That dexterous and eloquent statesman had two objects in view. One was

to obtain for the State, as the price of the monopoly, a sum much larger

than the Old Company was able to give. The other was to promote the

interest of his own party. Nowhere was the conflict between Whigs and

Tories sharper than in the City of London; and the influence of the City

of London was felt to the remotest corner of the realm. To elevate the

Whig section of that mighty commercial aristocracy which congregated

under the arches of the Royal Exchange, and to depress the Tory section,

had long been one of Montague's favourite schemes. He had already formed

one citadel in the heart of that great emporium; and he now thought that

it might be in his power to erect and garrison a second stronghold in a

position scarcely less commanding. It had often been said, in times of

civil war, that whoever was master of the Tower and of Tilbury Fort was

master of London. The fastnesses by means of which Montague proposed

to keep the capital obedient in times of peace and of constitutional

government were of a different kind. The Bank was one of his fortresses;

and he trusted that a new India House would be the other.

The task which he had undertaken was not an easy one. For, while his

opponents were united, his adherents were divided. Most of those who

were for a New Company thought that the New Company ought, like the Old

Company, to trade on a joint stock. But there were some who held that

our commerce with India would be best carried on by means of what is

called a regulated Company. There was a Turkey Company, the members of

which contributed to a general fund, and had in return the exclusive

privilege of trafficking with the Levant; but those members trafficked,

each on his own account; they forestalled each other; they undersold

each other; one became rich; another became bankrupt. The Corporation

meanwhile watched over the common interest of all the members, furnished

the Crown with the means of maintaining an embassy at Constantinople,

and placed at several important ports consuls and vice-consuls, whose

business was to keep the Pacha and the Cadi in good humour, and to

arbitrate in disputes among Englishmen. Why might not the same system be

found to answer in regions lying still further to the east? Why should

not every member of the New Company be at liberty to export European

commodities to the countries beyond the Cape, and to bring back shawls,

saltpetre and bohea to England, while the Company, in its collective

capacity, might treat with Asiatic potentates, or exact reparation

from them, and might be entrusted with powers for the administration of

justice and for the government of forts and factories?

Montague tried to please all those whose support was necessary to him;

and this he could effect only by bringing forward a plan so intricate

that it cannot without some pains be understood. He wanted two millions

to extricate the State from its financial embarrassments. That sum he

proposed to raise by a loan at eight per cent. The lenders might be

either individuals or corporations. But they were all, individuals and

corporations, to be united in a new corporation, which was to be called

the General Society. Every member of the General Society, whether

individual or corporation, might trade separately with India to an

extent not exceeding the amount which such member had advanced to the

government. But all the members or any of them might, if they so thought

fit, give up the privilege of trading separately, and unite themselves

under a royal Charter for the purpose of trading in common. Thus the

General Society was, by its original constitution, a regulated company;

but it was provided that either the whole Society or any part of it

might become a joint stock company.

The opposition to the scheme was vehement and pertinacious. The Old

Company presented petition after petition. The Tories, with Seymour at

their head, appealed both to the good faith and to the compassion of

Parliament. Much was said about the sanctity of the existing Charter,

and much about the tenderness due to the numerous families which had,

in reliance on that Charter, invested their substance in India stock. On

the other side there was no want of plausible topics or of skill to use

them. Was it not strange that those who talked so much about the Charter

should have altogether overlooked the very clause of the Charter on

which the whole question turned? That clause expressly reserved to

the government power of revocation, after three years' notice, if the

Charter should not appear to be beneficial to the public. The Charter

had not been found beneficial to the public; the three years' notice

should be given; and in the year 1701 the revocation would take effect.

What could be fairer? If anybody was so weak as to imagine that the

privileges of the Old Company were perpetual, when the very instrument

which created those privileges expressly declared them to be terminable,

what right had he to blame the Parliament, which was bound to do the

best for the State, for not saving him, at the expense of the State,

from the natural punishment of his own folly? It was evident that

nothing was proposed inconsistent with strict justice. And what right

had the Old Company to more than strict justice? These petitioners

who implored the legislature to deal indulgently with them in their

adversity, how had they used their boundless prosperity? Had not the

India House recently been the very den of corruption, the tainted spot

from which the plague had spread to the Court and the Council, to the

House of Commons and the House of Lords? Were the disclosures of 1695

forgotten, the eighty thousand pounds of secret service money disbursed

in one year, the enormous bribes direct and indirect, Seymour's

saltpetre contracts, Leeds's bags of golds? By the malpractices which

the inquiry in the Exchequer Chamber then brought to light, the Charter

had been forfeited; and it would have been well if the forfeiture had

been immediately enforced. "Had not time then pressed," said Montague,

"had it not been necessary that the session should close, it is probable

that the petitioners, who now cry out that they cannot get justice,

would have got more justice than they desired. If they had been called

to account for great and real wrong in 1695, we should not have had them

here complaining of imaginary wrong in 1698."

