weight. A torrent, however, of low and illiberal abuse was alfo poured out on this occafion. His whole life, public and private, was fcrutinized with the utmoft malignity, to furnish matter of calumny against him. The fucceffes of his administration were depreciated; his faults were monftruoufly exaggerat ed; and the reward and honours fo justly conferred on him by his fovereign,were by every trick of wit,ridicule, and buffonery, converted into matter of degradation and difgrace. Without prefuming to take any part in a controverfy, which (however unequally) divided the royal council, or without entering into the fentiments of any faction, which we have always fhunned, we may affirm with truth and impartiality, that no man was ever better fitted than Mr. Pitt, to be the minifter in a great and powerful nation, or better qualified to carry that power and greatness to their utmost limits. There was in all his designs a magnitude, and even a vaftness, which was not eafily comprehended by every mind, and which nothing but fuccefs could have made to appear reasonable. If he was fometimes incorrect, he was never vulgar.

His power, as it was not acquir ed, so neither was it exercised in an ordinary manner. With very little parliamentary, and with lefs court influence, he fwayed both at court and in parliament with an authority unknown before to the best fupported minifters. He was called to the ministry by the voice of the people; and what is more rare, he held it with that approbation; and under him for the first time, administration and popularity were seen united. Under him Great Britain carried on the most important war,

in which the ever was engaged, alone, and unaffifted, with greater fplendour, and with more fuccefs than fhe had ever enjoyed at the head of the most powerful alliances. Alone this ifland seemed to balance the rest of Europe.

In the conduct of the war he never fuffered the enemy to breathe, but overwhelmed them with reiterated blows, and kept up the alarm in every quarter. If one of his expeditions was not fo well calculated or fo fuccefsfully executed, amends was made by another, and by a third. The fpirit of the nation once roused, was not fuffered for a moment to fubfide; and the French, dazzled, as it were, by the multitude aud celerity of his enterprizes, feemed to have loft all power of refiftance. In short, he revived the \ military genius of our people; he fupported our allies; he extended our trade; he raised our reputation; he augmented our dominions; and on his departure from adminiftration, left the nation in no other danger than that which ever must attend exorbitant power, and the temptation which may be, to the invidious exertion of it. Happy it had been for him, for his fovereign, and his country, if a temper lefs auftere, and a difpofition more practicable, more compliant, and conciliating, had been joined to his other great virtues. The want of thefe qualities difabled him from acting any otherwife than alone: it prevented our enjoying the joint fruit of the wifdom of many able men, who might mutually have tempered, and mutually forwarded each other; and finally, which was not the meanest lofs, it deprived us of his own immediate services.

Thofe

Thofe who cenfured his political conduct the most feverely, could raife but few exceptions to it; none of them fingly, and perhaps, the whole united, of no great weight against a perfon long engaged in fo great a scene of action. Whether the part, which under his administration we rather continued to act than rewly took, with regard to the affairs of Germany, be for the real intereft of Great Britain, is a queftion of the utmost difficulty, and which perhaps will never admit a fatisfactory folution. To condemn him on this head, we must be fure of this folution. It has been obferved in favour of that contested measure, that Frence demonftrated, through the whole progrefs of the late treaty, the most earneft defire, that we should abandon that German connection; no trifling argument, that our enemy did not look upon it to be extremely prejudicial to our interefts. If he has carried on that war at a vaft expence,a prodigious ftand has been made against the entire power of France had lefs been expended, the whole expence might have been loft. How far this part of his conduct was agreeable to his former declarations, is a difcuffion which can avail but little. He found the nation engaged in these affairs; it was more easy to push them forward, than to extricate himself from them; as he proceeded, he difcovered by experience the advantages of that plan of action, and his opinion was changed.

But even admitting, that, to at

tain the ends of oppofition, he had once fallen upon popular topics, which even then he knew were not tenable, it can form but a very small blemish in a public character, how ever wrong it may be by application to the strict rules of morality. Ill would it fare with statesmen, if this fort of confiftency were to be expected from the most consistent of them.

