the first fifteen years of the present century, were supported largely by loans; it is no less certain a fact that of the debt thus contracted a sum amounting to above £700,000,000 is still unpaid, and that more than half of our yearly revenue, to say the least, is appropriated to paying the interest of it. That such a burden must be too much for the resources or industry of any country to bear without injury, would seem to be a proposition absolutely self-evident. Every interest in the country is subject to unfair disadvantages in the competition with foreigners; every interest being heavily taxed is either unable, or able only by the most extraordinary exertions, to sustain itself in the market of the world against untaxed or lightly taxed rivals. Now the evils being enormous, and so far as we can see perpetual, it does become an important question to ask, whether they were also inevitable? that is to say, whether, if the same circumstances were to occur again, which is a matter not within our control, we should have no choice but to adopt the very same financial expedients. It may be that the sums raised, and nothing less, were required by the urgency of the crisis; it may be that no larger portion of them could have been raised by present taxation than was so raised actually; it may be that nothing more could have been done to liquidate the debt when contracted than has been done actually. But where the measures adopted have been so ruinous, we must at least be disposed to hope that they might have been avoided; that here, as in so many other instances, the fault rests not with fortune or with outward circumstances, but with human passion and human error.

Such is the importance and such the interest of the economical questions which arise out of the history of the great external contests of modern Europe. The military questions; connected with the same history, will form our next subject of inquiry; and on this I propose to enter in my next lecture.

NOTES

TO

LECTURE III.

NOTE 1.-Page 154.

In the Preface to the posthumous volume (vol. iii.) of the History of Rome, Archdeacon J. C. Hare, by whom it was edited, speaks of "the most remarkable among Dr. Arnold's talents, his singular geographical eye, which enabled him to find as much pleasure in looking at a map, as lovers of painting in a picture by Raphael or Claude." (p. viii.)

It may not, perhaps, be inappropriate here to direct attention to the raised maps as a new facility for the accurate study of geography, especially of mountainous regions: they give a notion, which it would be difficult to gain from the ordinary maps, of the complicated inequalities of Italy or Spain, for instance.

NOTE 2.-Page 159.

"Few events in modern times ever seemed so unfavourable to the balance of power as the union between the French and Spanish monarchies. The former, already too mighty from her increased dominions, her central situation, and her warlike and enterprising people, could now direct the resources of that very state which had formerly weighed the heaviest in the opposite scale. By her progressive encroachments most other states had been struck with dismay, not roused into resistance, and seemed more inclined to sue for her alliance than to dare her enmity. But happily for Europe, the throne of England at this period was filled by a prince of singular ability both in the council and the field. The first endeavours of William III. to oppose the succession of Philip, and from a

confederacy against France, had been thwarted as much by his parliament as by foreign powers, and he had prudently yielded to the tide, but foresaw and awaited its ebbing. He continued to keep his objects steadily in sight, and even their ostensible relinquishment was only one of his methods to promote them. By acknowledging the new king of Spain, and professing great desire for peace, he disarmed the French government of its caution, and led it to disclose more and more its ambitious and grasping designs.

"Nor were these long delayed. Within a few months Louis XIV. began to claim the privileges of the South American trade, struck several blows at British commerce, supplanted the Dutch in the Spanish ASIENTO, or contract for negroes, raised new works in the Flemish fortresses within sight of their frontier, and both increased and assembled his armies. Such conduct could not fail to provoke most highly the nations thus aggrieved; and the public indignation, improved by William to the best advantage, gradually grew into a cry for war. The rising discontent in Spain was another circumstance auspicious to his views. He spared no labor, no exertion; he went in person to the Hague, where he carried on the most active and able negotiations, foiled all the counter-intrigues of Louis, and at length succeeded in concluding the basis of the 'Grand Alliance' between England, Austria, and the States General, (Sept. 1701.) The public mind being yet scarcely ripe for the decisive principles afterwards avowed and acted on, this treaty was very guarded in its phrases, and confined in its extent. The rights of the Archduke Charles were not yet asserted, nor those of Philip denied; and the chief objects of the contracting parties seemed to be, that France might not retain its footing in the Netherlands, nor acquire any in the West Indies; and that its crown and that of Spain might never be united on the same head."

