第75章 LETTER 8(17)

Though we had refused,before the war began,to enter into engagements for the conquest of Spain,yet as soon as it began,when the reason of things was still the same,for the success of our first campaign cannot be said to have altered it,we entered into these very engagements.By the treaty wherein we took these engagements first,Portugal was brought into the grand alliance;that is,she consented to employ her formidable forces against Philip,at the expense of England and Holland,provided we would debar ourselves from making any acquisitions,and the house of Austria promised,that she should acquire many important places in Spain,and an immense extent of country in America.By such bargains as this,the whole confederacy was formed,and held together.Such means were indeed effectual to multiply enemies to France and Spain;but a project so extensive and so difficult as to make many bargains of this kind necessary,and necessary for a great number of years,and for a very uncertain event,was a project into which,for this very reason,England and Holland should not have entered.It is worthy your Observation,my lord,that these bad bargains would not have been continued,as they were almost to our immediate ruin,if the war had not been protracted under the pretended necessity of reducing the whole Spanish monarchy to the obedience of the house of Austria.Now,as no other confederate except Portugal was to receive his recompense by any dismemberment of dominions in Old or New Spain,the engagements we took to conquer this whole monarchy had no visible necessary cause,but the procuring the accession of this power,that was already neuter,to the grand alliance.This accession,as I have said before,served only to make us neglect immediate and certain advantages,for remote and uncertain hopes;and choose to attempt the conquest of the Spanish nation at our own vast expense,whom we might have starved,and by starving reduced both the French and them,at their expense.

I called the necessity of reducing the whole Spanish monarchy to the obedience of the house of Austria,a pretended necessity:and pretended it was,not real,without doubt.But I am apt to think your lordship may go further,and find some reasons to suspect,that the opinion itself of this necessity was not very real,in the minds of those who urged it:in the minds I would say of the able men among them;for that it was real in some of our zealous British politicians,I do them the justice to believe.Your lordship may find reasons to suspect perhaps,that this opinion was set up rather to occasion a diversion of the forces of France,and to furnish pretences for prolonging the war for other ends.

Before the year one thousand seven hundred and ten,the war was kept alive with alternate success in Spain;and it may be said,therefore,that the design of conquering this kingdom continued,as well as the hopes of succeeding.

But why then did the States General refuse,in one thousand seven hundred and nine,to admit an article in the barrier treaty,by which they would have obliged themselves to procure the whole Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria,when that zealous politician my Lord Townshend pressed them to it?If their opinion of the necessity of carrying on the war,till this point could be obtained,was real;why did they risk the immense advantages given them with so much profuse generosity by this treaty,rather than consent to an engagement that was so conformable to their opinion?