The fight was protracted by the obstinacy and dexterity of the Old

Company and its friends from the first week of May to the last week in

June. It seems that many even of Montague's followers doubted whether

the promised two millions would be forthcoming. His enemies confidently

predicted that the General Society would be as complete a failure as the

Land Bank had been in the year before the last, and that he would in the

autumn find himself in charge of an empty exchequer. His activity and

eloquence, however, prevailed. On the twenty-sixth of June, after many

laborious sittings, the question was put that this Bill do pass, and was

carried by one hundred and fifteen votes to seventy-eight. In the upper

House, the conflict was short and sharp. Some peers declared that, in

their opinion, the subscription to the proposed loan, far from amounting

to the two millions which the Chancellor of the Exchequer expected,

would fall far short of one million. Others, with much reason,

complained that a law of such grave importance should have been sent up

to them in such a shape that they must either take the whole or throw

out the whole. The privilege of the Commons with respect to money bills

had of late been grossly abused. The Bank had been created by one money

bill; this General Society was to be created by another money bill. Such

a bill the Lords could not amend; they might indeed reject it; but to

reject it was to shake the foundations of public credit and to leave

the kingdom defenceless. Thus one branch of the legislature was

systematically put under duress by the other, and seemed likely to

be reduced to utter insignificance. It was better that the government

should be once pinched for money than that the House of Peers should

cease to be part of the Constitution. So strong was this feeling that

the Bill was carried only by sixty-five to forty-eight. It received

the royal sanction on the fifth of July. The King then spoke from the

throne. This was the first occasion on which a King of England

had spoken to a Parliament of which the existence was about to be

terminated, not by his own act, but by the act of the law. He could

not, he said, take leave of the Lords and Gentlemen before him without

publicly acknowledging the great things which they had done for his

dignity and for the welfare of the nation. He recounted the chief

services which they had, during three eventful sessions, rendered to

the country. "These things will," he said, "give a lasting reputation to

this Parliament, and will be a subject of emulation to Parliaments which

shall come after." The Houses were then prorogued.

During the week which followed there was some anxiety as to the result

of the subscription for the stock of the General Society. If that

subscription failed, there would be a deficit; public credit would be

shaken; and Montague would be regarded as a pretender who had owed his

reputation to a mere run of good luck, and who had tempted chance

once too often. But the event was such as even his sanguine spirit had

scarcely ventured to anticipate. At one in the afternoon of the 14th

of July the books were opened at the Hall of the Company of Mercers in

Cheapside. An immense crowd was already collected in the street. As

soon as the doors were flung wide, wealthy citizens, with their money

in their hands, pressed in, pushing and elbowing each other. The guineas

were paid down faster than the clerks could count them. Before night six

hundred thousand pounds had been subscribed. The next day the throng was

as great. More than one capitalist put down his name for thirty thousand

pounds. To the astonishment of those ill boding politicians who were

constantly repeating that the war, the debt, the taxes, the grants to

Dutch courtiers, had ruined the kingdom, the sum, which it had been

doubted whether England would be able to raise in many weeks, was

subscribed by London in a few hours. The applications from the

provincial towns and rural districts came too late. The merchants of

Bristol had intended to take three hundred thousand pounds of the stock,

but had waited to learn how the subscription went on before they gave

their final orders; and, by the time that the mail had gone down to

Bristol and returned, there was no more stock to be had.

This was the moment at which the fortunes of Montague reached the

meridian. The decline was close at hand. His ability and his constant

success were everywhere talked of with admiration and envy. That man, it

was commonly said, has never wanted, and never will want, an expedient.

During the long and busy session which had just closed, some interesting

and important events had taken place which may properly be mentioned

here. One of those events was the destruction of the most celebrated

palace in which the sovereigns of England have ever dwelt. On the

evening of the 4th of January, a woman,--the patriotic journalists

and pamphleteers of that time did not fail to note that she was a

Dutchwoman,--who was employed as a laundress at Whitehall, lighted a

charcoal fire in her room and placed some linen round it. The linen

caught fire and burned furiously. The tapestry, the bedding, the

wainscots were soon in a blaze. The unhappy woman who had done the

mischief perished. Soon the flames burst out of the windows. All

Westminster, all the Strand, all the river were in commotion. Before

midnight the King's apartments, the Queen's apartments, the Wardrobe,

the Treasury, the office of the Privy Council, the office of the

Secretary of State, had been destroyed. The two chapels perished

together; that ancient chapel where Wolsey had heard mass in the midst

of gorgeous copes, golden candlesticks, and jewelled crosses, and that

modern edifice which had been erected for the devotions of James and

had been embellished by the pencil of Verrio and the chisel of Gibbons.

Meanwhile a great extent of building had been blown up; and it was hoped

that by this expedient a stop had been put to the conflagration. But

early in the morning a new fire broke out of the heaps of combustible

matter which the gunpowder had scattered to right and left. The guard

room was consumed. No trace was left of that celebrated gallery which

had witnessed so many balls and pageants, in which so many maids of

honour had listened too easily to the vows and flatteries of gallants,

and in which so many bags of gold had changed masters at the hazard

table. During some time men despaired of the Banqueting House. The

flames broke in on the south of that beautiful hall, and were with great

difficulty extinguished by the exertions of the guards, to whom Cutts,

mindful of his honourable nickname of the Salamander, set as good an

example on this night of terror as he had set in the breach of Namur.

Many lives were lost, and many grievous wounds were inflicted by the

falling masses of stone and timber, before the fire was effectually

subdued. When day broke, the heaps of smoking ruins spread from Scotland

Yard to the Bowling Green, where the mansion of the Duke of Buccleuch

now stands. The Banqueting House was safe; but the graceful columns and

festoons designed by Inigo were so much defaced and blackened that their

form could hardly be discerned. There had been time to move the most

valuable effects which were moveable. Unfortunately some of Holbein's

finest pictures were painted on the walls, and are consequently known to

us only by copies and engravings. The books of the Treasury and of the

Privy Council were rescued, and are still preserved. The Ministers

whose offices had been burned down were provided with new offices in the

neighbourhood. Henry the Eighth had built, close to St. James's Park,

two appendages to the Palace of Whitehall, a cockpit and a tennis court.

