Page images
PDF
EPUB

guides. For many years the Paris of Louis XIV and the Hague of his opponents had formed confronting capitals, and Britain had cemented the coalition. Now a novel uncertainty prevailed in France: the Whigs, save when they spoke with the accent of Hanover, had turned from war to peace; the Dutch computed that with another league and another war their trade would shrink to their meadows.1 Sweden was tottering; Spain, showing an unwonted vigour; Prussia, under the strange guidance of a new King, was multiplying armaments; above all, Russia under Peter was thrusting herself into Europe. Estimates not only of what was wise but of what was possible differed almost beyond belief. Some wiseacres saw in Russia a northern star which, rightly used, might preserve the liberties of Europe.2 Horace Walpole reckoned France as the equal of the Sea Powers and Austria combined, while a French statesman held that Spain and the Emperor were great Powers but England no more than second-rate.1 Among his British contemporaries some were ready to share his estimate of their country, while Pitt could rally the nation to an overweening self-regard and to an energy which made it invincible. A cynic surveying Europe, indeed, might declare that the only constant forces were the hereditary hatreds between State and State. Gulliver proudly proclaimed our noble country the scourge of France. Danes and Swedes preferred the advent of the Muscovite to union. Portugal, regardless of the future, welcomed an opportunity to injure Spain. The Italians hated all foreigners, the Germans above the rest. Prussia and Hanover, Prussia and Saxony, Prussia and Austria were normally at bitter feud. The French submitted in most matters to their King, but they would not endorse an alliance with the Habsburgs. So deeply did such antipathies enter into the European system that hints at a rapprochement between two traditional enemies sounded like blasphemy and anarchy in the ears of other Powers.

66

In such a Europe, Britain, with Hanover bound round her neck, must strive for wealth and safety. Her position in the world now far surpassed what her acreage or her numbers seemed to warrant. Posterity", thought Voltaire in the 'twenties, "will very possibly be surprised to hear that an island whose only produce is a little lead, tin, fuller's earth and coarse wool should become so powerful by its commerce as to...send...three fleets at the same time to three different...parts of the globe." The last war had produced a favourable trade-balance of nearly £3,000,000 yearly, and had enabled Britain to wrest more industries and markets from the French. But

1 Wiesener, L., Le Régent, p. 215.

2 Walpole, H., Memoirs of the reign of King George II, п, 134.

3 Cf. Wiesener, p. 93.

4 Vaucher, P., Robert Walpole et la politique de Fleury, 1731–1742, p. 149.

Swift, J., Works (London, 1801), VI, 115.

6 Letters concerning the English nation, p. 69.

7 Anderson, III, 49, 56.

INTERNATIONAL POSITION OF GREAT BRITAIN 355

in the long run, commerce must depend upon international good-will, and this necessity, as well as the Stuart threat, spoke strongly for a policy of peace. Even if peace could be preserved, a Power which had so recently deserted its allies and passed its rivals would find it difficult enough to secure their good-will, in an age in which Colbert's truculent temper still prevailed. In any event elementary prudence dictated that Britain should keep up her fleet. To build ships was not difficult, but sources of naval stores must be kept open, and Baltic questions therefore assumed a large importance.1 If war threatened, the problem of naval man-power would become acute. It might be solved for a time by impressing the crews of merchantmen, but inevitably commerce would thereby be partially suspended. Since the profit from a British stoppage must fall to the Dutch, it became a canon of British policy to embark on no adventure from which the Dutch refrained. Timid as were the Dutch, however, they realised that no Power could harm them more than Britain, and that none had a greater interest in defending the Austrian Netherlands, the bulwark of both nations against France. These considerations made the decision of a sluggish, suspicious and divided federation fall usually in favour of the British cause, and gave some countenance to the comparison of Holland to a cockboat in the wake of Britain. But the Dutch were nothing less than warlike, and the peril of Britain demanded readiness for war. To avert it, and to gain her other ends, she needed the alliance of some great continental Power.

