Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/307

A.D. 1712.] solemn declaration, which was as false as it was professedly religious:—"We bring," he said, "sincere intentions and positive orders from our principals to concur in everything on their parts which may tend to the furtherance and happy conclusion of so beneficial and Christian-like a work." Now, this bishop knew very well that his principals had already agreed to certain conditions of peace, as we have stated, which were utterly at variance with the wishes of the rest of the allies, but which the English government was determined to adhere to, or to make a peace without them. 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, independent 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 and conceding personages that they had been at Gertruydenburg. The abbé Polignac, who was the chief speaker, assumed a high and confident manner. He knew that England was resolved to settle the peace on the terms agreed upon, and knew that the rest must come in or fight France themselves, and in that case France did not fear them. He knew, too, that, though the English army was still in the field, the terrible Marlborough was no longer with it, and that the commander had orders not to fight. The French envoys, therefore, when the Dutch deputies demanded that the treaty should be carried out on the basis of the terms offered at Gertruydenburg, told them plainly that matters were now quite altered, and that the conditions offered at Gertruydenburg 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 on this head, because imminently necessary from the changes which 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 now 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 was the great 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 Torey, the French minister, on this head; and the answers of De Torey must have shown the English government how perfectly useless it was thus attempting to bind Frenchmen on any such matters. He replied that any such 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 the right of succession, and must be so, 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, independent of any circumstances whatever.

This was enough to have satisfied any prudent government of the folly of our asking for a renunciation, that nothing but the evacuation of the throne of Spain in case of the succession of Philip to that of France should be accepted. They had seen how easily Louis XIV., who was now tottering on the brink of the grave, had absolved himself from the oaths taken by himself on his marriage with an infanta of Spain, and that it was therefore certain that Philip would do the same. But St. John was satisfied with replying that it mattered not much to the English what notions were entertained in France of the right of succession, so long as in England the opinion was held that every man was at liberty to surrender his own rights; and as the allies in such a treaty bound themselves to compel its fulfilment by force of arms. This was the height of diplomatic absurdity; it was negotiating on the basis cf compulsion, the futility of which the present situation of the allies most amply demonstrated. They had entered into this war of the succession to compel such a surrender, and here they were, negotiating because they had been unable to enforce it. 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 allies, 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 insubstantial ground did the English ministers continue this negotiation. They assured De Torey 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 in what sense he renounced it, as in fact 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