The Treasury now occupies the site of the cockpit, the Privy Council

Office the site of the tennis court.

Notwithstanding the many associations which make the name of Whitehall

still interesting to an Englishman, the old building was little

regretted. It was spacious indeed and commodious, but mean and

inelegant. The people of the capital had been annoyed by the scoffing

way in which foreigners spoke of the principal residence of our

sovereigns, and often said that it was a pity that the great fire had

not spared the old portico of St. Paul's and the stately arcades of

Gresham's Bourse, and taken in exchange that ugly old labyrinth of dingy

brick and plastered timber. It might now be hoped that we should have

a Louvre. Before the ashes of the old palace were cold, plans for a new

palace were circulated and discussed. But William, who could not draw

his breath in the air of Westminster, was little disposed to expend

a million on a house which it would have been impossible for him

to inhabit. Many blamed him for not restoring the dwelling of his

predecessors; and a few Jacobites, whom evil temper and repeated

disappointments had driven almost mad, accused him of having burned it

down. It was not till long after his death that Tory writers ceased to

call for the rebuilding of Whitehall, and to complain that the King of

England had no better town house than St. James's, while the delightful

spot where the Tudors and the Stuarts had held their councils and their

revels was covered with the mansions of his jobbing courtiers. [9]

In the same week in which Whitehall perished, the Londoners were

supplied with a new topic of conversation by a royal visit, which, of

all royal visits, was the least pompous and ceremonious and yet the most

interesting and important. On the 10th of January a vessel from Holland

anchored off Greenwich and was welcomed with great respect. Peter the

First, Czar of Muscovy, was on board. He took boat with a few attendants

and was rowed up the Thames to Norfolk Street, where a house overlooking

the river had been prepared for his reception.

His journey is an epoch in the history, not only of his own country, but

of our's, and of the world. To the polished nations of Western Europe,

the empire which he governed had till then been what Bokhara or Siam is

to us. That empire indeed, though less extensive than at present, was

the most extensive that had ever obeyed a single chief. The dominions of

Alexander and of Trajan were small when compared with the immense

area of the Scythian desert. But in the estimation of statesmen that

boundless expanse of larch forest and morass, where the snow lay deep

during eight months of every year, and where a wretched peasantry could

with difficulty defend their hovels against troops of famished wolves,

was of less account than the two or three square miles into which were

crowded the counting houses, the warehouses, and the innumerable masts

of Amsterdam. On the Baltic Russia had not then a single port. Her

maritime trade with the other rations of Christendom was entirely

carried on at Archangel, a place which had been created and was

supported by adventurers from our island. In the days of the Tudors, a

ship from England, seeking a north east passage to the land of silk and

spice, had discovered the White Sea. The barbarians who dwelt on the

shores of that dreary gulf had never before seen such a portent as a

vessel of a hundred and sixty tons burden. They fled in terror; and,

when they were pursued and overtaken, prostrated themselves before the

chief of the strangers and kissed his feet. He succeeded in opening a

friendly communication with them; and from that time there had been a

regular commercial intercourse between our country and the subjects

of the Czar. A Russia Company was incorporated in London. An English

factory was built at Archangel. That factory was indeed, even in the

latter part of the seventeenth century, a rude and mean building. The

walls consisted of trees laid one upon another; and the roof was of

birch bark. This shelter, however, was sufficient in the long summer day

of the Arctic regions. Regularly at that season several English ships

cast anchor in the bay. A fair was held on the beach. Traders came from

a distance of many hundreds of miles to the only mart where they could

exchange hemp and tar, hides and tallow, wax and honey, the fur of the

sable and the wolverine, and the roe of the sturgeon of the Volga, for

Manchester stuffs, Sheffield knives, Birmingham buttons, sugar from

Jamaica and pepper from Malabar. The commerce in these articles was

open. But there was a secret traffic which was not less active or less

lucrative, though the Russian laws had made it punishable, and though

the Russian divines pronounced it damnable. In general the mandates of

princes and the lessons of priests were received by the Muscovite with

profound reverence. But the authority of his princes and of his priests

united could not keep him from tobacco. Pipes he could not obtain; but

a cow's horn perforated served his turn. From every Archangel fair rolls

of the best Virginia speedily found their way to Novgorod and Tobolsk.

The commercial intercourse between England and Russia made some

diplomatic intercourse necessary. The diplomatic intercourse however

was only occasional. The Czar had no permanent minister here. We had no

permanent minister at Moscow; and even at Archangel we had no consul.

Three or four times in a century extraordinary embassies were sent from

Whitehall to the Kremlin and from the Kremlin to Whitehall.

The English embassies had historians whose narratives may still be

read with interest. Those historians described vividly, and sometimes

bitterly, the savage ignorance and the squalid poverty of the barbarous

country in which they had sojourned. In that country, they said, there

was neither literature nor science, neither school nor college. It was

not till more than a hundred years after the invention of printing that

a single printing press had been introduced into the Russian empire; and

that printing press had speedily perished in a fire which was supposed

to have been kindled by the priests. Even in the seventeenth century

the library of a prelate of the first dignity consisted of a few

manuscripts. Those manuscripts too were in long rolls; for the art of

bookbinding was unknown. The best educated men could barely read and

write. It was much if the secretary to whom was entrusted the direction

of negotiations with foreign powers had a sufficient smattering of Dog

Latin to make himself understood. The arithmetic was the arithmetic of

the dark ages. The denary notation was unknown. Even in the Imperial

Treasury the computations were made by the help of balls strung on

wires. Round the person of the Sovereign there was a blaze of gold and

jewels; but even in his most splendid palaces were to be found the filth

and misery of an Irish cabin. So late as the year 1663 the gentlemen of

the retinue of the Earl of Carlisle were, in the city of Moscow, thrust

into a single bedroom, and were told that, if they did not remain

together, they would be in danger of being devoured by rats.

