Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/488

474 briskly pursued, for a time prevailed. The battle of Detingen had raised the expectations of the allies to a high pitch, and accordingly both the king of England and the prince of Lorraine crossed the Rhine, and took up their separate positions on the left bank of that river, George at Worms and the prince near Breisach. There, however, the difference of councils again prevailed. Stair urged active advance on the French, the German generals advised delay, considering the season too far spent, or the French too strong for any decided advantage over them. This threw Stair into the most violent anger. He complained loudly of the continual disregard of his advice, and he proceeded so far as to address a memorial to the king, asserting that everything was sacrificed to Hanoverian councils, and tendering his resignation. This was immediately accepted, the king showing his indignation at the language of the memorial. The duke of Marlborough, second in command, and other English officers, however, shared the sentiments of Stair, and threw up their commissions in avowed disgust at the selfishness and overbearing conduct, as well as slowness, of the Hanoverian generals, who were all-powerful with the king. These officers hastened home in high dudgeon, and the king did not stay long after them. In this confusion the campaign closed, and the British troops were sent again into Flanders for the winter.

Before quitting Germany, however, George had signed a treaty betwixt himself, Austria, and Sardinia, in which Italian affairs were determined. The Spaniards under count Gages and the infant Don Philip had made some attempts against the Austrians in Italy, but with little effect. By the present treaty, signed at Worms on the 13th of September, the king of Sardinia engaged to assist the allies with forty-five thousand men, and to renounce his pretensions to the Milanese, on condition that he should command the allied army in Italy in person, should receive the cession of Vigevenasco and the other districts from Austria, and a yearly subsidy of two hundred thousand pounds from England. This was also negotiated by lord Carteret on the part of king George, and without much reference to the ministers in England, who, on receiving the treaty, expressed much dissatisfaction, but, as it was signed, they let it pass. But there was another and separate convention, by which George agreed to grant the queen of Hungary a subsidy of three hundred thousand pounds per annum, not only during the war, but as long as the necessity of her affairs required it. This not being signed, the English ministers refused to assent to it, and it remained unratified.



In all these transactions Carteret showed the most facile disposition to gratify all the Hanoverian tendencies of the king, in order to ingratiate himself and secure the premiership at home. But in this he did not succeed; he was much trusted by George in foreign affairs, and in them he remained. Lord Wilmington, prime minister, had died two months before the signing of the treaty at Worms, and the competitors for his office were Pelham, brother of the duke of Newcastle, and Pulteney. Pelham was supported by Newcastle, lord chancellor Hardwicke, and still more powerfully by the old minister under whom he had been trained—lord Orford, who, though out of office, was consulted in everything relating to it. Pulteney and Pelham had both, according to their friends, neglected the necessary steps for succeeding Wilmington. Pulteney had declined any office, vainly hoping that his great popularity would enable him to guide public affairs. His friends reminded him that, had he taken the treasury on Walpole's