Page:History of England (Macaulay) Vol 5.djvu/368

 Holland were determined to allow him nothing. What he really obtained in Italy was little more than a splendid provision for a cadet of his house. Guipuscoa was then in truth the price in consideration of which France consented that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria should be King of Spain and the Indies. Guipuscoa, though a small, was doubtless a valuable province, and was in a military point of view highly important. But Guipuscoa was not in the Netherlands. Guipuscoa would not make Lewis a more formidable neighbour to England or to the United Provinces. And, if the Treaty should be broken off, if the vast Spanish empire should be struggled for and torn in pieces by the rival races of Bourbon and Habsburg, was it not possible, was it not probable, that France might lay her iron grasp, not on Guipuscoa alone, but on Luxemburg and Namur, on Hainault, Brabant and Antwerp, on Flanders East and West? Was it certain that the united force of all her neighbours would be sufficient to compel her to relinquish her prey? Was it not certain that the contest would be long and terrible? And would not the English and Dutch think themselves most fortunate if, after many bloody and costly campaigns, the French King could be compelled to sign a treaty, the same, word for word, with that which he was ready uncompelled to sign now?

William, firmly relying on his own judgment, had not yet, in the whole course of this momentous negotiation, asked the advice or employed the agency of any English minister. But the treaty could not be formally concluded without the instrumentality of one of the Secretaries of State and of the Great Seal. Portland was directed to write to Vernon. The King himself wrote to the Chancellor. Somers was authorised to