whether our foreign affairs might not have been managed, at other periods also, without that continued reference to this rivalry with France, which others, besides Heeren, regard not so much as an historical fact as a political principle. To say that our continental relations were now fixed, is indeed a bold flight of theory above the regions of fact! V.* George I. II. III. to the French Revolution, 1714-1789. Notwithstanding the remark with which he concludes the preceding section, on the fixedness of our foreign relations, Heeren tells us very truly, that "the continental interests of England became closer and more complicated under the House of Hanover." The Peace of Utrecht had left us without intimate connexions, though our alliance with the United Provinces and with Portugal were still in force. But England now commenced an extensive course of alliances, upon the origin and tendency of which we cannot entirely agree with our author. ver. Professor Heeren is a subject of the King of Hanover, and a knight of the Guelphic Order. We believe that this order, according to its statutes, is to be conferred upon those persons only who have rendered signal services to the kingdom of HanoHeeren earns his star and riband by a confident rejection of the opinion entertained by English politicians,—that, during the reigns of George I. and George II., the interests of Hanover constituted the main foundation of the policy of England. It is, perhaps, from being hampered by this partial feeling, that Heeren is less clear than usual in his history of the transactions of 17141720. He ascribes the long chain of political connexion" which that period introduced, altogether to the existence of a Pretender. Great vigilance, certainly, and the cultivation of powerful friendships, were required by a circumstance which gave the only possible chance of success to a hostile invasion of England; and thus may some of the alliances of this period be justified. But we must look elsewhere to account for the creation of new points of contact and the provocation of new enmities, which characterized the policy of our first German king. It was obviously probable that an enemy of England would make common cause with the Pretender; but it will soon appear, that powers which had no thought of quarrelling with England espoused the cause of the Pretender to the English throne, because they had a quarrel with the Elector of Hanover, who *P. 258. happened to be also King of England. This truth, indeed, Heeren appears in the sequel to suspect. We ascribe, in some measure, to electoral politics, even the first alliance which George I. made; it might have been from a desire to have powerful allies in case of an attack from France and the Pretender, that he entered into a defensive league with the Emperor; but the imperial confirmation of the purchase of Bremen and Verden, and with that view, the conciliation of the court of Vienna, were probably motives equally powerful with the Elector-King. At all events, no good resulted from this commencement of the voluminous diplomacy of George I., for, within one year, he made another treaty of alliance, which gave great umbrage to his imperial friend. This was the Triple Alliance between England, the States, and France. France was now, in the revolution of affairs, allied with England, for the purpose of enforcing against Spain the stipulations of the treaty of Utrecht, brought about by our contest with France and Spain jointly! It is easy to account for this unwonted connexion, by the particular circumstances in which the two branches of the House of Bourbon were placed; and to regard these circumstances as fortuitous accidents which happened to counteract the dangerous tendency of the Peace of Utrecht. The grand projects of Alberoni, the more immediate occasion of the union with France,his schemes for displacing the Regent, and securing to Philip V. the preferable succession to the crown of France; for dethroning George I.; and for recovering the lost possessions of Spain,had assuredly not been foreseen. But the opposing interests of the houses of Anjou and Orleans were not entirely unforeseen; || * P. 289. The treaty of 6 Feb. 1716, with the Dutch, was a renewal of the former alliance. To this treaty of renewal an article was added (Koch and Schoell, ii. 177), stipulating that the casus fœderis should be deemed to exist, not only when one of the two allies should be attacked, à main armée, but when a neighbour should make preparations for war against either of them, or should threaten them, either by extraordinary levies, or in any other manner, so that the ally should be obliged, by just apprehensions, also to arm. To this article, says Koch, England appealed in 1779. (Anu. Reg. p. 422, 429.) 25 May, 1716. Horace Walpole says, that France proposed this alliance; and offered to stipulate for the neutrality of the Low Countries, in the event of a war with the Emperor; whereupon Townshend said, "None but France, who is used to contrive such amusing schemes, could pretend to propose to stipulate with a third power a neutrality for dominions belonging to another, who may not consent to it. For what could such a convention between the French and the Dutch signify, if the Emperor, who is master of the country, should not think it for his interests to second it!"-Coxe's Sir R. Walpole, i. 89. Although we cannot immediately find it in the un-indexed correspondence of Bolingbroke, we are confident that he laid stress upon this expected rivalry. and it was in the nature of things that the new King of Spain should become more and more of a Spaniard, and that all the ordinary causes of jealousy should operate, under the Bourbon, as under the Austrian, dynasty. Granted, however, that the community of interests with the government of France was an event upon which we could not reckon,-the more improbable such an occurrence was, the more strongly does it illustrate the uncertainty of political speculations, and the consequent impolicy of contracting engagements adapted to only one state of affairs. Assuredly, the Triple Alliance arose out of English interests. Heeren takes great pains to prove that certain transactions with the northern powers, which shortly preceded it, were equally English in their origin. Carrying us back to the latter years of the seventeenth century, he tells us, that England had usually sided with Denmark in her wars with Sweden, which did not prevent the Danes from joining with Holland against her-(how many more such instances will satisfy us?)-in the war which was terminated at Breda. In 1700, England had mediated and guaranteed a peace between the two northern powers, at Travendahl.