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A.D. 1711.]

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PROPOSALS FOR PEACE MADE BY THE ENGLISH MINISTERS.

was as absolutely necessary to us as it was unexpected by us. All our negotiations and attempts at negotiation in Holland had only produced a greater animosity, and a more obstinate determination to continue war; and England, more than any other power, had hitherto blown the fire. Yet the new ministers of that crown now held a language totally different to that of their predecessors; and the advances which they were making were less open to any suspicion, as it was for their evident and personal interests that the war, the prop and credit of the whigs, their enemies, should finish immediately." Nor could this astute minister conceal his wonder at the unguarded manner in which this most unlooked-for concession was thrown at their heads:"They asked," he says, "from the king no sort of engagement-no, not so much as the shadow of an engagement. Gualtier had orders to be satisfied with a simple letter of compliment, by which it would be understood that the general proposition had been favourably received in France." The letter to lord Jersey was given by the command of the delighted king of France, and verbal assurances that Louis, justly irritated at the obstinacy of the Dutch, would only treat with them through the medium of England.

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avenging their party enmities on their country. The whigs had brought the war to a point from which able management might soon have crowned it with ample success; and the glory of that success must in a degree have remained with those who finished it well, and extorted from the enemy the proper amends. But no such honest sentiments animated the tory faction of those days. They were blinded by their party rancour to everything but crushing with disgrace and mortification their political opponents; and to do this they hastened to abandon their allies, to sweep away at a blow all the glories of Marlborough and their country— for the glory ceased when the utility ceased-and to lay up for posterity a fresh recurrence of the same insolence, aggression, and destructive domination from the same country. Providence alone, not to be defrauded of its righteous retributions, reserved to itself the execution of the merited punishment on France by avenging the nations upon her in the fearful revolution of 1789, the seeds of which were sown in the miseries and despotism entailed by the wars of Louis XIV.

So far as the English ministers were concerned, they now rushed on with all that reckless impetuosity of which wily It is evident that, notwithstanding all the ingenious politicians like Louis and De Torcy were sure to take every arguments which have been advanced to vindicate the con- advantage. Gualtier was authorised to write to De Torcy duct of the tory ministers on this occasion, that there never in the name of the English ministry, requesting his most was a more base and unpatriotic surrender of all the advan-Christian majesty would communicate to them the terms on tages won by England through the military genius of which he would feel disposed to make a general peace-just Marlborough. This great general was still in Flanders, and as if England and not France was at an extremity, and in a a very short time would have brought the news of his bril- condition not to dictate, but only accept of terms. Louis liant manoeuvre by which he entered the vauntedly impreg- was so general in his answer, that it was necessary for nable lines of the French, and of the conquest of Bouchain, Gualtier to make another journey to Versailles—thus giving the key to the lands of France. As it was, Louis, who never the idea that it was England rather than France which was omitted the slightest occasion to hang enormous pretensions all anxiety for a peace. Gualtier returned with certain proupon, was able to bring forward, with much boast, the positions, but Marlborough was now driving Villars before unfortunate battle of Almanza, and the surrender of the him, and was in possession of Bouchain, and prepared to British forces. Had the ministers been inspired by a just make himself master of Paris in another campaign. We were and honest desire of peace, they would, for the sake of the entitled to make the amplest demands, and our allies were reputation and the substantial advantages of England, have entitled to know what they were, and to enjoy the benefit at least concealed their eagerness for it, and awaited the of circumstances. Our ministers continued to negotiate overtures which, if they were properly informed of the con- without the Dutch and Germans, because they meant to dition of France, they must have known could not have been accept terms which they knew they would not condescend long deferred. Without seeming, on the one hand, to be to. But the intelligence of our proceedings soon reached weakly anxious for peace, or, on the other, displaying a the Hague, and the States-General quickly demanded an stubborn disposition to repel reasonable overtures for it, explanation, and at the same time announced again, through they would have sought to secure the best terms for them- Petikum, to De Torcy, that they were prepared to treat in selves and their allies. England had suffered much, though co-operation with England. The English ministers were not from invasion; Germany, Holland, and Flanders had thereupon compelled to communicate the French memorial suffered more, though they had not spent so much, through to the States-General. Lord Raby, our ambassador at the the invading armies of France, and all had a just claim for Hague, wrote, urging the necessity of keeping faith with compensation and redress. Louis had laid waste whole the Dutch, who were greatly incensed at our taking measures districts with fire and sword, especially where the unhappy for a peace without them, and apprising them that every inhabitants had been protestants, as in the case of the letter received from France conveyed the delight of the Palatinate; and he ought not to have been suffered to escape French in the prospect of being able to sow discord without being compelled to make recompence, if not in amongst the allies. The States soon informed the ministers money, in territory—a demand necessary to the future peace of England that they were quite prepared to go along with of Europe. Any English ministers, therefore, of whatever them in the treaty for peace, but they would insist on the party, ought to have stood by their allies from a principle of conditions being ample and satisfactory. In order to conjustice, and by their own country from both justice and vert lord Raby, our ambassador, into a devoted advocate of patriotism. Though the whigs had originated and carried our disgraceful and undignified policy, Mr. St. John wrote on the war, that was no motive, with honourable men, for to inform him that it was her majesty's pleasure that he

