第88章 LETTER 8(30)

That Louis,who sought,and had need of seeking peace,almost at any rate,and who saw that he could not obtain it,even of the queen,unless Philip abandoned immediately the crown of Spain,or abandoned immediately,by renunciation and a solemn act of exclusion,all pretension to that of France;that Louis was desirous of the former,I cannot doubt.That Philip would have abandoned Spain,with the equivalents that have been mentioned,or either of them,I believe likewise,if the present king of France had died,when his father,mother,and eldest brother did;for they all had the same distemper.But Louis would use no violent means to force his grandson;the queen would not continue the war to force him;Philip was too obstinate,and his wife too ambitious,to quit the crown of Spain,when they had discovered our weakness,and felt their own strength in that country,by their success in the campaign of one thousand seven hundred and ten:after which my Lord Stanhope himself was convinced that Spain could not be conquered,nor kept,if it was conquered,without a much greater army than it was possible for us to send thither.

In that situation it was wild to imagine,as the Earl of Oxford imagined,or pretended to imagine,that they would quit the crown of Spain,for a remote and uncertain prospect of succeeding to that of France,and content themselves to be,in the mean time,princes of very small dominions.Philip,therefore,after struggling long that he might not be obliged to make his option till the succession of France lay open to him,was obliged to make it,and made it for Spain.Now this,my lord,was the very crisis of the negotiation;and to this point I apply what I said above of the effect of more decisive resolutions on the part of the queen.It was plain,that,if she made the campaign in concert with her allies,she could be no longer mistress of the negotiations,nor have almost a chance for conducting them to the issue she proposed.Our ill success in the field would have rendered the French less tractable in the congress:our good success there would have rendered the allies so.On this principle the queen suspended the operations of her troops,and then concluded the cessation.

Compare now the appearances and effect of this measure,with the appearances and effect that another measure would have had.In order to arrive at any peace,it was necessary to do what the queen did,or to do more:and,in order to arrive at a good one,it was necessary to be prepared to carry on the war,as well as to make a show of it:for she had the hard task upon her,of guarding against her allies,and her enemies both.But in that ferment,when few men considered any thing coolly,the conduct of her general,after he took the field,though he covered the allies in the siege of Quesnoy,corresponded ill,in appearance,with the declarations of carrying on the war vigorously,that had been made,on several occasions,before the campaign opened.It had an air of double dealing;and as such it passed among those,who did not combine in their thoughts all the circumstances of the conjuncture,or who were infatuated with the notional necessity of continuing the war.

The clamor could not have been greater,if the queen had signed her peace separately:and,I think,the appearances might have been explained as favorably in one case,as in the other.From the death of the emperor Joseph,it was neither our interest,nor the common interest,well understood,to set the crown of Spain on the present emperor's head.As soon therefore as Philip had made his option,and if she had taken this resolution early,his option would have been sooner made,I presume that the queen might have declared,that she would not continue the war an hour longer to procure Spain for his Imperial majesty;that the engagements,she had taken whilst he was archduke,bound her no more;that,by his accession to the empire,the very nature of them was altered;that she took effectual measures to prevent,in any future time,an union of the crowns of France and Spain,and,upon the same principle,would not consent,much less fight,to bring about an immediate union of the Imperial and Spanish crowns;that they,who insisted to protract the war,intended this union;that they could intend nothing else,since they ventured to break with her,rather than to treat,and were so eager to put the reasonable satisfaction,that they might have in every other case without hazard,on the uncertain events of war;that she would not be imposed on any longer in this manner,and that she had ordered her ministers to sign her treaty with France,on the surrender of Dunkirk into her hands;that she pretended not to prescribe to her allies;but that she had insisted,in their behalf,on certain conditions,that France was obliged to grant to those of them,who should sign their treaties at the same time as she did,or who should consent to an immediate cessation of arms,and during the cessation treat under her mediation.There had been more frankness,and more dignity in this proceeding,and the effect must have been more advantageous.

France would have granted more for a separate peace,than for a cessation:

and the Dutch would have been more influenced by the prospect of one,than of the other;especially since this proceeding would have been very different from theirs at Munster,and at Nimeguen,where they abandoned their allies,without any other pretence than the particular advantage they found in doing so.A suspension of the operations of the queen's troops,nay a cessation of arms between her and France,was not definitive;and they might,and they did,hope to drag her back under their,and the German yoke.This therefore was not sufficient to check their obstinacy,nor to hinder them from making all the unfortunate haste they did make to get themselves beaten at Denain.