Poles were become so jealous, both of him and of his Saxons, that in a general diet they had come to very severe resolutions, in case the Saxons were not sent out of the kingdom by a prefixed day; that king therefore reckoned, that as the reduction of Livonia had the fair appearance of recovering the ancient inheritance of the crown, so by this means he would carry the Saxons out of Poland, as was decreed, and yet have them within call; he likewise studied to engage those of Lithuania to join with him in the attempt. His chief dependence was on the czar, who had assured him, that if he could make peace with the Turk, and keep Azuph, he would assist him powerfully against the Swedes; his design being to recover Narva, which is capable of being made a good port. By this means he hoped to get into the Baltic, where if he could once settle, he would soon become an uneasy neighbour to all the northern princes. The king of Poland went into Saxony to mortgage and sell his lands there, and to raise as much money as was possible for carrying on this war; and he brought the electorate to so low a state, that if his designs in Poland miscarry, and if he is driven back into Saxony, he who was the richest prince of the empire will become one of the poorest. But the amusements of balls and operas consumed so much, both of his time and treasure, that whereas the design was laid to surprise Riga in the middle of the winter, he did not begin his attempt upon it before the end of February, and these designs went no farther this year.

While the king was at Loo this summer, a new treaty was set on foot, concerning the succession to the crown of Spain; the king and the states of the United Provinces saw the danger to which they would be exposed if they should engage in a new war, while we were yet under the vast debts that the former had brought upon us; the king's ministers in the house of commons assured him, that it would be a very difficult thing to bring them to enter into a new war for maintaining the rights of the house of Austria. During the debates concerning the army, when some mentioned the danger of that monarchy falling into the hands of a prince of the house of Bourbon, it was set up for a maxim, that it would be of no consequence to the affairs of Europe who was king of Spain, whether a Frenchman, or a Ger

man; and that as soon as the successor should come within Spain, he would become a true Spaniard, and be governed by the maxims and interests of that crown; so that there was no prospect of being able to infuse into the nation an apprehension of the consequence of that succession. The emperor had a very good claim; but as he had little strength to support it by land, so he had none at all by sea; and his treasure was quite exhausted by his long war with the Turks: the French drew a great force towards the frontiers of Spain, and they were resolved to march into it upon that king's death; there was no strength ready to oppose them, yet they seemed willing to compound the matter; but they said, the consideration must be very valuable that could make them desist from so great a pretension: and both the king and the States thought it was a good bargain, if, by yielding up some of the less important branches of that monarchy, they could save those in which they were most concerned, which were Spain itself, the West-Indies, and the Netherlands. The French seemed willing to accept of the dominions in and about Italy, with a part of the kingdom of Navarre, and to yield up the rest to the emperor's second son, the archduke Charles: the emperor entered into the treaty, for he saw he could not hope to carry the whole succession entire; but he pressed to have the duchy of Milan added to his hereditary dominions in Germany; the expedient that the king proposed was, that the duke of Lorrain should have the duchy of Milan, and that France should accept of Lorrain instead of it; he was the emperor's nephew, and would be entirely in his interests. The emperor did not agree to this, but yet he pressed the king not to give over the treaty, and to try if he could make a better bargain for him; above all things he recommended secrecy, for he well knew how much the Spaniards would be offended, if any treaty should be owned, that might bring on a dismembering of their monarchy; for though they were taking no care to preserve it, in the whole, or in part, yet they could not bear the having any branch torn from it. The king reckoned that the emperor, with the other princes of Italy, might have so much interest in Rome, as to stop the pope's giving the investiture of the kingdom of Naples; and which way soever that matter might end, it would oblige the pope to shew great partiality, either to the house of Austria, or the house of Bourbon; which might occasion a breach among them, with other consequences, that might be very happy to the whole protestant interest; any war that might follow in Italy, would be at great distance from us, and in a country that we had no reason to regard much; besides, that the fleets of England and Holland must come, in conclusion, to be the arbiters of the matter.

