In Spain, however, an influence prevailed-that of the Italian Queen-which could be pacified only by the complete satisfaction of her demands. Italy, she resolved, must be freed from the Habsburg by the assignment of principalities to her sons. No true peace with Britain, moreover, was possible while Gibraltar and Minorca remained ours. Vivacious, persistent and domineering, while her husband was often melancholy and apathetic, she devoted the force of Spain for twenty years to the fulfilment of these aims, which were crowned with rare success. Her foremost opponent was of course the Emperor, who possessed in full the Habsburg appetite for lands in Italy, and believed himself unjustly excluded from the throne of Spain. In 1722, however, his policy was swayed by his desire to realise other and still dearer plans. By a family law known as the Pragmatic Sanction, he had so varied the succession to his miscellaneous dominions that, if he should leave no son, his daughter, Maria Theresa, would be heir of all. To secure the endorsement of this new Austria by all Powers domestic and foreign became the constant, costly and successful object of his life. The Pragmatic Sanction, however, would extinguish the hereditary claims of several princes, including the King of Spain. At the same time, the Emperor's acquisition of the Netherlands inevitably drew his attention to the injustice of the treaty fetters by which, for the profit of the Sea Powers, these industrial regions were still restrained from oceanic trade. In an age in which the South Seas promised boundless profit, while the Dutch East India Company had paid 24 per cent. over a hundred successive years, the impecunious Emperor clutched at schemes which might enrich all his dominions from Trieste to the northern sea. If Antwerp must remain stifled for the advantage of Amsterdam, Ostend might serve his purpose, and British speculators, shut out from lawful commerce with the Indies, were eager to provide ships and funds. In December 1722, to the infinite concern of the Sea Powers, the Ostend Company was established. Penalties were promptly denounced against participation by British subjects, but within a year the spirit of the East India Company was reported to be so broken that it would neither offer tea for sale nor make exports the next season. While the Sea Powers were invoking treaties of 1648 and 1670 to prove the Ostend Company illegal, a congress assembled at Cambrai to settle the differences between the Emperor and Spain. Distrusting congresses, however, the Emperor, by a supreme feat of Viennese bureaucracy, contrived to delay the formal opening until January 1724.3 In the meantime three events had happened of moment to Walpole and to Britain. The failure, through popular clamour, of the Irish coinage scheme known as "Wood's halfpence" had shown both the insecurity of the Govern2 Governor Harrison, cit. Coxe, Walpole, 11, 266. 1 Anderson, III, 149. 3 Williams, B., E.H.R. xv, 484. THE RETURN OF BOLINGBROKE 365 ment and its moderation. The return of Bolingbroke, thanks to a stout bribe to the King's Hanoverian mistress, had provided the opposition with an inexhaustible fountain of ideas. “All they say”, Walpole declared in 1734, "was only a repetition of the words he has put into their mouths, and a spitting out that venom which he has infused into them."1 "With as much ambition, as great abilities, and more acquired knowledge than Caesar",2 but, as his victim protested, a natural liar,3 Bolingbroke constituted henceforth a standing threat to Walpole, such as must increase his caution, tax his strength, and deter him more than ever from looking far afield. And the return of Bolingbroke coincided with the deaths of the French authors of the entente, who were succeeded by the far less able Duke of Bourbon. The Cambrai Congress, when it actually met, lacked the necessary moral force to stabilise the peace. When it separated, Europe seemed to stand on the verge of a general war, perhaps even a war of religion. For in April 1725 Spain and the Emperor had agreed to join hands and had concluded the first Treaty of Vienna. Forces which ultimately numbered some 387,000 men could be arrayed to uphold the Pragmatic Sanction and the Ostend Company, to wrest Gibraltar, Minorca and commercial privilege from Britain, to restore the power of Spain in Italy, and, as seemed hardly doubtful, to oppress the German Protestants and to restore the Catholic Stuarts. All this was to be consolidated by a great marriage between the Habsburg and the Spanish Bourbon lines, threatening to issue in a power superior to that of Charles V. The Emperor's views appeared to British statesmen "as dangerous to Europe in general and to our country in particular as ever those of Louis XIV". It was characteristic of an age in which a nameless alchemist could be taken by princes and diplomats for the Wandering Jew,5 that this vast Treaty of Vienna should be the work of Ripperdà, a boastful Dutch adventurer, serving the adventuress