LETTER VIII.

The fame fubject continued from the year one thousand fix hundred and eighty-eight.

OUR Lordship will find, that the objects pro

YOUR

pofed by the alliance of one thoufand fix hundred and eighty-nine between the Emperour and the States, to which England acceded, and which was the foundation of the whole confederacy then formed, were no lefs than to restore all things to the terms of the Weftphalian and Pyrenean treaties, by the war; and to preferve them in that ftate, after the war, by a defenfive alliance and guaranty of the fame confederate powers against France. The particular as well as general meaning of this engagement was plain enough and if it had not been so, the fenfe of it would have been fufficiently determined, by that feparate article, in which England and Holland obliged themselves to affift the " house "of Auftria, in taking and keeping poffeffion of the

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Spanish monarchy, whenever the cafe fhould hap<< pen of the death of Charles the Second, without "lawful heirs." This engagement was double, and thereby relative to the whole political fyftem of Europe, alike affected by the power and pretenfions of France. Hitherto the power of France had been alone regarded, and her pretenfions feemed to have been forgot or to what purpose should they have been remembered, whilft Europe was fo unhappily constituted,

conftituted, that the states, at whofe expence fhe increased her power, and their friends and allies, thought that they did enough upon every occafion if they made fome tolerable compofition with her? They who were not in circumstances to refuse con. firming prefent, were little likely to take effectual: measures against future ufurpations. But now, as the alarm was greater than ever, by the outrages that France had committed, and the intrigues fhe had carried on; by the little regard fhe had fhewnto public faith, and by the airs of authority fhe had affumed twenty years together: fo was the fpirit against her raised to an higher pitch, and the means = of reducing her power, or at least of checking it, were increased. The princes and ftates who had neglected or favoured the growth of this power, which all of them had done in their turns, faw their errour; faw the neceffity of repairing it, and faw that unless they could check the power of France, by uniting a power fuperiour to her's, it would be impoffible to hinder her from fucceeding in her great defigns on the Spanish fucceffion. The court of England had fubmitted, not many years before, to abet her ufurpations, and the King of England had : stooped to be her penfioner. But the crime was not national. On the contrary, the nation had cried out loudly againft it, even whilft it was committing: and as foon as ever the abdication of King James, and the elevation of the Prince of Orange to the throne of England happened, the nation engaged with all imaginable zeal in the common caufe of Europe, to reduce the exorbitant power of France, to prevent her future and to revenge her paft attempts;

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for even a spirit of revenge prevailed, and the war was a war of anger as well as of intereft.

Unhappily this zeal was neither well conducted, nor well feconded. It was zeal without fuccefs- in the first of the two wars that followed the year one thousand fix hundred and eighty-eight, and zeal without knowledge, in both of them. I enter into no detail concerning the events of these two wars. This only I obferve on the firft of them, that the treaties of Ryfwic were far from anfwering the ends proposed and the engagements taken by the first grand alliance. The power of France, with respect to extent of dominions and ftrength of barrier, was not reduced to the terms of the Pyrenean treaty, no not to those of the treaty of Nimeghen. rain was restored indeed with very confiderable re ferves, and the places taken or ufurped on the other fide of the Rhine: but then Strafburg was yielded up abfolutely to France by the Emperour, and by the Empire. The conceffions to Spain were great, but fo were the conquefts and the encroachments made upon her by France, fince the treaty of Nimeghen and fhe got little at Ryfwic, I believe nothing more than the had faved at Nimeghen before.

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thefe conceffions, however, as well as the acknowledgement of King William, and others made by Lewis XIV. after he had taken Ath and Barcelona, even during the courfe of the negotiations, compared with the loffes and repeated defeats of the allies and the ill state of the confederacy, furprifed the generality of mankind, who had not been accustomed to fo much moderation and generosity on the part of this prince. But the pretensions of the house of

Bourbon

Bourbon on the Spanish fucceffion remained the fame. Nothing had been done to weaken them; nothing was prepared to oppose them: and the open ing of this fucceffion was vifibly at hand; for Charles the Second had been in immediate danger of dying about this time. His death could not be a remote event: and all the good queen's endeavours to be got with child had proved ineffectual. The league diffolved, all the forces of the confederates difperfed, and many difbanded; France continuing armed, her forces by fea and land increased, and held in readiness to act on all fides, it was plain that the confederates had failed in the first object of the grand alliance, that of reducing the power of France; by fucceeding in which alone they could have been able to keep the fecond engagement, that of fecur ing the fucceffion of Spain to the house of Auftria.

After this peace, what remained to be done? In the whole nature of things there remained but three. To abandon all care of the Spanish fucceffion was one; to compound with France upon this fucceffion was another; and to prepare, like her, during the interval of peace, to make an advantageous war whenever Charles the Second fhould die, was a third. Now the first of thefe was to leave Spain, and, in leaving Spain, to leave all Europe in fome fort at the mercy of France; fince whatever difpofition the Spaniards fhould make of their crown,. they were quite unable to fupport it against France; fince the Emperour could do little without his allies; and fince Bavaria, the third pretender, could do ftill lefs, and might find, in fuch a cafe, his account perhaps better in treating with the houfe of Bourbon

Bourbon than with that of Auftria. More needs not be faid on this head; but on the other two, which I fhall confider together, feveral facts are proper to be mentioned, and feveral reflections neceffary to be made.

We might have counter-worked, no doubt, iu their own methods of policy, the councils of France, who made peace to diffolve the confederacy, and great conceffions, with very fufpicious generosity, to gain the Spaniards: we might have waited, like them, that is in arms, the death of Charles the Second, and have fortified in the mean time the difpofitions of the king, the court, and people of Spain, against the pretenfions of France: We might have made the peace, which was made fome time after that, between the Emperour and the Turks, and have obliged the former at any rate to have fecured the peace of Hungary, and to have prepared, by these and other expedients, for the war that would inevitably break out on the death of the King of Spain.

But all fuch measures were rendered impractica ble, by the Emperour chiefly. Experience had fhewn, that the powers who engaged in alliance with him must expect to take the whole burden of his cause upon themselves; and that Hungary would maintain a perpetual diversion in favour of France, fince he could not refolve to lighten the tyrannical yoke he had established in that country and in Tranfilvania, nor his minifters to part with the immenfe confifcations they had appropriated to themselves. Paft experience fhewed this: and the experience that followed confirmed it very fatally. But fur

ther;