Such was the report which the English legations made of what they had

seen and suffered in Russia; and their evidence was confirmed by the

appearance which the Russian legations made in England. The strangers

spoke no civilised language. Their garb, their gestures, their

salutations, had a wild and barbarous character. The ambassador and the

grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to

stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came

to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin. It was said that one

envoy cudgelled the lords of his train whenever they soiled or lost

any part of their finery, and that another had with difficulty been

prevented from putting his son to death for the crime of shaving and

dressing after the French fashion.

Our ancestors therefore were not a little surprised to learn that a

young barbarian, who had, at seventeen years of age, become the autocrat

of the immense region stretching from the confines of Sweden to those

of China, and whose education had been inferior to that of an English

farmer or shopman, had planned gigantic improvements, had learned enough

of some languages of Western Europe to enable him to communicate with

civilised men, had begun to surround himself with able adventurers from

various parts of the world, had sent many of his young subjects to

study languages, arts and sciences in foreign cities, and finally had

determined to travel as a private man, and to discover, by personal

observation, the secret of the immense prosperity and power enjoyed by

some communities whose whole territory was far less than the hundredth

part of his dominions.

It might have been expected that France would have been the first object

of his curiosity. For the grace and dignity of the French King, the

splendour of the French Court, the discipline of the French armies, and

the genius and learning of the French writers, were then renowned all

over the world. But the Czar's mind had early taken a strange ply which

it retained to the last. His empire was of all empires the least capable

of being made a great naval power. The Swedish provinces lay between his

States and the Baltic. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles lay between

his States and the Mediterranean. He had access to the ocean only in

a latitude in which navigation is, during a great part of every

year, perilous and difficult. On the ocean he had only a single port,

Archangel; and the whole shipping of Archangel was foreign. There did

not exist a Russian vessel larger than a fishing-boat. Yet, from some

cause which cannot now be traced, he had a taste for maritime pursuits

which amounted to a passion, indeed almost to a monomania. His

imagination was full of sails, yardarms, and rudders. That large mind,

equal to the highest duties of the general and the statesman, contracted

itself to the most minute details of naval architecture and naval

discipline. The chief ambition of the great conqueror and legislator was

to be a good boatswain and a good ship's carpenter. Holland and England

therefore had for him an attraction which was wanting to the galleries

and terraces of Versailles. He repaired to Amsterdam, took a lodging in

the dockyard, assumed the garb of a pilot, put down his name on the list

of workmen, wielded with his own hand the caulking iron and the mallet,

fixed the pumps, and twisted the ropes. Ambassadors who came to pay

their respects to him were forced, much against their will, to clamber

up the rigging of a man of war, and found him enthroned on the cross

trees.

Such was the prince whom the populace of London now crowded to behold.

His stately form, his intellectual forehead, his piercing black eyes,

his Tartar nose and mouth, his gracious smile, his frown black with all

the stormy rage and hate of a barbarian tyrant, and above all a strange

nervous convulsion which sometimes transformed his countenance during a

few moments, into an object on which it was impossible to look without

terror, the immense quantities of meat which he devoured, the pints

of brandy which he swallowed, and which, it was said, he had carefully

distilled with his own hands, the fool who jabbered at his feet, the

monkey which grinned at the back of his chair, were, during some weeks,

popular topics of conversation. He meanwhile shunned the public gaze

with a haughty shyness which inflamed curiosity. He went to a play; but,

as soon as he perceived that pit, boxes and galleries were staring,

not at the stage, but at him, he retired to a back bench where he was

screened from observation by his attendants. He was desirous to see a

sitting of the House of Lords; but, as he was determined not to be seen,

he was forced to climb up to the leads, and to peep through a small

window. He heard with great interest the royal assent given to a bill

for raising fifteen hundred thousand pounds by land tax, and learned

with amazement that this sum, though larger by one half than the whole

revenue which he could wring from the population of the immense empire

of which he was absolute master, was but a small part of what

the Commons of England voluntarily granted every year to their

constitutional King.

William judiciously humoured the whims of his illustrious guest, and

stole to Norfolk Street so quietly that nobody in the neighbourhood

recognised His Majesty in the thin gentleman who got out of the modest

looking coach at the Czar's lodgings. The Czar returned the visit with

the same precautions, and was admitted into Kensington House by a

back door. It was afterwards known that he took no notice of the fine

pictures with which the palace was adorned. But over the chimney of

the royal sitting room was a plate which, by an ingenious machinery,

indicated the direction of the wind; and with this plate he was in

raptures.

He soon became weary of his residence. He found that he was too far from

the objects of his curiosity, and too near to the crowds to which he was

himself an object of curiosity. He accordingly removed to Deptford, and

was there lodged in the house of John Evelyn, a house which had long

been a favourite resort of men of letters, men of taste and men of

science. Here Peter gave himself up to his favourite pursuits. He

navigated a yacht every day up and down the river. His apartment was

crowded with models of three deckers and two deckers, frigates, sloops

and fireships. The only Englishman of rank in whose society he seemed to

take much pleasure was the eccentric Caermarthen, whose passion for the

sea bore some resemblance to his own, and who was very competent to

give an opinion about every part of a ship from the stem to the stern.

