BOOK VI. Open the conferences afresh on the 1st of January 1712-Utrecht being named as the place of con 1712. Opposed by the Emperor. court of gress. The emperor, on his part, wrote a circular letter to the electors and princes of the empire, exhorting them to persist in the engagements of the grand alliance. In order to obviate any disagreeable consequences that might result from the resentment of the emperor, the queen of England had sent earl Rivers to Hanover, to assure the elector that his interests would be particularly attended to. His serene highness, notwithstandand the ing, expressed in warm terms his total disapproHanover. bation of the measures in question; and not satisfied with this declaration, he ordered his minister, baron Bothmar, to deliver to Mr. St. John a memorial, which soon afterwards appeared in the public prints, representing the pernicious consequences of leaving Spain and the Indies in the hands of the duke of Anjou. "The Almighty has blessed the arms of the queen, and of her allies"-thus the memorial concludes" with so many triumphs over their powerful enemy, to the end they may secure themselves by a safe and advantageous peace from all they have to fear from him; and it cannot be His pleasure, that an enemy so exhausted and vanquished, as he has been on all occasions, should at last carry his designs by this war, and get out of it by a peace glorious to 1712. him, to the ruin of the victorious allies, and to BOOK VI. the destruction of the liberty of all Europe, in acquiring by this peace the power of giving a king to Spain, of imposing one upon Great Britain, and of making the validity of the election of the head of the empire depend upon his approbation." This indiscreet step, applauded as it was by the whig party, produced no other effect, as might easily have been foreseen by any persons not blinded by the rage of faction, than to give extreme umbrage to the court of London, and to lay the foundation of a dangerous misunderstanding between the queen and her successor. "The elector had till this winter," says Mr. secretary St. John to lord Strafford, March 7, 1712, "behaved himself so, that the whig and tory equally courted him, and had equal expectations from him. He has now placed himself at the head of a party. My lord Rivers opened with the greatest confidence imaginable all the views which her majesty had, the grounds of her proceedings, and in a word the whole secret of her administration. The return made to this mark of friendship was, sending his minister hither to associate with the servants whom the queen thought fit to disgrace, to join in open defiance to her measures, and even to appeal to the nation in opposition to their sovereign." By a separate and secret instrument signed the same 1712. day with the provisional articles, certain additional Spain re right of to the whom this renunciation is made, may be justly BOOK VI. supported in his pretensions by the powers who 1712. become guarantees to the treaty." This English King of reasoning, corroborated by a peremptory declara- nounces his tion that the negotiation should be suspended till succession the solemú renunciations required were assented to, was at length found too cogent to be resisted by any species of political chicanery-and they were ultimately executed by the king of Spain, and the princes of the blood in France, in all the legal and diplomatic forms. crown of France. the Pre tender to the queen. At this period the pretender, knowing the coldness subsisting between the courts of London and Hanover, was emboldened to address the queen, in a letter not ill imagined or expressed-urging her, Letter of as she tendered her own honor and happiness, to do him that justice to which he was entitled; in which case he assured her that no reasonable terms of accommodation which she could desire. for herself should be refused by him-and declaring his readiness to give all the security that could be desired, of his unalterable resolution to make the law of the land the rule of his government-to maintain the church of England in its just rights and privileges*; but without giving the slightest intimation or hope that he might be induced to change his religion. To this letter it * Macpherson's State Papers, vol. ii. BOOK VI. does not appear that any reply directly or indi1712. rectly was ever made. Session of The States General having at length agreed to renew the negotiation with France, the parliament was convened for the 7th of December 1711; previous to which, great efforts were made to obtain a clear majority in the house of lords, where the whig interest chiefly prevailed-but with very little success; and the ministers had even the mortification to see the earl of Nottingham, one of the principal leaders of the tories for more than twenty years past, closely connecting himself, upon the great question of peace or war, with the whigs. This nobleman was supposed to feel strong emotions of jealousy and disgust at the sudden and surprising ascendancy acquired by the earl of Oxford, who in return, was no less tremblingly alive to the rival pretensions of Nottingham. The whigs exclaimed with all the violence of party rage against the plan of accommodation comprehended in the provisional articles, which they represented as fraught with treachery to our allies and ruin to ourselves. The ideas inculcated by the leaders and swallowed by the dupes of the faction are strongly though undesignedly depictured by bishop Burnet; who gravely relates, that when the queen condescended to ask of him his sentiments respecting peace, upon obtaining per |