LORD MAHON'S' Hist. of the War of the Succession in Spain,'

chap. ii., p. 41.

"France was now (1711) so much weakened, and so nearly overwhelmed, by the contest, that it seemed not only possible, but easy to reduce her overgrown possessions. Her fortresses taken-her frontiers laid bare-her armies almost annihilated-her generals disheartened and distrusted-her finances exhausted-her

people starving, she could no longer have defended the successive usurpations heaped up during the last half century; and a barrier against their recurrence might now have been concerted, established, and maintained. It only remained for the allies to crown a glorious war by a triumphant peace. But all this fair prospect was overcast and darkened by a change in the government, and therefore in the policy, of England. Queen Anne, since the deaths of her only child and of her husband, had nourished a secret leaning to her exiled family, and maintained the Duke of Marlborough and his party more from their successes than her inclinations. The Duchess of Marlborough had, indeed, great influence over her majesty, and ruled her by the strong chains of habit; but gradually lost her ascendency by her own violent and overbearing temper, and especially her haughty jealousy of Mrs. Masham, a dependant cousin, whom she had placed about the Queen as a bedchamber woman, and whom she unexpectedly found distinguished by several marks of royal regard. A glass of water, thrown by the Duchess on the gown of Mrs. Masham, changed the destinies of Europe. An humble relation was transformed into an aspiring rival; and the Queen, quite estranged from her former favourite, carried her fondness from the person to the politics of her new one. Thus she fell into the hands of the Tories, then guided mainly by the subtle cabals of Harley, and the splendid genius of St. John. They did not venture to assail at once the recent services and deeply-rooted reputation of Marlborough, and thought it safer to undermine than to overthrow. He was induced to retain the command of the army; and the existing administration was broken only by degrees. In June (1710) fell the Earl of Sunderland, the Foreign Secretary; in August the Lord Treasurer Godolphin; and the rest followed in succession. By some the seals of office were resigned, from others they were wrested; and before the close of the year, the Tories were completely and triumphantly installed in the place of the Whigs...."

Id., chap. ix. p. 347.

After stating the result of the negotiations between England and France, Lord Mahon adds

"Such, in a very few words, is the substance of the celebrated peace of Utrecht, which has always been considered a blot on the

bright annals of England; and which one of her greatest statesmen, Lord Chatham, has pronounced the indelible reproach of the last generation.' We may, however, be allowed to think, that whilst the glory of the war belongs to the whole people,—whilst Blenheim and Ramillies were prepared by British treasure, and won by British skill and British bravery, the disgrace of the peace, that low and unworthy result of such great achievements, should rest on only a small knot of factious partisans. Let it rest, above all, on Lord Bolingbroke; whose genius, splendid as it was, seldom worked but for evil either in philosophy or politics."

Id., chap. ix. p. 370.

"It is impossible," says Mr. Hallam, "to justify the course of that negotiation which ended in the peace of Utrecht. It was at best a dangerous and inauspicious concession, demanding every compensation that could be devised, and which the circumstances of the war entitled us to require. France was still our formidable enemy; the ambition of Louis was still to be dreaded, his intrigues to be suspected. That an English minister should have thrown himself into the arms of this enemy at the first overture of negotiation; that he should have renounced advantages upon which he might have insisted; that he should have restored Lille, and almost attempted to procure the sacrifice of Tournay; that throughout the whole correspondence, and in all personal interviews with Torcy, he should have shown the triumphant Queen of Great Britain more eager for peace than her vanquished adversary; that the two courts should have been virtually conspiring against those allies, without whom we had bound ourselves to enter on no treaty; that we should have withdrawn our troops in the midst of a campaign, and even seized upon the towns of our confederates while we left them exposed to be overcome by a superior force; that we should have first deceived those confederates by the most direct falsehood in denying our clandestine treaty, and then dictated to them its acceptance, are facts so disgraceful to Bolingbroke, and in somewhat a less degree to Oxford, that they can hardly be palliated by establishing the expediency of the treaty itself."

Constit. Hist. of England, chap. xvi. vol. iii. p. 294