The Power that could help her most directly was beyond all question Spain, for Spain owned the lands with which Britain most desired to trade. By sea Spain could be a useful auxiliary; her strategic position was important; her army had ceased to be contemptible; the precious metals were in her gift; she stood committed to no alliance. "I could have war with France in twenty-four hours,' said Stanhope, "but a war with Spain would cost me my head.”2 From Spain, moreover, came voices breathing an unwonted liberality. "God", it was said, "has committed the Indies to the trust of the Spaniards that all nations might partake of the riches of that new world; it is even necessary that all Europe should contribute towards supplying...that vast empire with their manufactures and their merchandizes." Frank alliance with Spain, however, was impossible so long as Gibraltar and Minorca remained in British hands. The pride, the slowness and the fanaticism of the Spaniards, moreover, had survived their change of dynasty. Even their Bourbon King was heard to assure his Queen that one of his first acts as King of France would be to drive the Jansenists out of the country. Above all, in

1 Cf. Albion, R. G., Forests and Sea Power, pp. viii seqq.

2 Cf. Robertson, C. G., England under the Hanoverians, p. 11.

* Monteleone to Craggs, cit. History of Alberoni (1719), p. 174.

Williams, B., "The foreign policy of Walpole", E.H.R. xvi, 324, citing Keene's despatch.

defiance of compacts, for many years after the death of Louis XIV (1 September 1715), this same Philip V was a potential pretender to the throne of France, while the Emperor regarded him as an actual pretender to the throne of Spain. The Spanish alliance could, therefore, offer no guarantee of international good-will, nor could it furnish a sure shield against the Stuart threat to Britain.

The Emperor, now the slow, proud, obstinate, orthodox Habsburg Charles VI, with Eugène as his right-hand man, represented our traditional counterweight to France. His commercial interests nowhere clashed with ours, unless, as some experiments already hinted,1 his new domain in the Netherlands might tempt him towards commerce overseas. Apart from such plans, his dominion over Italy might be expected to further our Mediterranean trade, while our security depended in no small degree upon that of Antwerp and the Belgian coast. Of soldiers he had only too many, and his difficulty in maintaining them British gold could solve. "The old system", leaguing the Sea Powers, the Emperor and their clients, therefore, still had much to recommend it, provided that Britain and not Britain-Hanover determined its policy, and provided that the latent enemy of all its members continued to be found in France. In 1716 by the Treaty of Westminster, therefore, we covenanted with the Emperor for mutual defence.

4

But must France remain our enemy? "I will always traverse the views of France," ran Carteret's creed, "for France will ruin this nation if it can." The words of a less literate peer, "I hate the French, and I hope as we shall beat the French", like Pitt's computation that our gains were multiplied fourfold by their injury to France, breathed the feeling which, regardless of the close FrancoBritish intellectual co-operation, pervaded Britain during the whole of the eighteenth century and was warmly reciprocated across the Channel. In a monarchic age, however, a union of hearts might be dispensed with as the concomitant of a political alliance. Even granting that the permanent interests of France and Britain-prestige, industry, commerce, colonies, the lordship of the Low Countries, the ascendancy in Spain and Italy-even if all these clashed, might not a temporary entente be to their mutual advantage? The answer depended upon the view taken by the French ruler. To Britain, provided that the balance of power were not permanently overthrown, the advantages of working for a time with France were clear. France alone could cripple the Pretender, as perhaps she alone could make him really dangerous. This by itself was enough to outweigh all adverse considerations. But France was a great customer of Britain, 1 About 1714, with interloping ships from England and Holland. Cf. Anderson, 62.

III,

2 Williams, B., Life of Pitt, p. 99.

3 Hervey, Memoirs, 1, 42.

Hotblack, K, Chatham's Colonial Policy, p. 68.

