claimed the earl of Melfort as a fantastical schemer, to whom no regard was paid at the court of Versailles. The French ministry complained of the publication of this letter, as an attempt to sow jealousy between the two crowns: and, as a convincing proof of their sincerity, banished the earl of Melfort to Angers.

§ XLIV. The credit of exchequer bills was so lowered by the change of the ministry, and the lapse of the time allotted for their circulation, that they fell near twenty per cent. to the prejudice of the revenue, and the discredit of the government in foreign countries. The commons having taken this affair into consideration, voted, that provision: should be made from time to time for making good the principal and interest due on all parliamentary funds; and afterwards passed a bill fór renewing the bills of credit, commonly called exchequer bills. This was sent up to the lords on the sixth day of March, and on the thirteenth received the royal assent. The next object that engrossed the attention of the commons, was the settlement of the succession to the throne, which the king had recommended to their consideration in the beginning of the session. Having deliberated on this subject, they resolved, that for the preservation of the peace and happiness of the kingdom, and the security of the protestant religion, it was absolutely necessary that a further declaration should be made of the limitation and succession of the crown in the protestant line, after his majesty and the princess, and the heirs of their bodies respectively: and, that further provision should be first made for the security of the rights and liberties of the people. Mr. Harley moved, that some conditions of government might be settled as preliminaries, before they should proceed to the nomination of the person, that their security might be complete. Accordingly, they deliberated on this subject, and agreed to the following resolutions : That whoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this crown, shall join in communion with the church of England as by law established: That, in case the crown and imperial dignity of this realm shall hereafter come to any person, not being a native of this kingdom of England, this nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the crown

of England, without the consent of parliament: That no person who shall hereafter come to the possession of the crown shall go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without consent of parliament: That, from and after the time that the further limitation by this act shall take effect, all matters and things relating to the well governing of this kingdom, which are properly cognisable in the privy council, by the laws and customs of the realm, shall be transacted there, and all resolutions taken thereupon shall be signed by such of the privy council as shall advise and consent to the same: That, after the limitation shall take effect, no person born out of the kingdom of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging, although he be naturalized, and made a denizen (except such as are born of English parents) shall be capable to be of the privy council, or a member of either house of parliament, or to enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the crown to himself, or to any others in trust for him: That no person who has an office or place of profit under the king, or receives a pension from the crown, shall be capable of serving as member of the house of commons: That, after the limitation shall take effect, judges' commissions be made quamdiu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained and established; but upon the address of both houses of parliament, it may be lawful to remove them: That no pardon under the great seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment by the commons in parliament. Having settled these preliminaries, they resolved, that the princess Sophia, dutchess dowager of Hanover, be declared the next in succession to the crown of England, in the protestant line, after his majesty, and the princess, and the heirs of their bodies respectively: and, that the further limitation of the crown be to the said princess Sophia and the heirs of her body, being protestants. A bill being formed on these resolutions, was sent up to the house of lords, where it met with some opposition from the marquis of Normandy: a protest was likewise entered against it by the earls of Huntingdon and Plymouth, and the lords Guilford and Jeffries. Nevertheless, it passed without amendments, and on the twelfth day of June re

ceived the royal assent: the king was extremely mortified at the preliminary limitations, which he considered as an open insult on his own conduct and administration; not but that they were necessary precautions, naturally suggested by the experience of those evils to which the nation had been already exposed, in consequence of raising a foreign prince to the throne of England. As the tories lay under the imputation of favouring the late king's interest, they exerted themselves zealously on this occasion, to wipe off the aspersion, and insinuate themselves into the confidence of the people; hoping, that in the sequel they should be able to restrain the nation from engaging too deep in the affairs of the continent, without incurring the charge of disaffection to the present king and government. The act of settlement being passed, the earl of Macclesfield was sent to notify the transaction to the electress Sophia, who likewise received from his hands the order of the garter.