who was Queen of Spain. Its general cause lay in the conviction of both Spain and Austria that only by thus menacing Europe could they obtain what the Congress would not give. Its particular occasion lay in the abrupt return by Bourbon of the destined bride of Louis XV, an Infanta not yet seven years of age. "The Bourbons", declared the insulted Queen, "are a race of devils" -(to her husband) "except your Majesty." The new allies deluded themselves with the belief that by offering a commercial monopoly to the British people they could regain Gibraltar and seduce Britain away from France. Failing this, Hanover lay open to the Emperor's forces, and Russia, even after Peter's death, might be induced to join with Sweden in establishing the Pretender. 1 Coxe, Walpole, 1, 421. 2 Goldsmith in his edition of Bolingbroke's Works (London, 1809), 1, lxx. Coxe, Walpole, 11, 344. Ibid. II, 494, citing Townshend. 7 Coxe, Walpole, 1, 252. Weber, K. von, Aus vier Jahrhunderten, pp. 306 seqq. 'Ewald, A. C., Sir Robert Walpole, p. 187. Britain, however, stood firm by the side of France, and met the Spanish threat by a squadron in the West Indies. To safeguard Hanover, she concluded in its capital a treaty which in time embraced the Sea Powers, France, Prussia and both the Scandinavian States. To support the Treaty of Hanover, even after the scandalous defection of Prussia in 1726, some 315,000 men could be arrayed, while the Emperor's need of great garrisons in Hungary and Italy, and the difficulty of moving Spanish troops by sea, made such a force superior even on land to that of the Vienna combination. British fleets simultaneously menaced Spain, cooped up her treasure galleons in the West Indies, and entered the Baltic to hold Russian and all other enemies in check.1 "In this perplexed, entangled and amphibious state of broken peace and undeclared war",2 changes in the government of France were of the utmost moment. The Duke of Bourbon, who had thought to control the young King by an amazing marriage with the daughter of the exiled Stanislaus of Poland, quarrelled in 1726 with Louis' aged tutor, and found himself quietly supplanted. At seventy-three, the obscure bishop known to history as Cardinal Fleury thus acquired a power greater than that of Richelieu or Mazarin, and earned the nickname "Your Eternity" by retaining it for more than sixteen years. He has been judged as variously by posterity as by those who knew him. It seems probable that he loved to exercise his right to do everything himself, and desired that no more business should present itself than an old man could transact; that as an ecclesiastic he had learned the value of humility, resignation and a Mazarin's “soft and purring gentleness";3 that while he disliked self-assertive young colleagues, he realised that a Chauvelin might serve him as an invaluable Jorkins; that he could play the garrulous dotard to perfection and deliberately produced that strange mixture of sham secrets, feigned trust and sudden coldnesses which made it almost impossible to divine his game". He equalled Walpole in appreciating the benefit of time and detesting unnecessary violence, but while the insular politician abhorred continental entanglements, Fleury understood the profit that diplomacy may bring when wielded with real penetration. For the moment his strength was to sit still, while the contradictions inherent in the AustroSpanish league brought about its ruin. Whatever momentary irritation or specious diplomacy during the "mad year" 1725 might dictate, the Emperor and the Queen of Spain could not sincerely cooperate in Italy, nor could they defy the Sea Powers in the field of commerce, nor could the Emperor desire a Bourbon son-in-law to succeed himself. Britain's pride and self-will might be trying, but with time and patience France would come into her own. 66 1 Cf. Chance, Instructions (Denmark), pp. 68 seqq. 3 Macdonald, J. R. M., A history of France, II, 179. ▲ Vaucher, p. 158. 2 Hervey, Memoirs, 1, 87. FLEURY, WALPOLE AND GEORGE II 367 In February 1727, Spain actually declared war on Britain, but its languid course showed only the hollowness of the Vienna league and the strength of the opposition. The timely death of the Emperor's chief ally, Catharine I of Russia, helped on the cause of peace. It was agreed to adjourn the disputes and to discuss them at a new Congress next year. Before the Congress met, at Soissons, the sudden death of George I had brought about the confirmation and enlargement of Walpole's power. His new sovereign, after first giving him the lie and his dismissal, was brought by Queen Caroline and a sense of his own interests to become his unconscious disciple and his steadfast friend. Inferior to his father in weight and vision, George II resembled him in love for Hanover and in hatred for his heir. The one made him zealous for the imperial alliance; the other had the curious effect of safeguarding the dynasty by providing the disaffected with a cynosure who was not a Stuart. The