Caermarthen, indeed, became so great a favourite that he prevailed on

the Czar to consent to the admission of a limited quantity of tobacco

into Russia. There was reason to apprehend that the Russian clergy

would cry out against any relaxation of the ancient rule, and would

strenuously maintain that the practice of smoking was condemned by that

text which declares that man is defiled, not by those things which enter

in at the mouth, but by those which proceed out of it. This apprehension

was expressed by a deputation of merchants who were admitted to an

audience of the Czar; but they were reassured by the air with which he

told them that he knew how to keep priests in order.

He was indeed so free from any bigoted attachment to the religion in

which he had been brought up that both Papists and Protestants hoped

at different times to make him a proselyte. Burnet, commissioned by his

brethren, and impelled, no doubt, by his own restless curiosity and

love of meddling, repaired to Deptford and was honoured with several

audiences. The Czar could not be persuaded to exhibit himself at Saint

Paul's; but he was induced to visit Lambeth palace. There he saw the

ceremony of ordination performed, and expressed warm approbation of

the Anglican ritual. Nothing in England astonished him so much as the

Archiepiscopal library. It was the first good collection of books that

he had seen; and he declared that he had never imagined that there were

so many printed volumes in the world.

The impression which he made on Burnet was not favourable. The good

bishop could not understand that a mind which seemed to be chiefly

occupied with questions about the best place for a capstan and the best

way of rigging a jury mast might be capable, not merely of ruling an

empire, but of creating a nation. He complained that he had gone to see

a great prince, and had found only an industrious shipwright. Nor does

Evelyn seem to have formed a much more favourable opinion of his august

tenant. It was, indeed, not in the character of tenant that the Czar

was likely to gain the good word of civilised men. With all the high

qualities which were peculiar to himself, he had all the filthy habits

which were then common among his countrymen. To the end of his life,

while disciplining armies, founding schools, framing codes, organising

tribunals, building cities in deserts, joining distant seas by

artificial rivers, he lived in his palace like a hog in a sty; and, when

he was entertained by other sovereigns, never failed to leave on their

tapestried walls and velvet state beds unequivocal proof that a savage

had been there. Evelyn's house was left in such a state that the

Treasury quieted his complaints with a considerable sum of money.

Towards the close of March the Czar visited Portsmouth, saw a sham

seafight at Spithead, watched every movement of the contending fleets

with intense interest, and expressed in warm terms his gratitude to the

hospitable government which had provided so delightful a spectacle for

his amusement and instruction. After passing more than three months in

England, he departed in high good humour. [10]

His visit, his singular character, and what was rumoured of his great

designs, excited much curiosity here, but nothing more than curiosity.

England had as yet nothing to hope or to fear from his vast empire. All

her serious apprehensions were directed towards a different quarter.

None could say how soon France, so lately an enemy, might be an enemy

again.

The new diplomatic relations between the two great western powers were

widely different from those which had existed before the war. During the

eighteen years which had elapsed between the signing of the Treaty

of Dover and the Revolution, all the envoys who had been sent from

Whitehall to Versailles had been mere sycophants of the great King.

In England the French ambassador had been the object of a degrading

worship. The chiefs of both the great parties had been his pensioners

and his tools. The ministers of the Crown had paid him open homage. The

leaders of the opposition had stolen into his house by the back door.

Kings had stooped to implore his good offices, had persecuted him

for money with the importunity of street beggars; and, when they

had succeeded in obtaining from him a box of doubloons or a bill of

exchange, had embraced him with tears of gratitude and joy. But those

days were past. England would never again send a Preston or a Skelton to

bow down before the majesty of France. France would never again send

a Barillon to dictate to the cabinet of England. Henceforth the

intercourse between the two states would be on terms of perfect

equality.

William thought it necessary that the minister who was to represent him

at the French Court should be a man of the first consideration, and one

on whom entire reliance could be reposed. Portland was chosen for this

important and delicate mission; and the choice was eminently judicious.

He had, in the negotiations of the preceding year, shown more ability

than was to be found in the whole crowd of formalists who had been

exchanging notes and drawing up protocols at Ryswick. Things which had

been kept secret from the plenipotentiaries who had signed the treaty

were well known to him. The clue of the whole foreign policy of England

and Holland was in his possession. His fidelity and diligence were

beyond all praise. These were strong recommendations. Yet it seemed

strange to many that William should have been willing to part, for a

considerable time, from a companion with whom he had during a quarter of

a century lived on terms of entire confidence and affection. The truth

was that the confidence was still what it had long been, but that the

affection, though it was not yet extinct, though it had not even cooled,

had become a cause of uneasiness to both parties. Till very recently,

the little knot of personal friends who had followed William from his

native land to his place of splendid banishment had been firmly united.

The aversion which the English nation felt for them had given him much

pain; but he had not been annoyed by any quarrel among themselves.