§ XLV. The act of succession gave umbrage to the popish princes who were more nearly related to the crown than this lady, whom the parliament had preferred to all others. The dutchess of Savoy, grandaughter to king Charles I. by her mother, ordered her ambassador, count Maffei, to make a protestation to the parliament of England, in her name, against all resolutions and decisions contrary to her title, as sole daughter to the princess Henrietta, next in succession to the crown of England, after king William and the princess Anne of Denmark. Two copies of this protest Maffei sent in letters to the lord keeper and the speaker of the lower house, by two of his gentlemen, and a public notary to attest the delivery; but no notice was taken of the declaration. The duke of Savoy, while his minister was thus employed in England, engaged in an alliance with the crowns of France and Spain, on condition, that his catholic majesty should espouse his youngest daughter without a dowry: That he himself should command the allied army in Italy, and furnish eight thousand infantry, with five-and-twenty hundred horse, in consideration of a monthly subsidy of fifty thousand crowns.

§ XLVI. During these transactions, Mr. Stanhope, envoy extraordinary to the states general, was empowered to treat with the ministers of France and Spain, according to VOL. I. Xx

the addresses of both houses of parliament. He represented, that though his most christian majesty had thought fit to deviate from the partition treaty, it was not reasonable that the king of England should lose the effect of that convention: he, therefore, expected some security for the peace of Europe; and for that purpose, insisted upon certain articles, importing, that the French king should immediately withdraw his troops from the Spanish Netherlands: that, for the security of England, the cities of Ostend and Nieuport should be delivered into the hands of his Britannic majesty that no kingdom, provinces, cities, lands, or places, be longing to the crown of Spain, should ever be yielded or transferred to the crown of France, on any pretence whatever; that the subjects of his Britannic majesty should retain all the privileges, rights, and immunities, with regard to their navigation and commerce in the dominions of Spain, which they enjoyed at the death of his late catholic majesty; and also all such immunities, rights, and franchises, as the subjects of France, or any other power, either possess for the present, or may enjoy for the future: That all treaties of peace, and conventions between England and Spain should be renewed: and, that a treaty formed on these demands should be guaranteed by such powers as one or other of the contractors should solicit and prevail upon to accede. Such likewise were the proposals made by the states general, with this difference, that they demanded, as cautionary towns, all the strongest places in the Netherlands. Count d'Avaux, the French minister, was so surprised at these exorbitant demands, that he could not help saying, they could not have been higher, if his master had 'lost four successive battles. He assured them, that his most christian majesty would withdraw his troops from the Spanish Netherlands as soon as the king of Spain should have forces of his own sufficient to guard the country: with respect to the other articles, he could give no other answer, but that he would immediately transmit them to Versailles. Lewis was filled with indignation at the insolent strain of those proposals, which he considered as a sure mark of William's hostile intentions. He refused to give any other security for the peace of Europe, than a renewal of the treaty of Ryswick; and he is said to have tampered, by

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means of his agents and emissaries, with the members of the English parliament, that they might oppose all steps tending to a new war on the continent.

§ XLVII. King William certainly had no expectation that France would close with such proposals; but he was not without hope, that her refusal would warm the English nation into a concurrence with his designs. He communicated to the house of commons the demands which had been made by him and the states general; and gave them to understand, that he would from time to time make them acquainted with the progress of the negotiation. The commons, suspecting that his intention was to make them parties in a congress which he might conduct to a different end from that which they proposed, resolved to signify their sentiments in the answer to this message. They called for the treaty of partition, which being read, they voted an address of thanks to his majesty, for his most gracious declaration, that he would make them acquainted with the progress of the negotiation: but they signified their disapprobation of the partition treaty, signed with the great seal of England, without the advice of the parliament, which was then sitting, and productive of ill consequences to the kingdom, as well as to the peace of Europe, as it assigned over to the French king such a large portion of the Spanish dominion. Nothing could be more mortifying to the king than this open attack upon his own conduct: yet he suppressed his resentment, and without taking the least notice of their sentiments with respect to the partition treaty, assured them, that he should be always ready to receive their advice on the negotiation which he had set on foot, according to their desire. The debates in the house of commons upon the subject of the partition treaty rose to such violence, that divers members in declaiming against it, transgressed the bounds of decency. Sir Edward Seymour compared the division which had been made of the Spanish territories to a robbery on the highway; and Mr. Howe did not scruple to say it was a felonious treaty: an expression, which the king resented to such a degree, that he declared he would have demanded personal satisfaction with his sword, had he not been restrained by the disparity of condition between himself and the person who had offered