should come over to England, in order to make himself perfect master of the important subjects about to be discussed; and, as lord Raby was a Wentworth, nearly allied in descent to the earl of Strafford, who had lost his head in making himself head of his family, and had long been soliciting for himself the renewal of that title, St. John announced to him that, on his reaching London, it was her majesty's gracious intention to confer that honour upon him. This at once threw Raby into a fever of gratitude,

interests. The propositions which he brought from the queen as the basis of the peace were-That the Dutch should have a barrier in the Netherlands; the German empire another on the Rhine; that the duke of Savoy should receive back all towns or territories taken during the war; that proper protection should be obtained for the trade of England and Holland; that France should acknowledge the title of Anne and the protestant succession; that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed; that Gibraltar and

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and he made the most ardent professions of doing all in his Port Mahon should continue in our possession; that Newpower to serve her majesty. foundland and Hudson's Bay should also be acknowledged These obstacles to their entering into a disgraceful peace as ours, but that the French should be allowed to trade to being removed, Gualtier was once more dispatched to Ver-Hudson's Bay; that in all other respects France and Engsailles, and this time accompanied by Matthew Prior, a poet of some pretension and much popularity, but much more distinguished as a diplomatist. He had lived in France, knew the French and French court well, having been secretary to the embassies of the earls of Portland and Jersey. Prior was a man of courtly and insinuating manners, and was most thoroughly devoted to Harley and the tory

land should retain their possessions in America as they did before the war; that the Assiento, or contract for supplying the Spanish colonies of South America with slaves-which, had formerly been held by the Portuguese, but, since 1702, by the French-should be made over to England, with four towns on the Spanish main, anywhere betwixt the straits of Magellan and California, as depôts for the slaves when

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first brought over. This was the only paltry advantage with certain instructions wholly unknown to Prior and which these strange diplomatists of England asked for in Gualtier. These were, that an equivalent for the destrucrecompense of our enormous outlay and our enormous loss tion of the fortifications of Dunkirk was to be demanded; of men during the war the disgraceful distinction of being and that some towns in Flanders which the French had kidnappers-general for the Spaniards! This was the sole lost, particularly Lille and Tournay, should be restored. and scandalous benefit which Mr. Prior, a poet, and the These demands he was to keep very close, and only cautiously friend of Pope and Addison, dwelt upon as the recompense but firmly open to the principal negotiators. for all our labours and our enormous debt in defence of the liberties of Europe-the power to lay waste the liberties and persons of Africa! In return for this singular and Satanic modesty so far now from demanding the expulsion of Philip from the throne of Spain, much less that Louis should expel his grandson thence the queen of England was ready not only to leave him there but to maintain him there. And all this without consulting the emperor of Germany, whose right to this kingdom we had acknowledged, and which we had so often assured him and the world we would never give up! Prior particularly dwelt on the sacrifices the queen was making, the emperor having engaged, by secret treaties, to admit the flag of England in all the ports of South America as freely as the flag of Spain. But De Torcy, being now aware of the impatience of England for peace, and of the party motives for it, made very light of these vaunted sacrifices. He told Prior that these promised advantages were mere empty dreams; that Philip was firmly seated on the Spanish throne, and that neither Spain nor the colonies would ever fall into the hands of Austria. He appealed to him triumphantly whether it was desirable for the peace of Europe that they should; that Louis was ready to guarantee, as he had ever been, that the crowns of France and Spain should never rest on the same head; that this Charles of Austria was now become emperor of Germany, and that, if his sway were to extend over Spain, the Indies, Naples, Sicily, and Milan, nothing could be more ominous for Europe than such a gigantic power. Were the allies, he asked, desirous again to see the colossal empire of Charles V. revive, with all the tyrannies and desolations of Europe created by that monarch and Philip II.? that Charles had made no promise of keeping separate the Spanish kingdom, if he obtained it, from the kingdom of Austria and the empire; whereas Louis had engaged that France and Spain should never be united.