With regard to the penfion and title, it is a fhame that any defence should be neceffary. What eye cannot diftinguish,at the first glance, the difference between this and the exceptionable cafe of Titles and penfions? What Briton, with the fmalleft fenfe of honour and grati tude, but must blush for his country, if fuch a man retired unrewarded from the public fervice, let the motives to that retirement be what they would? It was not poffible that his fovereign could let his eminent fervices pafs unrequited; the fum that was given was undoubtedly inadequate to his merits; and the quantum was rather regulated by the moderation of the great mind that received it, than by the liberality of that which bestowed it.

The conduct of Mr. Pitt when the parliament met, in which he made his own juftification, without impeaching the conduct of any of his collegues, or taking one mea fure that might feem to arife from difguft or oppofition, has fet a seal upon his character.

Lord Egremont was oppointed to fucceed him as fecretary for the fouthern department.

CHAP.

HE unfortunate intervention

ceived on her part any intention to

tion, raised fo many difficulties, and created fo much mischief both abroad and home, that it becomes an era in this history, and it is necef. fary we should pursue that object from the point at which we left it, to its final and fatal determination.

The answer which had been received from the Spanish minifter in London was far from being fatisfactory to our court. Orders were immediately given to the earl of Bri ftol, our amboffador in Spain, to remonftrate with energy and firmness on fo extraordinary a proceeding; to adhere to the negative put upon the Spanish pretenfions to fish at Newfoundland; to reft the article of difputed captures, on the juftice of our tribunals; to continue the former profeffions of our defire of an amicable adjustment of the logwood difpute; and of our willingnefs to caufe the fettlements on the coaft of Honduras to be evacuated, as foon as ever his Catholick majefty should fuggeft a method for our enjoyment of that traffick to which we had a right by treaty, and which was further confirmed to us by repeated promifes from that court.

At the fame time that the earl of Bristol was authorised to proceed with that spirit, which the offended dignity of our court required, and to bring Spain to a categorical and fatisfactory declaration, concerning ber final intentions; yet if he perVOL. IV.

this offenfive tranfaction, he was readily to accept it, and to afford to that court as handfome a retreat as poffible. The letter which conveyed these inftructions was written by Mr. Pitt, and dated on the 28th of July, a few days after the fatal memorial had been delivered by Mr. Buffy.

The earl of Bristol punctually obeyed thofe orders. He found general Wall, the Spanish minifter, much in cold blood, and in very equivocal difpofitions, He heard with great patience the proper and energetic reprefentation that had been very ably made by the earl of Briftol. He applauded the king of Great Britain's magnanimity in not fuffering France as a tribunal, to be appealed to in his difputes with Spain; and declared, that in the propofition which had been made with the confent of his court, things were not confidered in that light; afked whether it could be imagined in England, that the Catholick king was feeking to provoke us in our prefent moft flourishing and moft exalted fituation, and after fuch a series of profperous events as no fingle na tion had ever met with? He valued, and reciprocally returned, our frequent profeffions of friendship, and our defire of amicable adjustment. But thefe favourable demonftrations were accompanied with fome circumftances, that had a very menaç

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ing appearance. For, in the first place, he declared, that at that time the utmost harmony fubfifted between the courts of France and Spain; that in confequence of their perfect agreement, there was a mutual unreserved communication of every step taken in their several negotiations with England; that France had even offered to affift Spain, in cafe the difcuffions the had with us fhould grow into a rup ture; and that this offer was confidered in a friendly light. Such an intimate union of a third power with one of the parties at war, forebodes no long duration to its friendship, or even to its neutrality with the other. If Spain juftified the procceedings of France, and owned herself concerned in them, it was but one, and that a fhort, step to a junction with her.

As to the three matters in difpute, the Spanish minifter refolutely adhered to them all; and as to the laft (that of the logwood) he obferved, that Great Britain had offered them nothing, but what they had long fince been tired of, treaty and negotiation; that this matter had been already fully difcuffed; and that on this head Spain had given the moft convincing proofs of her defire to be on the belt terms with England; for in the beginning of this war, before England had grown terrible by her fucceffes, when their American governors had endeavoured to diflodge the English from fome new establishments on the coast of Honduras, they had at the complaint of our court, in order to take away all caufe of miftruft, ordered the governors to de'fift from fo juftifiable an enterprize. That on the offer of England on this occafion to fettle matters in an Camicable manner, they chearfully

agreed to that method. But that fix years had elapfed without their receiving the leaft fatisfaction, They even alledged that the Englifh encroachments on their coafts in that time increased.

