第73章 LETTER 8(15)

A prince of the house of Austria might have been on the spot,before the king of Spain died,to gather his succession;but instead of this,a prince of the house of Bourbon was there soon afterwards,and took possession of the whole monarchy,to which he had been called by the late king's will,and by the voice of the Spanish nation.The councils of England and Holland therefore preferred very wisely,by their engagements in the grand alliance,what was more practicable though less eligible,to what they deemed more eligible,but saw become by the course of events,if not absolutely impracticable,yet an enterprise of more length,more difficulty,and greater expense of blood and treasure,than these nations were able to bear.or than they ought to bear,when their security and that of the rest of Europe might be sufficiently provided for at a cheaper rate.If the confederates could not obtain,by the force of their arms,the ends of the war,laid down in the grand alliance,to what purpose would it be to stipulate for more?And if they were able to obtain these,it was evident that,whilst they dismembered the Spanish monarchy,they must reduce the power of France.This happened;the Low Countries were conquered;the French were driven out of Germany and Italy:and Louis the Fourteenth,who had so long and so lately set mankind at defiance,was reduced to sue for peace.If it had been granted him in one thousand seven hundred and six,on what foot must it have been granted?The allies had already in their power all the states that were to compose the teasonable satisfaction for the emperor.I say,in their power.because though Naples and Sicily were not actually reduced at that time,yet the expulsion of the French out of Italy,and the disposition of the people of these kingdoms,considered,it was plain the allies might reduce them when they pleased.The confederate arms were superior till then in Spain,and several provinces acknowledged Charles the Third.If the rest had been yielded to him by treaty,all that the new plan required had been obtained.If the French would not yet have abandoned Philip,as we had found that the Castilians would not even when our army was at Madrid,all that the old plan,the plan of the grand alliance required,had been obtained;but still France and Spain had given nothing to purchase a peace,and they were in circumstances,not to expect it without purchasing it.They would have purchased it,my lord:and France,as well as Spain,would have contributed a larger share of the price,rather than continue the war,in her exhausted state.Such a treaty of peace would have been a third treaty of partition indeed,but vastly preferable to the two former.The great objection to the former was drawn from that considerable increase of dominion,which the crown of France,and not a branch of the house of Bourbon,acquired by them.I know what may be said speciously enough to persuade,that such an increase of dominion would not have augmented,but would rather have weakened the power of France,and what examples may be drawn from history to countenance such an opinion.I know likewise,that the compact figure of France,and the contiguity of all her provinces,make a very essential part of the force of her monarchy.Had the designs of Charles the Eighth,Louis the Twelfth,Francis the First,and Henry the Second,succeeded,the dominions of France,would have been more extensive,and I believe the strength of her monarchy would have been less.I have sometimes thought that even the loss of the battle of St.Quentin,which obliged Henry the Second to recall the Duke of Guise with his army out of Italy,was in this respect no unhappy event.But the reasoning which is good,I think,when applied to those times,will not hold when applied to ours,and to the case I consider here;the state of France,the state of her neighbors,and the whole constitution of Europe being so extremely different.The objection therefore to the two treaties of partition had a real weight.The power of France,deemed already exorbitant,would have been increased by this accession of dominion in the hands of Louis the Fourteenth:and the use he intended to make of it,by keeping Italy and Spain in awe,appears in the article that gave him the ports on the Tuscan coast,and the province of Guipuscoa.This king William might,and,I question not,did see;but that prince might think too,that for this very reason Louis the Fourteenth would adhere,in all events,to the treaty of partition:and that these consequences were more remote,and would be less dangerous,than those of making no partition at all.The partition,even the worst that might have been made,by a treaty of peace in one thousand seven hundred and six,would have been the very reverse of this.France would have been weakened,and her enemies strengthened,by her concessions on the side of the Low Countries,of Germany and Savoy.If a prince of her royal family had remained in possession of Spain and the West Indies,no advantage would have accrued to her by it,and effectual bars would have been opposed to an union of the two monarchies.The house of Austria would have had a reasonable satisfaction for that shadow of right,which a former partition gave her.She had no other after the will of Charles the Second:and this may be justly termed a shadow,since England,Holland,and France could confer no real right to the Spanish succession,nor to any part of it.She had declined acceding to that partition,before France departed from it,and would have preferred the Italian provinces,without Spain and the West Indies,to Spain and the West Indies without the Italian provinces.The Italian provinces would have fallen to her share by this partition.The particular demands of England and Holland would have suffered no difficulty,and those that we were obliged by treaty to make for others would have been easy to adjust.