There was great force in these representations; and, as Charles was now emperor, the allies had a right to demand of him that the Spanish monarchy should pass to some other prince; though there was nothing like the danger to Europe from a union of Austria and Spain, considering their distance, that there was from a union of France and Spain, which would become one great and overwhelming empire; yet the precaution against the union of Austria and Spain was necessary, and, in any probability of such a union, must have been enforced. None of these reasons, however, warranted a peace which should leave Spain and all its colonies virtually in the power of France; and such was the peace Harley and the tories were aiming at.

As Prior and Gualtier had no powers warranting them to accept terms from France, M. Mesnager, an expert diplomatist, deputy from Rouen to the board of trade in Paris, was dispatched to London with the English envoys. They were to return in all secrecy, and Mesnager was furnished

An unluckly incident befel these three private negotiators on landing at Deal. The information of the journey to Paris of Prior and Gualtier had reached the vigilant ears of John Mackay, the master of the packet-boats, who had been placed in that position by king William and the whis and had enjoyed in that office a liberal share of the secret service money. This was the Mackay who in his memoirs has furnished us with so many lively accounts of the transactions of these times, being deeply in the secret of them. He had discovered many treasons and correspondences betwixt the Jacobites of England and the courts of Versailles and St. Germains. Mackay remained in his office, perhaps, by an oversight, for his services were no longer used by the present government; but St. John, Harley, and the rest, as we have seen, had their own channels of communication. Mackay, having now come upon the traces of Prior and Gualtier, informed St. John of it, who bade him take m notice of it, but look out for their return; supposing, m doubt, that Mackay would immediately apprise him of that fact, and that he could at once set all right with this vigilant official. Mackay soon after became aware of the landing of the two persons in question at Deal, accompanied by a third; and, hastening to Canterbury, he found that they were no other than his old acquaintance, Prior, the abbé Gualtier, and M. Mesnager, and, to his astonishment, that they were travelling with a pass from St. John. This, no doubt, let a light in upon Mackay, for he at once dispatched a letter to Marlborough at Bouchain, informing him of the circumstance, and at the same time rode off to Tunbridge to inform the bishop of Winchester and lord Aylmer that they might apprise the earl of Sunderland of it. The alarm spread, and Mackay being found to be the person who had discovered all this to the whigs, the vengeance of the ministry was let loose upon him. He was dismissed from his post, he was thrown into prison, his creditors being hounded out upon him; he was threatened with hanging by St. John for keeping a correspondence with France; and the unfortunate man was still lying in gaol on the accession of George I.

The secret negotiators were speedily liberated by their friends in power, and proceeded to London, but the secret was out that a treaty was on foot with France, and the general opinion was, that the ministers were bent on making peace on any terms. The government, nevertheless, kept the matter as much out of sight as possible. The queen sent Prior to apologise to Mesnager for his being received in so secret a manner, and Oxford, St. John, Jersey, and Shrewsbury were appointed to confer with him privately. On the 8th of October the English commissioners and Mesnager had agreed upon the preliminaries and signed them. Mesnager was then privately introduced to the queen at Windsor, who made no secret of her anxiety for peace, telling him she would do all in her power to complete

A.D. 1712. }

EXCITEMENT AT HOME AND ABROAD.

the treaty and live in good fellowship with the king of France, to whom she was so closely allied in blood. At supper she said publicly that she had agreed to treat with France. The ministers were just as incautious, for Swift, who was a devoted fortune hunter at the elbows of Harley and St. John, and had recently been introduced to the queen by them, was invited by St. John the same evening to sup with him and a small party in his apartments in Windsor Castle. This party consisted of no other persons than Mesnager himself, Gualtier, and the infamous Abbé Dubois, tutor to the young duke of Orleans, this profligate having also been engaged in assisting Mesnager in the treaty. With them was Prior. All these particulars Swift wrote, as he wrote everything, to Stella, his mistress in Ireland. Yet when the preliminaries were handed to count Gallas, the imperial ambassador, who, in his indignation, immediately had them translated and inserted in one of the daily papers, the queen was so indignant, that she forbade his reappearing at court, and informed him that he could quit the kingdom as soon as he thought proper. He departed immediately, and the queen, to prevent an explosion on the part of the allies, wrote to the emperor to say that she should be happy to receive any other person that he might send. Raby, now earl of Strafford, was hurried to the Hague to announce to the States the fact of her having signed these preliminaries, and to desire them to appoint a spot where the plenipotentiaries of the allies and France should meet to discuss them. Both the Dutch and the emperor were startled and greatly confounded at the discovery of the nature of the terms accepted. They used every means to persuade the queen to draw back and accept no terms except those which had been offered to France after the battle of Malplaquet, but rather to push on the war vigorously, certain that they must very soon obtain all they demanded.