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE OF 1717

357 and a dangerous commercial rival, to be handled, if possible, in like manner with the Dutch. Her influence abroad, notably in the Levant, her unsurpassed diplomacy, her unrivalled army-from all of these her ally might look for help. Surprises were the less likely that the old French hostility against Austria, "the poisoner of the Latin races",1 remained unabated, while her old hostility against Spain was revived in the breasts of some by the pretensions of the King of Spain to her succession. And, as our statesmen gleefully reflected, since the British connection was loathsome to the French people, the ruler who made it for his own purposes would depend on it and on themselves. This is not the place to describe the calculations of the French regent, Orleans, or of his minister Dubois, for whom George I secured as the price of his assistance the Archbishopric of Cambrai, nor can the involved negotiations in the several centres be followed out. It is sufficient to record that in January 1717, the compact was framed which linked France, Britain and the Dutch into a Triple Alliance for preserving the peace of Europe on the lines laid down four years earlier. The Hanoverian Succession and the regency of Orleans thus gained the support of the best army and the best fleets in Europe, backed, as was computed, by nearly one-half of Europe's current cash. The policy embodied in the Triple Alliance was destined during sixteen years of unexampled complexity to avert the evil which seemed always imminent-the outbreak of a general war. It is significant that in such a compact between three of the four colonial Powers of the world the colonies though implicitly guaranteed are not specifically named. How little they were regarded by the rulers of France in comparison with their own security became manifest in the amazing French career of Law. In August 1717 Louisiana was lightly handed to a Scottish adventurer who promised to make France rich. The tobacco monopoly, the Senegal, East India, China and African Companies followed. Within two years, it might be said French commerce outside Europe was in his hands. Another year (1720) and the bubble burst. It had shown how shallow by comparison with the Dutch and English were the roots of the French Companies, and it had suggested that if the French Government remained inactive British colonists and merchants had little to fear from France.4

3

The Triple Alliance, produced as it was by clear and simple needs of State, may be rightly regarded by posterity as the outstanding event in a period of European peace. To the actors in them, however, the years that followed the death of Louis XIV seemed anything but peaceful, and politics had never been more obscure. How could Britain think of empire while at any moment a fresh European 1 Castelar, cit. Duff, M. E. G., Miscellanies, p. 270.

2 Cf. Wiesener, Le Régent. Based on British records.

Cf. Anderson, ш, 85.

• Weber, H., La compagnie française des Indes (1604-1875), p. xv and passim.

combination might overturn her throne? And how could her ministers ensure the prevalence of a national policy when the King, despite his dynastic interests, was indispensable? Until the close of 1718, at least, the student of British imperial history must stare at the kaleidoscope of Europe.

In the summer of 1715, wrote a contemporary, "the Levant was covered with ships of war. The Sultan, judging well that he could not maintain himself upon the throne if he did not find employment for his militia,...fell upon the Venetians....France, in a state of minority, was the only Kingdom that remained neuter".1 For the pre-eminent result of the Sultan's move was to embroil the Emperor, already at loggerheads with the Dutch and living in a state of latent hostility against Spain. The ambitions of Spain forced him to garrison Italy, while the separatist aspirations of his Protestant subjects in Hungary constantly taxed his strength. Until the victories of Eugène brought the triumphant peace of Passarowitz in 1718, British statesmen watched with anxiety the fluctuations of the Emperor's power. But their distraction due to south-eastern Europe was as nothing in comparison with that arising in the north during the final flight of "that military meteor" Charles XII. The amazing adventures with which he had filled the whole century, and the no less amazing career of Peter, had brought about a Baltic situation which of itself was perplexing enough for Britain. Sweden was the Protestant missionary nation and our commercial friend. But should she be encouraged in clinging to her eastern Baltic provinces against Russia and Poland, to her southern Baltic provinces against the North German States, to her provinces on the Weser and the Sound against their neighbours in Germany and Denmark? Most urgent of all, what should be our attitude with regard to the intrusion into civilised Europe of Russia, an unattractive Power, but one very difficult to assail, and mistress, if her success continued, of those naval stores upon which British armaments mainly depended? The problem was made still more difficult by the "obstinacy and inveteracy" of Charles XII, who vetoed our commercial intercourse with Baltic ports which his enemies had held for many years and seized our merchantmen who disobeyed. The difficulty was increased when the professional soldiers freed by Utrecht flocked round the foremost captain of the age, and when he found in the Holsteiner Count Goertz a volunteer but omnipotent minister who could contrive to pay them. It was increased tenfold by the compromising manœuvres of the British King in the interest of his Hanoverian possessions. It is neither necessary nor edifying to trace the steps by which his electoral troops had occupied Bremen and Verden.3 What concerned Britain was that these Swedish fiefs

1 History of Cardinal Alberoni, p. 80.

2

2 Townshend to Stanhope, Nov. 1716, cit. Coxe, Walpole, 11, 121.
3 Cf. Chance, J. F., op. cit., passim.

« PreviousContinue »