had accomplished the principal objects of the Quadruple Alliance, many points still remained to be adjusted, especially between Spain and the Emperor; and for this purpose a congress was appointed to meet at Cambray. The history of this meeting furnishes an instructive lesson to diplomatists. Two years elapsed before preliminaries were so far adjusted as to allow the congress to assemble; Charles and Philip, the late rivals for the Spanish throne, seemed as widely opposed as ever, and neither could be brought to renounce the titular sovereignty of the countries which he had agreed to abandon. Then the maritime powers had a quarrel with the Emperor about his Ostend Company; and fresh difficulties arose, even on the part of the Pope, in the way of the provision for Don Carlos, by which peace had been purchased. These were so far removed as to allow the congress to meet in 1724, but not without a fresh guaranty on the part of France and England.* Then more disputes about titles, and a contest between the two successors of Charles V. for the sovereignty of the ancient order of the Golden Fleece.

These were formidable difficulties, but the allies must interfere still further, and recommend a wife to the young king, Louis XV. A Spanish infanta was selected, and actually sent to Paris, whence she was sent back by the French minister, who chose rather to marry his master to the daughter of King Stanislaus of Poland. And then it appeared how a small and personal matter might overturn the speculations of wise politicians. The Queen of Spain became indignant, and commenced a clandestine negociation with her enemy the Emperor, broke off the congress, and became the close ally of the house of Austria. The queen and her upstart minister, Ripperda, discovered that Charles VI. had an object to which he was not less devoted than was Elizabeth Farnese herself to the aggrandizement of her son. The King of Spain became the first power in Europe who guaranteed the pragmatic sanction, whereby the Austrian dominions were to pass to the Emperor's daughter, and thus, each gratified in its favourite object, the courts of Vienna and Madrid became intimate friends, and turned upon the allies, who had vainly attempted to reconcile them before. The Emperor agreed to support Spain, at least by good offices, in her endeavours to recover Gibraltar from England; and Spain gave to Austria commercial privileges, at which English and Dutch were equally offended.

Such were the stipulations of the treaty of Vienna ;† it was suspected at the time that there were others, hostile to the in† April 30, 1725.

* Jan. 24, 1724.

It was

terests of England and of the house of Hanover. suspected that a match was in contemplation between Don Carlos and Maria Theresa; that the Emperor was to assist Spain in recovering Gibraltar by force, and that the Pretender was to be aided in his attempts upon the British throne. Heeren, differing from Archdeacon Coxe,* deems these suspicions erroneous. But England and France were alarmed, and induced Prussia to join in a treaty at Hanover,† for counteracting the alliance of Vienna. That alliance was strengthened by the accession of Russia, while the Hanover allies obtained Denmark. Prussia seceded, having a separate intrigue with the Emperor, for some personal object in the empire, and Sweden joined first the one and then the other alliance. Thus Europe was divided into two great confederacies; England, now entirely separated from Austria, belonged to that in which France also was found.§

There were indications of war, but none actually ensued. England sent squadrons to the West Indies, the Mediterranean. and the Baltic, but without orders to commence hostilities: and, although Spain laid siege to Gibraltar, the pacific dispositions of Walpole and Fleury averted war altogether. Charles VI. suspended his Ostend Company, and an armistice was concluded for seven years.|| Other matters were to be settled at Soissons, where another congress met, to afford fresh proofs of the instability of political affairs. France and England contrived to estrange Spain from Austria, and the union now was England, France, and Spain! These powers made at Seville ¶ a treaty of defensive alliance and guaranty. The all-important provision for Don Carlos was not forgotten. It was stipulated that Spanish troops should occupy his intended duchies.

Now, the Emperor was enraged, and perhaps not without

* Austria, ch. 87.

+ Sept. 3, 1725. There was a guaranty of all possessions, a defensive alliance for fifteen years, a guaranty of the treaties of Westphalia and Oliva. Heeren calls it the treaty of Herrenhausen.

‡ August, 1726, she joined the Vienna allies, and guaranteed the pragmatic sanction.

§ When these treaties were laid before Parliament, it was objected by the Tories, that they bound England to go to war for the king's German dominions, contrary to the Act of Settlement; whereupon it was resolved, on the motion of Henry Pelham, to assure the king that the house would "support his majesty against all insults and attacks that any prince or power, in resentment of the just measures which his majesty had so wisely taken, shall make against any of his majesty's territories or dominions, though not belonging to the crown of Great Britain." This would have been very right, if the king's "just measures" had reference only to the interests of Great Britain. Feb. 16, 1726.-Parl. Hist. viii. 506. The Lords voted a similar address.

Prelim. of Paris, 31 May, 1727.

Nov. 9, 1729; Holland acceded on 21st. George I. had been succeeded by George II. on 22d June, 1727.

reason, at the defection of his new ally; and, on the death of the Duke of Parma, whose succession had been guaranteed to the Spanish prince, he seized that duchy. France now attached herself more closely to Spain; Elizabeth Farnese, instead of relying upon the allies of Seville, declared that she was no longer bound by that treaty. The friendship between England and France grew cool; the ministers of the courts of London and the Hague negociated in the Austrian capital for the concerns of Spain, without the participation of the court of Versailles. From this negociation arose the second treaty of Vienna,* by which Austria and England were once more united. The Emperor, the Queen of Spain, and the maritime powers, severally obtained their pet objects. Charles procured the reversion of his hereditary dominions for his daughter; Elizabeth Farnese, the Italian duchies for her son; England and Holland, the abolition of the Ostend Company.