These were the king's secret motives; for I had most of them from his own mouth; the French consented to this scheme, and if the emperor would have agreed to it, his son the archduke was immediately to go to Spain, to be considered as the heir of that crown; by these articles, signed both by the king of France and the dauphin, they bound themselves not to accept of any will, testament, or donation, contrary to this treaty, which came to be called the partition treaty. I had the original in my hands, which the dauphin signed: the French and the emperor tried their strength in the court of Spain; it is plain the emperor trusted too much to his interest in that court, and in that king himself; and he refused to accept of the partition, merely to ingratiate himself with them; otherwise it was not doubted but that, seeing the impossibility of mending matters, he would have yielded to the necessity of his affairs. The French did, in a most perfidious manner, study to alienate the Spaniards from their allies, by shewing them to how great a diminution of their monarchy they had consented; so that no way possible was left for them to keep those dominions still united to their crown, but by accepting the duke of Anjou to be their king, with whom all should be again restored. The Spaniards complained in the courts of their allies, in ours in particular, of this partition, as a detestable project, which was to rob them of those dominions that belonged to their crown, and ought not to be torn from it. No mention was made of this during the session of parliament, for though the thing was generally believed, yet it not being publicly owned, no notice could be taken of bare reports, and nothing was to be done, in pursuance of this treaty, during the king of Spain's life.

In Scotland, all men were full of hopes that their new colony should bring them home mountains of gold; the proclamations sent to Jamaica, and to the other English plantations, were much complained of as acts of hostility and a violation of the common rights of

humanity; these nad a great effect on them, though without these, that colony was too weak and too ill supplied, as well as too much divided within itself, to have subsisted long; those who had first possessed themselves of it, were forced to abandon it: soon after they had gone from it, a second recruit of men and provisions was sent thither from Scotland; but one of their ships unhappily took fire, in which they had the greatest stock of provisions; and so these likewise went off; and though the third reinforcement, that soon followed this, was both stronger and better furnished, yet they fell into such factions among themselves, that they were too weak to resist the Spaniards, who feeble as they were, yet saw the necessity of attacking them; and they finding themselves unable to resist the force which was brought against them, capitulated; and with that the whole design fell to the ground, partly for want of stock and skill in those who managed it, and partly by the baseness and treachery of those whom they employed.

The conduct of the king's ministers in Scotland was much censured, in the whole progress of this affair, for they had connived at it, if not encouraged it, in hopes that the design would fall of itself; but now it was not so easy to cure the universal discontent, which the miscarriage of this design, to the impoverishing the whole kingdom, had raised, and which now began to spread, like a contagion, among all sorts of people. A petition for a present session of parliament was immediately sent about the kingdom, and was signed by many thousands: this was sent up by some of the chief of their nobility, whom the king received very coldly. Yet a session of parliament was granted them, to which the duke of Queensbury was sent down commissioner. Great pains were taken, by all sorts of practices, to be sure of a majority; great offers were made them in order to lay the discontents, which ran then very high; a law for a habeas corpus, with a great freedom for trade, and every thing that they could demand, was offered, to persuade them to desist from pursuing the design upon Darien. The court had tried to get the parliament of England to interpose in that matter, and to declare themselves against that undertaking. The house of lords was prevailed on to make an address to the king, representing the ill effects that they apprehended from that settlement; but this did not signify much, for as it was carried in that house by a small majority of seven or eight, so it was laid aside by the house of commons. Some were not ill pleased to see the king's affairs run into an embroilment; and others did apprehend, that there was a design to involve the two kingdoms in a national quarrel, that by such an artifice, a greater army might be raised, and kept up on both sides: so they let that matter fall, nor would they give any entertainment to a bill that was sent them by the lords, in order to a treaty for the union of both kingdoms. The managers in the house of commons who opposed the court, resolved to do nothing that should provoke Scotland, or that should take any part of the blame and general discontent, that soured that nation, off from the king. It was further given out, to raise the national disgust yet higher, that the opposition the king gave to the Scotch colony, flowed neither from a regard to the interests of England, nor to the treaties with Spain; but from a care of the Dutch, who from Curaçoa drove a coasting trade among the Spanish plantations, with great advantage, which they said the Scotch colony, if once well settled, would draw wholly from them. These things were set about that nation with great industry; the management was chiefly in the hands of jacobites: neither the king nor his ministers were treated with the decencies that are sometimes observed, even after subjects have run to arms. The keenest of their rage was plainly pointed at the king himself; next him, the earl of Portland, who had still the direction of their affairs, had a large share of it. In the session of parliament, it was carried, by a vote, to make the affair of Darien a national concern: upon that the session was for some time discontinued. When the news of the total abandoning of Darien was brought over, it cannot be well expressed into how bad a temper this cast the body of that people; they had now lost almost two hundred thousand pounds sterling upon this project, besides all the imaginary treasure they had promised themselves from it: so the nation was raised into a sort of fury upon it, and in the first heat of that, a remonstrance was sent about the kingdom for hands, representing to the king the necessity of a present sitting of the parliament, which was drawn in so high a strain as if they had resolved to pursue the effects of it by an armed force. It was signed by a great majority of the members of parliament; and the ferment in men's spirits was raised