Zulestein and Auverquerque had, without a murmur, yielded to Portland

the first place in the royal favour; nor had Portland grudged to

Zulestein and Auverquerque very solid and very signal proofs of their

master's kindness. But a younger rival had lately obtained an influence

which created much jealousy. Among the Dutch gentlemen who had sailed

with the Prince of Orange from Helvoetsluys to Torbay was one named

Arnold Van Keppel. Keppel had a sweet and obliging temper, winning

manners, and a quick, though not a profound, understanding. Courage,

loyalty and secresy were common between him and Portland. In other

points they differed widely. Portland was naturally the very opposite

of a flatterer, and, having been the intimate friend of the Prince of

Orange at a time when the interval between the House of Orange and the

House of Bentinck was not so wide as it afterwards became, had acquired

a habit of plain speaking which he could not unlearn when the comrade

of his youth had become the sovereign of three kingdoms. He was a most

trusty, but not a very respectful, subject. There was nothing which he

was not ready to do or suffer for William. But in his intercourse with

William he was blunt and sometimes surly. Keppel, on the other hand, had

a great desire to please, and looked up with unfeigned admiration to

a master whom he had been accustomed, ever since he could remember,

to consider as the first of living men. Arts, therefore, which were

neglected by the elder courtier were assiduously practised by the

younger. So early as the spring of 1691 shrewd observers were struck

by the manner in which Keppel watched every turn of the King's eye, and

anticipated the King's unuttered wishes. Gradually the new servant rose

into favour. He was at length made Earl of Albemarle and Master of the

Robes. But his elevation, though it furnished the Jacobites with a fresh

topic for calumny and ribaldry, was not so offensive to the nation as

the elevation of Portland had been. Portland's manners were thought

dry and haughty; but envy was disarmed by the blandness of Albemarle's

temper and by the affability of his deportment.

Portland, though strictly honest, was covetous; Albemarle was generous.

Portland had been naturalised here only in name and form; but Albemarle

affected to have forgotten his own country, and to have become an

Englishman in feelings and manners. The palace was soon disturbed by

quarrels in which Portland seems to have been always the aggressor, and

in which he found little support either among the English or among

his own countrymen. William, indeed, was not the man to discard an old

friend for a new one. He steadily gave, on all occasions, the preference

to the companion of his youthful days. Portland had the first place

in the bed-chamber. He held high command in the army. On all great

occasions he was trusted and consulted. He was far more powerful in

Scotland than the Lord High Commissioner, and far deeper in the secret

of foreign affairs than the Secretary of State. He wore the Garter,

which sovereign princes coveted. Lands and money had been bestowed on

him so liberally that he was one of the richest subjects in Europe.

Albemarle had as yet not even a regiment; he had not been sworn of the

Council; and the wealth which he owed to the royal bounty was a pittance

when compared with the domains and the hoards of Portland. Yet Portland

thought himself aggrieved. He could not bear to see any other person

near him, though below him, in the royal favour. In his fits of

resentful sullenness, he hinted an intention of retiring from the Court.

William omitted nothing that a brother could have done to soothe and

conciliate a brother. Letters are still extant in which he, with the

utmost solemnity, calls God to witness that his affection for Bentinck

still is what it was in their early days. At length a compromise was

made. Portland, disgusted with Kensington, was not sorry to go to France

as ambassador; and William with deep emotion consented to a separation

longer than had ever taken place during an intimacy of twenty-five

years. A day or two after the new plenipotentiary had set out on his

mission, he received a touching letter from his master. "The loss

of your society," the King wrote, "has affected me more than you can

imagine. I should be very glad if I could believe that you felt as much

pain at quitting me as I felt at seeing you depart; for then I might

hope that you had ceased to doubt the truth of what I so solemnly

declared to you on my oath. Assure yourself that I never was more

sincere. My feeling towards you is one which nothing but death can

alter." It should seem that the answer returned to these affectionate

assurances was not perfectly gracious; for, when the King next wrote, he

gently complained of an expression which had wounded him severely.

But, though Portland was an unreasonable and querulous friend, he was

a most faithful and zealous minister. His despatches show how

indefatigably he toiled for the interests, and how punctiliously he

guarded the dignity, of the prince by whom he imagined that he had been

unjustly and unkindly treated.

The embassy was the most magnificent that England had ever sent to any

foreign court. Twelve men of honourable birth and ample fortune, some of

whom afterwards filled high offices in the State, attended the mission

at their own charge. Each of them had his own carriage, his own horses,

and his own train of servants. Two less wealthy persons, who, in

different ways, attained great note in literature, were of the company.

Rapin, whose history of England might have been found, a century ago,

in every library, was the preceptor of the ambassador's eldest son,

Lord Woodstock. Prior was Secretary of Legation. His quick parts,

his industry, his politeness, and his perfect knowledge of the French

language, marked him out as eminently fitted for diplomatic employment.

He had, however, found much difficulty in overcoming an odd prejudice

which his chief had conceived against him. Portland, with good natural

abilities and great expertness in business, was no scholar. He had

probably never read an English book; but he had a general notion,

unhappily but too well founded, that the wits and poets who congregated

at Will's were a most profane and licentious set; and, being himself a

man of orthodox opinions and regular life, he was not disposed to give

his confidence to one whom he supposed to be a ribald scoffer. Prior,

with much address, and perhaps with the help of a little hypocrisy,

completely removed this unfavourable impression. He talked on serious

subjects seriously, quoted the New Testament appositely, vindicated

Hammond from the charge of popery, and, by way of a decisive blow, gave

the definition of a true Church from the nineteenth Article. Portland

stared at him. "I am glad, Mr. Prior, to find you so good a Christian. I

was afraid that you were an atheist." "An atheist, my good lord!" cried

Prior. "What could lead your Lordship to entertain such a suspicion?"

"Why," said Portland, "I knew that you were a poet; and I took it for

granted that you did not believe in God." "My lord," said the wit, "you

do us poets the greatest injustice. Of all people we are the farthest

from atheism. For the atheists do not even worship the true God, whom

the rest of mankind acknowledge; and we are always invoking and hymning

false gods whom everybody else has renounced." This jest will be

perfectly intelligible to all who remember the eternally recurring

allusions to Venus and Minerva, Mars, Cupid and Apollo, which were meant

to be the ornaments, and are the blemishers, of Prior's compositions.