The interference of England," says Heeren in reviewing the reign of George I.,t" was manifestly attended with beneficial results to the whole political system of Europe. The preservation of peace was its object, and peace was either maintained or restored," 1, by the Quadruple Alliance, and the defeat of the schemes of Alberoni; 2, by terminating, through the intervention of England, the war in the North, and especially by maintaining Sweden as an independent state. We have already expressed our qualified concurrence in Heeren's approbation of the interference of England in the Mediterranean. As to the North, it is remarkable that Heeren does not mention, in his narrative, the occurrence to which he apparently refers in this summary, namely, the resistance offered in 1719 by the British fleet in the Baltic to the Czar Peter, when, in alliance with Denmark, he was ravaging the coasts of Sweden. Sir John Norris § joined the Swedes, and the Russians retired without meeting the combined fleet. Denmark was persuaded to make peace, but the treaty of Nystadt between Russia and Sweden, which was not accomplished until after an interval of two years, deprived Sweden of several of her provinces. It is not easy to reconcile Heeren's own remark || on the attempts which England now made to resist Russia,—her unwarranted reliance upon her navy,--and the advantage which she derived from the progress of Russia,--with his present view of her effectual interference on behalf of Sweden.

The beneficial effects of George's policy Heeren sums up thus-1. The security of the Hanover succession: 2. High consideration in the political system of Europe: 3. Peace. Yet

*16 March, 1731.

He probably means to include the earlier years of George II. + P. 288. § Mahon, vol. i. p. 529.

See ante, p. 156.

"

under each head he has some misgivings. He sees it possible that the interference of George I. on the continent may be said to have produced the attacks upon his throne. And he admits that particularly in the last six years of his reign, his interference assumed the character of over-activity, without, at the same time, maintaining that stability which is the indispensable condition of all alliances; and moreover that measures were adopted, which nothing but a concurrence of fortunate circumstances prevented from causing disastrous consequences. He ascribes too to this period the illusion, that England could accomplish more than was really possible by her fleets and by her subsidies. In short, he almost gives up this diplomatic reign as an illustration of his theory. For, although he does not qualify his boast of the "high consideration" which England maintained, we may safely pronounce our own judgment, that that policy could not raise the character of England to any beneficial purpose, which provoked the hostilities which it resisted; formed alliances which were in their nature unstable; set an exaggerated value upon its means; and only by accident preserved peace and averted disaster.

Among the precipitate measures which in Heeren's opinion would have led to great evils, if it had not been followed by a train of fortunate circumstances, the principal is the Hanover treaty, which separated England from Austria, "the only continental power in the south of Europe with which it could be connected by any permanent interests."* The consequence was the union of Prussia with Austria, for various private objects; and war was prevented only by the appointment of the pacific Fleury to the administration in France, while Walpole was still minister of England.

It appears to us that the probability of war arose from the treaty of Vienna and not from that of Hanover. Nor does the justification of the Hanover treaty rest altogether upon the existence of the secret articles. There was enough in what was immediately published, to show that Spain and Austria had united their interest with no friendly feeling towards England. And we are surprised that our professor, an advocate of the balancing theory, should find fault with England for drawing closer the ties of her alliance with France, and also forming one with Prussia-those being the two powers most likely and most competent to assist her in a war with Spain and Austria. True it is that Prussia soon deserted this new alliance, although other powers joined it. Upon the principles which we are endeavour

VOL. XIX. NO. XXXVII.

* P. 286, 292.

M

ing to establish, the Hanover treaty may be condemned, but it was surely quite en règle; and, though we admit that it did no good, we cannot perceive that it did any harm; or that it added to the probability of war. If England is chargeable with deserting Austria, the desertion is to be dated from the last four years of Queen Aune. From that time, although they had acted together in the Quadruple Alliance, there had been no cordiality between the two powers. Austria was now induced, as it is supposed, by corruption, to make other friends. She quitted England, not England her.

The Austrian alliance is chiefly valuable to England when she is at war with France. At this time, England had no quarrel with her ancient rival; and it is the opinion, strongly expressed, of Heeren himself, that "it was peculiarly our good understanding with that power which was of infinite service to the Hanover succession in this emergency."-p. 290.

The following remarks are too striking to be omitted.

"England was now in friendship with all the world, without possessing a single true friend in the political sense of the term. She had engaged herself in a tissue of treaties, out of which it seemed scarcely possible she should extricate herself. Had she been prepared to fulfil all her engagements, scarcely a war could have arisen in any quarter of Europe in which she would not have been implicated; nay, in which she would not have been obliged to furnish auxiliaries in several quarters at once." -p. 296.

The elective crown of Poland now produced a war from which England with difficulty kept herself clear. The emperor, united with Russia and Prussia, espoused the cause of the Elector of Saxony, because he wished to obtain his guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction. France, Spain, and Savoy took the part of the abdicated King Stanislaus Leczinski. All writers condemn Charles VI. for thus provoking the hostility of the house of Bourbon. His Italian dominions were soon overrun and now England began to feel the inconvenience of her alliances and guarantees. Heeren says truly, that our treaty with the emperor was defensive only; but the line between defence and offence is not precisely drawn; the belligerent and the neutral put different constructions upon the treaty; and so it happened now. Charles VI. invoked the treaty of Vienna, but Walpole temporized. It does not appear that he distinctly admitted or denied the occurrence of the casus fœderis; but he offered mediation instead of co-operation. The United Provinces were also parties to the alliance; he was, perhaps, justified in refusing to act without them, for this is another practice incident to alliances, comprehending more than two parties. Is one party bound to assist another, whilst the third party to the treaty refuses? If