tion, that the archduke fhould go neither into Spain nor the duchy of Milan during the life of Charles II. She was willing to have her option between a treaty and a will. By the acceptation of the will, all King William's meafures were broke. He was unprepared for war as much as when he made thefe treaties to prevent one; and if he meant, in making them, what fome wife but refining men have fufpected, and what I confefs I fee no reason to believe, only to gain time by the difficulty of executing them, and to prepare for making war whenever the death of the king of Spain fhould alarm mankind, and roufe his own fubjects out of their inactivity and neglect of foreign interests: if fo, he was disappointed in that too; for France took poffeffion of the whole monarchy at once, and with univerfal concurrence, at leaft without oppofition or difficulty, in favour of the duke of Anjou. By what has been obferved, or hinted rather, very shortly, and I fear a little confusedly, it is plain, that reducing the power of France, and fecuring the whole Spanish fucceffion to the house of Auftria, were two points that King William, at the head of the British and Dutch commonwealths and of the greatest confederacy Europe had feen, was obliged to give up. All the acquifitions that France cared to keep for the maintenance of her power were confirmed to her by the treaty of Ryfwic: and King William allowed, indirectly at leaft, the pretenfions of the house of Bourbon to the Spanish fucceffion, as

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Lewis

Lewis XIV. allowed, in the fame manner, those of the houfe of Auftria by the treaties of partition. Strange fituation! in which no expedient remained to prepare for an event, visibly fo near, and of fuch vaft importance, as the death of the king of Spain, but a partition of his monarchy, without his confent or his knowledge! If King William had not made this partition, the emperor would have made one, and with as little regard to trade, to the barrier of the feven provinces, or to the general system of Europe, as had been fhewed by him when he made the private treaty with France already mentioned, in one thoufand fix hundred and fixty-eight. The ministers of Vienna were not wanting to infinuate to thofe of France overtures of a separate treaty, as more conducive to their common interefts than the acceffion of his imperial majesty to that of partition. But the councils of Verfailles judged very reasonably, that a partition made with England and Holland would be more effectual than any other, if a partition was to take place: and that such a partition would be just as effectual as one made with the emperor, to furnish arguments to the emiffaries of France, and motives to the Spanish councils, if a will in favour of France could be obtained. I repeat it again; I cannot fee what King William could do in fuch circumftances as he found himself in after thirty years ftruggle, except what he did: neither can I fee how he could do what he did, efpecially after the refentment expreffed by the Spaniards,

and

and the furious memorial prefented by Canales on the conclufion of the first treaty of partition, without apprehending that the confequence would be a will in favour of France. He was in the worst of all political circumftances, and that wherein no one good measure remains to be taken; and out of which he left the two nations, at the head of whom he had been fo long, to fight and negotiate themselves and their confederates as well as they could.

When this will was made and accepted, Lewis XIV. had fucceeded, and the powers in oppofition to him had failed in all the great objects of intereft and ambition which they had kept in fight for more than forty years, that is, from the beginning of the prefent period, the actors changed their parts in the tragedy that followed. The power, that had fo long and fo cruelly attacked, was now to defend, the Spanifh monarchy; and the powers, that had fo long defended, were now to attack it. Let us see how this was brought about: and that we may fee it the better, and make a better judgment of all that paffed from the death of Charles II. to the peace of Utrecht, let us go back to the time of his death, and confider the circumftances that formed this complicated state of affairs in three views; a view of right, a view of policy, and a view of power.

The right of fucceeding to the crown of Spain would have been undoubtedly in the children of Maria Theresa, that is, in the house of Bourbon; if this right had not been barred by

the folemn renunciations fo often mentioned. The pretenfions of the house of Austria were founded on these renunciations, on the ratification of them by the Pyrenean treaty, and the confirmation of them by the will of Philip IV. The pretenfions of the house of Bourbon were founded on a fuppofition, it was indeed no more, and a vain one too, that these renunciations were in their nature null. On this foot the difpute of right stood during the life of Charles II. and on the fame it would have continued to stand even after his death, if the renunciations had remained unfhaken; if his will, like that of his father, had confirmed them; and had left the crown, in pursuance of them, to the house of Auftria. But the will of Charles II. annulling these renunciations, took away the fole foundation of the Auftrian pretenfions; for, however this act might be obtained, it was juft as valid as his father's, and was confirmed by the universal concurrence of the Spanish nation to the new fettlement he made of that crown. Let it be, as I think it ought to be, granted, that the true heirs could not claim against renunciations that were, if I may fay fo, conditions of their birth: but Charles II. had certainly as good a right to change the course of fucceffion agreeable to the order of nature and the conftitution of that monarchy, after his true heirs were born, as Philip IV. had to change it, contrary to this order and this conftitution, before they were born, or at any other time. He had as good a right, in fhort, to difpenfe

with the Pyrenean treaty, and to set it afide, in this refpect, as his father had to make it: fo that the renunciations being annulled by that party to the Pyrenean treaty who had exacted them, they could be deemed no longer binding, by virtue of this treaty, on the party who had made them. The fole queftion that remained therefore between thefe rival houses, as to right, was this, Whether the engagements taken by Lewis XIV. in the partition treaties obliged him to adhere to the terms of the laft of them in all events, and to deprive his family of the fucceffion which the king of Spain opened, and the Spanish nation offered, to them; rather than to depart from a compofition he had made, on pretenfions that were difputable then, but were now out of difpute? It may be said, and it was faid, that the treaties of partition being abfolute, without any condition or exception relative to any difpofition the king of Spain had made or might make of his fucceffion in favour of Bourbon or Auftria; the difpofition made by his will, in favour of the duke of Anjou, could not affect the engagements fo lately taken by Lewis XIV. in thefe treaties, nor difpenfe with a literal observation of them. This might be true, on ftrict principles of justice; but I apprehend, that none of these powers, who exclaimed fo loudly against the perfidy of France in this cafe, would have been more fcrupulous in a parallel cafe. The maxim, "Summum jus eft fumma

injuria," would have been quoted; and the rigid letter of treaties would have been foften