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on one hand and the pretender on the other, was to be burnt in a great pyre at the foot of queen Elizabeth's statue, near Temple Bar. Swift, who was busy writing squibs and libels for the ministers, went to see these puppets, which he found figuring amid a crowd of other effigies of ministers, cardinals, Jesuits, and Franciscan friars placed round a great cross eighteen feet high.

But notwithstanding the violent opposition both at home and abroad, the ministers persisted in their course. The queen wrote to the electress Sophia of Hanover, entreating her and her son to use their exertions with the allies for the peace of Europe. She sent over the earl of Rivers to further her appeal; but the electoral prince, so far from dreading to endanger his succession, sent back a letter by earl Rivers to the queen, strongly condemning the terms on which the peace was proposed, and he ordered his ambassador, the baron von Bothmar, to present a memorial to the queen, showing the pernicious consequences to Europe of allowing Philip to retain Spain and the Indies. This bola and independent act greatly exasperated the queen and her ministers, and was extolled by the whigs. There had been attempts to influence the elector by offering him the command of the army in Flanders, in case of the removal of Marlborough, but that also he declined. Many of the tories were as much opposed to the terms of the treaty as the whigs, and it was proposed to unite in a strong remonstrance against the conduct of the ministers in being willing to accept them; but the intention getting wind, the queen suddenly prorogued parliament to the 7th of December, with the expectation of the arrival of absent Scottish peers, who were all tories, and a determination, if necessary, to create a batch of English tory peers. Notwithstanding all resistance, it was finally settled with the allies that their representatives should meet those of England and France, to treat for a general peace, at Utrecht, on the 1st of January, 1712.

Nor was the excitement less at home. The news was out -the preliminaries were before the public by the act of the The ministers, in the meantime, went on strengthening imperial ambassador, and the whigs were in a fury of indig- their position. Raby, now lord Strafford, whom Swift says nation. They accused the ministers of being about to was not worth the buying, being a man of no parts or sacrifice the country, its power, and interests, to a shameful learning, went to his post at the Hague. Sir Simon cowardice at the very moment that the labours and suffer- Harcourt was created baron Harcourt, and was raised from ings of years had brought it to the verge of triumph, and lord-keeper of the seal to lord chancellor; the duke of when Louis XIV. was old and tottering into the grave, Buckingham was appointed president of the council in the leaving his kingdom exhausted and powerless. The tories, room of lord Rochester, deceased; and was succeeded in his on the other hand, represented the whigs as insatiable for office of steward of the household by earl Paulet, who had war and bloodshed, never satisfied to obtain honourable quitted the treasury to make way for Harley's elevation to conditions when they could have them, but for their own the treasurership. The duke of Newcastle dying, Robinson, selfish and sanguinary views seeking to reduce this country bishop of Bristol, was made lord privy seal, a new thing for to the same depth of misery and poverty to which France a churchman since the days of Wolsey and Laud. In was reduced. The press teemed with pamphlets: libels, Scotland the Jacobites were so much elated by the proceedMesnager wrote, flew about as thick as bullets on a battle-ings of the tories, and by whispers of what really took place, field. The queen was in a great state of alarm and agitatation; fell several times into fainting fits, and her agitation aggravated the gout, with which she was affected. Hearing that the apprentices of London were going to burn all the ministry in effigy on "Queen Bess's day," she issued an order in council forbidding the usual procession and bon-advocates of Edinburgh to receive a medal of the pretender fires. The whigs had hired Tom D'Urfey to write a song for the occasion, with the refrain, "Save the Queen;" and the prime minister represented as the devil, with the pope

while Mesnager was in secret conference with the queennamely, a zealous advocacy on his part of the setting aside the protestant succession, and the readmission of the pretender's claims-that they proceeded to great lengths. They were in the end so daring as to induce the faculty of

from the same ardent duchess of Gordon who had sent him word to come when he pleased, and to what port he pleased, and that he would be well received. This medal had on

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