In this manner the Spaniards vindicated the form and the matter of their proceeding: they fhewed no fort of difpofition to relax from their claims; but at the fame time they no longer infifted on blending together the feveral difcuffions; and they profeffed, in general, though not in very warm terms, a defire of continuing in amity with us. With regard to the matters in difpute, the pretenfions of both powers ftood in this pofture throughout this whole difcuffion; except that they were urged with more or lefs afperity, according to the fluctuating difpofition of the court of Spain, which feemed to reft upon no fure and fet. tled principles. There were probably two factions in her councils, who as they alternately prevailed, changed the language and countenance of the Spanish minifter. However, for fome time the afpect of things continued on the whole to be rather favourable, and even an exprefs declaration was at length made, that Spain had been, at no time, more intent on cultivating a good correfpondence with us. But till the French intereft filently gained ground at Madrid; the confidential communications of that court with Spain, her affected moderation in the treaty; the dangerous greatnefs of England: the common intereft of the house of Bourbon, every part of which must fuffer, both in its dignity and fafety, by allowing the principal of its branches to be pruned to the quick; thefe points were arged with continual follici

tation;

tation; and they affured the Spaniards that even the figning an alliance between the fovereigns of the two nations, would intimidate England, already exhaufted by the war, and apprehenfive of lofing the valuable commerce fhe carried on with Spain.

Thefe arguments and fuggeftions at length prevailed, and a treaty was figned between the two courts, the purpofe of which was to preferve from oppreffion, and to maintain the interests of the house of Bourbon. This alliance was of a nature the more dangerous, as it turned upon family, not national interefts, and because not ftating exactly its objects, it might be made juft of what extent they pleasedWe make no mention of any other treaty than this, of itself fufficiently alarming, because whatever fufpicions may be entertained, there is no certainty that any other has been concluded between those powers.

France had obtained in this treaty almost all that she aimed at; by it The entered into the closest connec tion with Spain; this connection did not indeed feem directly, and of neceffity to include a breach with England; it led to it, however, almoft inevitably. At first the whole tranfaction was kept a profound fecret; the inferiority of the marine of Spain, and the precarioufnefs of their Supplies from America, in cafe they came to a prefent rupture with England, obliged them to this temporary referve. France took care that this treaty fhould not tranfpire until the negotiation was broken oft; and Spain, whilft fhe was under thefe apprehenfions exhibited those occafional proots of a pacific difpofition, which we have just now feca.

But as foon as France had loft all hopes of concludidg the negotiation in the manner the had wished, and had failed in the use she made of the intervention of the claims of Spain, the circulated with great induftry a report, that Spain would immediately declare against Great Britain, in confequence of a treaty lately concluded among the Bourbon courts.

England found that those boafts of the French were too confidently made, and too generally believed, to be altogether without foundation. In confequence of thefe apprehenfions, orders were fent to Spain, to demand in the most moderate terms, but in a manner not to be evaded, a communication of this treaty, or at least a difavowal that it contained any thing to the prejudice of Great Britain. But before thefe orders could reach Spain, lord Bristol had himself received intelligence of the treaty, and of the hopes, which the French made no fecret of their deriving from that fource. He therefore thought himself under a neceffity of defiring fatisfaction from the Spanish fecretary of state concerning it.

Upon this application there appeared on a fudden such a change in the countenance, language, and fentiments of that minifter, as indicated but too fally, he juftnefs of the fufpicions that were entertained, The Spanish flota was now fafely arrived with a very rich cargo; the French arms had made a confiderable progrefs in the king's electoral dominions; the fuccefs of the imperial arms was no less friking; the reafons for their former fhew of moderation no longer existed. They therefore gave a loose to those movements which they had hitherto concealed. M. Wall, evading a

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