* During the wars of Queen Anne, England attended little to the North, only watching lest Sweden should join her enemies. When she resumed her attention to northern affairs, after the Peace of Utrecht, a new power had acquired importance, namely, Russia. And a question, as Heeren says, arose, or as, perhaps, would be said more correctly, might have arisen, in what point of view was England to regard the growth of Russia, in reference to her own interests? We know not how or when this question was discussed in an English cabinet; but this country was soon involved in the affairs of the North, by a transaction which Heeren labours hard to connect rather with English than with German politics. In a war between Sweden and Denmark, in which, notwithstanding our treaties, we had taken no part, the Danes had obtained possession of Bremen and Verden, part of the German possessions of Sweden. These duchies Sweden sold to Hanover in 1715, by a treaty which also stipulated that George, as Elector of Hanover, should declare war against Sweden. And to support this war, George, now also King of England, sent a British squadron to join the Danes in the Baltic. England, it is true, had, or made, some complaints against Sweden for unexplained impediments put in the way of her Baltic trade; but the expedition had no reference to these. The quarrel with Sweden * There was also a defensive alliance between England and Sweden, not only for mutual defence, but for the preservation of the tranquillity of Europe,- (Koch, xiii. p. 172.) was German, and German only. The Czar now attacked Mecklenburg and threatened Denmark, and we thus became embroiled with Russia also. Charles XII. imitated Alberoni in uniting with the Jacobites; the war against him thus became defensive of English interests, but it was not the less German in its origin. The Elector of Hanover made the enemy, and the King of England fought him. The projects of the king of Sweden were soon defeated by the seizure of his treacherous minister, Gyllenberg; and the death of Charles himself followed.* The new government of Sweden made peace with George, confirmed the sale of Bremen and Verden, and made an alliance with him as King of England, especially directed against Russia.† After an attempt to show that Bremen and Verden, from their favourable position in respect of the English intercourse with Germany, were valuable acquisitions to England,-(which position, to be true, must suppose the politics of England and Hanover to be always identified,) -Heeren admits that, in this alliance against Russia, England undertook what she was not able to perform. Nor, indeed, does he conceive that the repression of Russia was desirable, inasmuch as her growing prosperity afforded a fresh market for the manufactures of England, while she furnished the English navy with ship-building materials in abundance.--England, he adds, became passive in the north, until Russia began to take part in the west and south of Europe. The Triple Alliance was justified by the peculiar circumstances of the time. So far, indeed, as it provided for the execution of the late treaties of peace, it would have been right at any time. England ought not only to preserve her own faith inviolate, but to see that no stipulation, to which she is a party, is broken or evaded. This scrupulous estimate of the inviolability of compacts affords a powerful reason against making them. It might be added, that the stipulations which were now in danger were just of that sort which England, as a maritime power, could most easily enforce. Nothing but the disputed title to the throne justifies, as we conceive, the other stipulation of the treaty,-the engagement for reciprocal support in case of attack; and this justification rests, not so much upon the value of the expectation of succour from France, as upon the importance of securing the friendship, or rather, averting the enmity, of the Regent. The arms and the diplomacy of England were, on this occasion, equally successful. In pursuance of his project, for counteracting the stipulations of Utrecht, Alberoni sent a Spanish force to *Dec. 11, 1718. + Koch, vol. xiii. p. 288. seize Sardinia, and in the next year Sicily, the respective allotments of the Houses of Austria and Savoy. England, France, the Emperor, and (after some unwillingness) Holland, united in a quadruple alliance, for enforcing terms of peace. Sicily was now assigned to Austria, and Sardinia to Savoy; Spain and Savoy were to have three months to accede, and on failure, to be forced into compliance. A particular stipulation in these terms of peace, exhibits the minuteness of the interference into which England was led by her interposition in the affairs of Spain. A settlement in Italy, namely, Tuscany, Parma, and Placentia, in reversion, were assigned to Don Carlos, the son of the second wife of Philip V., and from this time, as it has been truly observed, it would appear that Europe had no more important interest than that of procuring a sovereignty for the son of an ambitious and intriguing queen.* As Spain would not agree to these terms, a war ensued, short and decisive. Our naval victories in the Mediterranean† had the greatest share in obliging the King of Spain to accede to the terms; and, on the whole, although forced transfers of territory are never commendable, the transaction set forth in a favourable light the power of England and her navy. It has been said, that the instructions to Admiral Byng were exchanged against the investiture of Bremen and Verden; but they certainly might have emanated from a council in which King William or Lord Godolphin presided.‡ But now came the rage for alliances, which distinguishes the period. France and Spain, Spain and England, these two powers and France, all bound themselves in 1720 and 1721 by mutual guarantees, from which, as usual, England derived no advantage. Even to Heeren, the policy of England during the latter year of George I. exhibits "no fixed plan of proceeding;" and he notices the ignorance of the real designs of foreign courts, which has often been ascribed to English governments. But he admits that, while the policy of the continental states was complicated, and dictated by personal motives, the guiding principle of British policy was the maintenance of peace. Although the treaties between France, Spain, and England *Koch, vol. ii. p. 171. + Especially that off Cape Passaro, Aug. 11, 1718. Although we have been led perhaps further into the question of Hanoverian influence than our plan required, we have abstained from the consideration of ministerial and party politics as affected by that influence. For the most authentic and pleasing, as well as the most recent narrative of occurrences in the time of George I., we would refer to the first volume of Lord Mahon's History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht to that of Aix-la-Chapelle. |