But Portland was much puzzled. However, he declared himself satisfied;

and the young diplomatist withdrew, laughing to think with how little

learning a man might shine in courts, lead armies, negotiate treaties,

obtain a coronet and a garter, and leave a fortune of half a million.

The citizens of Paris and the courtiers of Versailles, though more

accustomed than the Londoners to magnificent pageantry, allowed that no

minister from any foreign state had ever made so superb an appearance

as Portland. His horses, his liveries, his plate, were unrivalled. His

state carriage, drawn by eight fine Neapolitan greys decorated with

orange ribands, was specially admired. On the day of his public entry

the streets, the balconies, and the windows were crowded with spectators

along a line of three miles. As he passed over the bridge on which the

statue of Henry IV. stands, he was much amused by hearing one of the

crowd exclaim: "Was it not this gentleman's master that we burned on

this very bridge eight years ago?" The Ambassador's hotel was constantly

thronged from morning to night by visitors in plumes and embroidery.

Several tables were sumptuously spread every day under his roof; and

every English traveller of decent station and character was welcome

to dine there. The board at which the master of the house presided in

person, and at which he entertained his most distinguished guests,

was said to be more luxurious than that of any prince of the House of

Bourbon. For there the most exquisite cookery of France was set off by a

certain neatness and comfort which then, as now, peculiarly belonged to

England. During the banquet the room was filled with people of fashion,

who went to see the grandees eat and drink. The expense of all this

splendour and hospitality was enormous, and was exaggerated by report.

The cost to the English government really was fifty thousand pounds in

five months. It is probable that the opulent gentlemen who accompanied

the mission as volunteers laid out nearly as much more from their

private resources.

The malecontents at the coffeehouses of London murmured at this

profusion, and accused William of ostentation. But, as this fault was

never, on any other occasion, imputed to him even by his detractors,

we may not unreasonably attribute to policy what to superficial

or malicious observers seemed to be vanity. He probably thought it

important, at the commencement of a new era in the relations between the

two great kingdoms of the West, to hold high the dignity of the Crown

which he wore. He well knew, indeed, that the greatness of a prince

does not depend on piles of silver bowls and chargers, trains of gilded

coaches, and multitudes of running footmen in brocade, and led horses in

velvet housings. But he knew also that the subjects of Lewis had, during

the long reign of their magnificent sovereign, been accustomed to see

power constantly associated with pomp, and would hardly believe that the

substance existed unless they were dazzled by the trappings.

If the object of William was to strike the imagination of the French

people, he completely succeeded. The stately and gorgeous appearance

which the English embassy made on public occasions was, during some

time, the general topic of conversation at Paris. Portland enjoyed a

popularity which contrasts strangely with the extreme unpopularity which

he had incurred in England. The contrast will perhaps seem less strange

when we consider what immense sums he had accumulated at the expense of

the English, and what immense sums he was laying out for the benefit

of the French. It must also be remembered that he could not confer or

correspond with Englishmen in their own language, and that the French

tongue was at least as familiar to him, as that of his native Holland.

He, therefore, who here was called greedy, niggardly, dull, brutal, whom

one English nobleman had described as a block of wood, and another as

just capable of carrying a message right, was in the brilliant circles

of France considered as a model of grace, of dignity and of munificence,

as a dexterous negotiator and a finished gentleman. He was the better

liked because he was a Dutchman. For, though fortune had favoured

William, though considerations of policy had induced the Court of

Versailles to acknowledge him, he was still, in the estimation of

that Court, an usurper; and his English councillors and captains were

perjured traitors who richly deserved axes and halters, and might,

perhaps, get what they deserved. But Bentinck was not to be confounded

with Leeds and Marlborough, Orford and Godolphin. He had broken no oath,

had violated no law. He owed no allegiance to the House of Stuart; and

the fidelity and zeal with which he had discharged his duties to his

own country and his own master entitled him to respect. The noble and

powerful vied with each other in paying honour to the stranger.

The Ambassador was splendidly entertained by the Duke of Orleans at St.

Cloud, and by the Dauphin at Meudon. A Marshal of France was charged to

do the honours of Marli; and Lewis graciously expressed his concern that

the frosts of an ungenial spring prevented the fountains and flower beds

from appearing to advantage. On one occasion Portland was distinguished,

not only by being selected to hold the waxlight in the royal bedroom,

but by being invited to go within the balustrade which surrounded the

couch, a magic circle which the most illustrious foreigners had hitherto

found impassable. The Secretary shared largely in the attentions which

were paid to his chief. The Prince of Conde took pleasure in talking

with him on literary subjects. The courtesy of the aged Bossuet, the

glory of the Church of Rome, was long gratefully remembered by the

young heretic. Boileau had the good sense and good feeling to exchange a

friendly greeting with the aspiring novice who had administered to him a

discipline as severe as he had administered to Quinault. The great King

himself warmly praised Prior's manners and conversation, a circumstance

which will be thought remarkable when it is remembered that His

Majesty was an excellent model and an excellent judge of gentlemanlike

deportment, and that Prior had passed his boyhood in drawing corks at

a tavern, and his early manhood in the seclusion of a college. The

Secretary did not however carry his politeness so far as to refrain from

asserting, on proper occasions, the dignity of his country and of his

master. He looked coldly on the twenty-one celebrated pictures in which

Le Brun had represented on the coifing of the gallery of Versailles

the exploits of Lewis. When he was sneeringly asked whether Kensington

Palace could boast of such decorations, he answered, with spirit and

propriety: "No, Sir. The memorials of the great things which my master

has done are to be seen in many places; but not in his own house."