Hanoverian dynasty, however, was still far from popular, nor the Emperor yet available as its ally, while, in October 1728, tidings of Louis' smallpox evoked brisk movements on the part of Philip for claiming the succession to his throne. Fleury, Walpole and George II therefore remained at one in prolonging the entente, despite the complaints of French merchants, British planters, and diplomats and statesmen of both nations. Fleury, like Walpole, desired peace, but no French statesman could be expected to base the peace of Europe upon a guarantee of the aggrandised House of Habsburg. Since the Emperor stood out for the Pragmatic Sanction or nothing, the Congress of Soissons failed, and the next European combination embodied another revolution. Spain, resolute to re-enter Italy, and disillusioned by Vienna, achieved her purpose by accepting the yoke of Britain. In November 1729, at Seville, she flung over her imperial ally with his Ostend Company and collective guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, accepting from the Sea Powers and France the succession in Tuscany, Parma and Piacenza, with the right to send 6000 Spanish troops to hold them. Before the Treaty of Seville was signed, the birth of a dauphin, frustrating Philip's hopes of the succession, had removed the greatest barrier between France and Spain. The next great move for a broadbased peace, however, came from Britain. No treaty, it might well seem, could have insulted the Emperor more than that of Seville, whereby his opponents combined with his faithless ally for the forcible disposal of imperial fiefs. In the spring of 1730, the Duke of Newcastle imagined French, Hessians, Danes, British, Hanoverians and Dutch marching on Austria to safeguard the Spanish cause in Italy.1 Yet, within eleven months, a second great Treaty of Vienna was in being (March 1731) whereby the Sea Powers, soon joined by Spain, won over the Emperor by guaranteeing the Pragmatic Sanction. In the 1 To Harrington and Poyntz. Cf. Coxe, Walpole, п, 681. negotiations, conducted with haste and stealth for fear of France, Britain had been amazingly hampered by the "little, low, partial, electoral notions" of her King, who demanded as the price of the treaty judicial decisions by the Emperor in favour of Hanover. Their successful conclusion in the second Treaty of Vienna seemed to crown the diplomatic campaign of Britain under Walpole for peace. In support of our own Pragmatic Sanction, the Act of Settlement, we had now secured the guarantee of the Emperor, France and Spain, while Spain was bound to give privileges to our commerce, and all possible competitors in their several ways to refrain from interference. In 1732 we felt strong enough to veto a Spanish project for independent eastern trade, and to establish our new colony of Georgia on the very edge of Spain's occupied territories in Florida. The basis of the new settlement was philanthropic, though Franklin derided the prospects of an agricultural colony of "insolvent debtors taken out of the jails", and the prohibition of negro slaves and of great estates soon broke down. But France and Spain could hardly ignore the threat to themselves in a settlement which trespassed on their provinces and furnished in Savannah an obvious strategic menace to their fleets. 2 Queen Caroline was right, however, in comparing the political combinations of Europe to the South Sea Bubble, which everyone knew was a cheat but entered to snatch a profit.3 Two years sufficed to burst the second bubble of Vienna. In 1733 France discovered that she could not look on unmoved while the eastern Powers disposed of the vacant throne of Poland. Louis cheerfully informed those who thronged the ceremony of his lever on 14 October that his troops had crossed the Rhine. By the end of November, France, Spain and Sardinia were in arms to coerce the Emperor, and Britain must tremble for Gibraltar, commerce and prestige.5 Could she stand by with folded arms while Europe was shaped by others? Walpole was determined that the War of the Polish Succession should not become a war of the British Succession, and the nation did not disagree. The ministry, weakened by the failure of the Excise bill, had rallied opinion by betrothing Princess Anne to the Prince of Orange. This stroke, however, offended the anti-monarchic Dutch, who instantly drew near to France. Thus reassured, the Emperor's threat to evacuate the Netherlands could not stir them to action, and without Dutch co-operation it would be madness for Britain to venture upon war. In 1734 and 1735 the Emperor, with Russian help, had his way in Poland, where the Saxon Augustus drove Louis' father-in-law from the throne. The Rhenish and Italian campaigns, however, went against him, and Don Carlos of Spain was crowned 1 Coxe, Walpole, II, 535, citing Horace Walpole the elder. 2 Smyth, A. H., Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 1, 355: Robertson, C. G., op. cit. p. 33. 5 Coxe, Walpole, III, 147. 4 Vaucher, p. 74. |