so high, that few thought it could have been long curbed, without breaking forth into great extremities.

The king stayed beyond sea till November: many expected to see a new parliament; for the king's speech, at the end of the former session, looked like a complaint, and an appeal to the nation against them: he seemed inclined to it, but his ministers would not venture on it. The dissolving a parliament in anger has always cast such a load on those who were thought to have advised it, that few have been able to stand it; besides, the disbanding the army had rendered the members, who promoted it, very popular to the nation: so that they would have sent up the same men, and it was thought that there was little occasion for heat in another session. But those who opposed the king, resolved to force a change of the ministry upon him; they were seeking colours for this, and thought they had found one, with which they had made much noise: it was this.

Some pirates had got together in the Indian seas, and robbed some of the Mogul's ships, in particular one, that he was sending with presents to Mecca; most of them were English. The East India company having represented the danger of the Mogul's taking reprisals of them for these losses, it appeared that there was a necessity of destroying those pirates, who were harbouring themselves in some creeks in Madagascar. So a man of war was to be set out to destroy them, and one Kid was pitched upon, who knew their haunts, and was thought a proper man for the service; but there was not a fund to bear the charge of this, for the parliament had so appropriated the money given for the sea, that no part of it could be applied to this expedition. The king proposed the managing it by a private undertaking, and said he would lay down three thousand pounds himself, and recommended it to his ministers to find out the rest. In compliance with this, the lord Somers, the earls of Orford, Rumney, Bellamount, and some others, contributed the whole expense; for the king excused himself, by reason of other accidents, and did not advance the sum that he had promised. Lord Somers understood nothing of the matter, and left it wholly to the management of others, so that he never saw Kid, only he thought it became the post he was in to concur in such a public service. A grant was made to the undertakers, of all that should be taken from those pirates by their ship. Here was a handle for complaint, for as it was against law to take a grant of the goods of any offenders before conviction, so a parity between that and this case was urged; but without any reason: the provisions of law being very different, in the case of pirates and that of other criminals. The former cannot be attacked, but in the way of war; and therefore, since those who undertook this must run a great risk in executing it, it was reasonable, and according to the law of war, that they should have a right to all that they found in the enemies' hands; whereas those who seize common offenders, have such a strength by the law to assist them, and incur so little danger in doing it, that no just inference can be drawn from the one case to the other. When this Kid was thus set out, he turned pirate himself: so a heavy load was cast on the ministry, chiefly on him who was at the head of the justice of the nation. It was said he ought not to have engaged in such a project; and it was maliciously insinuated, that the privateer turned pirate, in confidence of the protection of those who employed him, if he had not secret orders from them for what he did. Such black constructions are men, who are engaged in parties, apt to make of the actions of those whom they intend to disgrace, even against their own consciences; so that an undertaking, that was not only innocent but meritorious, was traduced as a design for robbery and piracy. This was urged in the house of commons as highly criminal, for which all who were concerned in it ought to be turned out of their employments; and a question was put upon it, but it was rejected by a great majority*. The next attempt was to turn me out from the trust of educating the duke of Gloucester. Some objected my being a Scotchman, others remembered the book that was ordered to be burnt; so they pressed an address to the king for removing me from that post; but this was likewise lost by the same majority that had carried the former vote. The pay for the small army, and the expense of the fleet, were settled, and a fund was given for it yet those who had reduced the army, thought it needless to have so great a force at sea; they provided 189 to 133 Shrewsbury Correspondence. Captain William Kidd's fate is mentioned in a future part of this work.

only for eight thousand men. This was moved by the tories, and the whigs readily gave way to this reduction, because the fleet was now in another management; Russel (now earl of Orford), with his friends, being laid aside, and a set of tories being brought into their places.

The great business of this session was the report brought from Ireland by four of the seven commissioners, that were sent by parliament to examine into the confiscations and the grants made of them. Three of the seven refused to sign it, because they thought it false and ill grounded in many particulars, of which they sent over an account to both houses; but no regard was had to that, nor was any enquiry made into their objections to the report. These three were looked on as men gained by the court; and the rest were magnified, as men that could not be wrought on nor frighted from their duty. They had proceeded like inquisitors, and did readily believe every thing that was offered to them that tended to inflame the report; as they suppressed all that was laid before them that contradicted their design of representing the value of the grants as very high, and of showing how undeserving those were who had obtained them. There was so much truth in the main of this, that no complaints against their proceedings could be hearkened to; and indeed all the methods that were taken to disgrace the report had the quite contrary effect: they represented the confiscated estates to be such, that, out of the sale of them, a million and a half might be raised so this specious proposition, for discharging so great a part of the public debt, took with the house. The hatred into which the favourites were fallen, among whom and their creatures the grants were chiefly distributed, made the motion go the quicker. All the opposition that was made in the whole progress of this matter, was looked on as a courting the men in favour; nor was any regard paid to the reserve of a third part, to be disposed of by the king, which had been in the bill that was sent up eight years before to the lords. When this was mentioned, it was answered, that the grantees had enjoyed those estates so many years, that the mean profits did arise to more than a third part of their value: little regard also was shown to the purchases made under those grants, and to the great improvements made by the purchasers, or tenants, which were said to have doubled the value of those estates. All that was said on that head made no impression, and was scarcely heard with patience yet, that some justice might be done both to purchasers and creditors, a number of trustees were named, in whom all the confiscated estates were vested, and they had a very great and uncontrolable authority lodged with them, of hearing and determining all just claims relating to those estates, and of selling them to the best purchasers; and the money to be raised by this sale was appropriated to pay the arrears of the army. When all this was digested into a bill, the party apprehended that many petitions would be offered to the house, which the court would probably encourage on design at least to retard their proceedings: so, to prevent this, and that they might not lose too much time, nor clog the bill with too many clauses and provisos, they passed a vote of a very extraordinary nature; that they would receive no petitions relating to the matter of this bill. The case of the earl of Athlone's grant was very singular: the house of commons had been so sensible of his good service, in reducing Ireland, that they had made an address to the king, to give him a recompense suitable to his services: and the parliament of Ireland was so sensible of their obligations to him, that they, as was formerly told, confirmed his grant of between 20007. and 3000l. a-year. He had sold it to those who thought they purchased under an unquestionable title, yet all that was now set aside, no regard being had to it; so that this estate was thrown into the heap. Some exceptions were made in the bill in favour of some grants, and provision was made for rewarding others, whom the king, as they thought, had not enough considered. Great opposition was made to this by some, who thought that all favours and grants ought to be given by the king, and not originally by a house of parliament; and this was managed with great heat, even by some of those who concurred in carrying on the bill: in conclusion it was, by a new term as well as a new invention, consolidated with the money bill that was to go for the pay of the fleet and army, and so it came up to the house of Lords; which by consequence they must either pass or reject. The method that the court took in that house to oppose it, was to offer some alterations that were indeed very just and reasonable; but since the house of commons would not suffer the