Great as was the success of the embassy, there was one drawback. James

was still at Saint Germains; and round the mock King were gathered

a mock Court and Council, a Great Seal and a Privy Seal, a crowd of

garters and collars, white staves and gold keys. Against the pleasure

which the marked attentions of the French princes and grandees gave to

Portland, was to be set off the vexation which he felt when Middleton

crossed his path with the busy look of a real Secretary of State. But it

was with emotions far deeper that the Ambassador saw on the terraces and

in the antechambers of Versailles men who had been deeply implicated

in plots against the life of his master. He expressed his indignation

loudly and vehemently. "I hope," he said, "that there is no design in

this; that these wretches are not purposely thrust in my way. When

they come near me all my blood runs back in my veins." His words were

reported to Lewis. Lewis employed Boufflers to smooth matters; and

Boufflers took occasion to say something on the subject as if from

himself. Portland easily divined that in talking with Boufflers he

was really talking with Lewis, and eagerly seized the opportunity of

representing the expediency, the absolute necessity, of removing James

to a greater distance from England. "It was not contemplated, Marshal,"

he said, "when we arranged the terms of peace in Brabant, that a palace

in the suburbs of Paris was to continue to be an asylum for outlaws and

murderers." "Nay, my Lord," said Boufflers, uneasy doubtless on his own

account, "you will not; I am sure, assert that I gave you any pledge

that King James would be required to leave France. You are too

honourable a man, you are too much my friend, to say any such thing."

"It is true," answered Portland, "that I did not insist on a positive

promise from you; but remember what passed. I proposed that King James

should retire to Rome or Modena. Then you suggested Avignon; and I

assented. Certainly my regard for you makes me very unwilling to do

anything that would give you pain. But my master's interests are dearer

to me than all the friends that I have in the world put together. I must

tell His Most Christian Majesty all that passed between us; and I hope

that, when I tell him, you will be present, and that you will be able to

bear witness that I have not put a single word of mine into your mouth."

When Boufflers had argued and expostulated in vain, Villeroy was sent

on the same errand, but had no better success. A few days later Portland

had a long private audience of Lewis. Lewis declared that he was

determined to keep his word, to preserve the peace of Europe, to abstain

from everything which could give just cause of offence to England, but

that, as a man of honour, as a man of humanity, he could not refuse

shelter to an unfortunate King, his own first cousin. Portland replied

that nobody questioned His Majesty's good faith; but that while Saint

Germains was occupied by its present inmates it would be beyond even

His Majesty's power to prevent eternal plotting between them and the

malecontents on the other side of the Straits of Dover, and that, while

such plotting went on, the peace must necessarily be insecure. The

question was really not one of humanity. It was not asked, it was not

wished, that James should be left destitute. Nay, the English government

was willing to allow him an income larger than that which he derived

from the munificence of France. Fifty thousand pounds a year, to which

in strictness of law he had no right, awaited his acceptance, if he

would only move to a greater distance from the country which, while

he was near it, could never be at rest. If, in such circumstances, he

refused to move, this was the strongest reason for believing that he

could not safely be suffered to stay. The fact that he thought the

difference between residing at Saint Germains and residing at Avignon

worth more than fifty thousand a year sufficiently proved that he had

not relinquished the hope of being restored to his throne by means of a

rebellion or of something worse. Lewis answered that on that point his

resolution was unalterable. He never would compel his guest and kinsman

to depart. "There is another matter," said Portland, "about which I have

felt it my duty to make representations. I mean the countenance given

to the assassins." "I know nothing about assassins," said Lewis. "Of

course," answered the Ambassador, "your Majesty knows nothing about such

men. At least your Majesty does not know them for what they are. But

I can point them out, and can furnish ample proofs of their guilt." He

then named Berwick. For the English Government, which had been willing

to make large allowances for Berwick's peculiar position as long as he

confined himself to acts of open and manly hostility, conceived that

he had forfeited all claim to indulgence by becoming privy to the

Assassination Plot. This man, Portland said, constantly haunted

Versailles. Barclay, whose guilt was of a still deeper dye,--Barclay,

the chief contriver of the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green,--had

found in France, not only an asylum, but an honourable military

position. The monk who was sometimes called Harrison and sometimes went

by the alias of Johnson, but who, whether Harrison or Johnson, had

been one of the earliest and one of the most bloodthirsty of Barclays

accomplices, was now comfortably settled as prior of a religious house

in France. Lewis denied or evaded all these charges. "I never," he said,

"heard of your Harrison. As to Barclay, he certainly once had a company;

but it has been disbanded; and what has become of him I do not know. It

is true that Berwick was in London towards the close of 1695; but he was

there only for the purpose of ascertaining whether a descent on England

was practicable; and I am confident that he was no party to any cruel

and dishonourable design." In truth Lewis had a strong personal

motive for defending Berwick. The guilt of Berwick as respected the

Assassination Plot does not appear to have extended beyond connivance;

and to the extent of connivance Lewis himself was guilty.

Thus the audience terminated. All that was left to Portland was to

announce that the exiles must make their choice between Saint Germains

and fifty thousand a year; that the protocol of Ryswick bound the

English government to pay to Mary of Modena only what the law gave her;

that the law gave her nothing; that consequently the English government

was bound to nothing; and that, while she, her husband and her child

remained where they were, she should have nothing. It was hoped that

this announcement would produce a considerable effect even in James's

household; and indeed some of his hungry courtiers and priests seem

to have thought the chance of a restoration so small that it would be

absurd to refuse a splendid income, though coupled with a condition

which might make that small chance somewhat smaller. But it is certain

that, if there was murmuring among the Jacobites, it was disregarded by

James. He was fully resolved not to move, and was only confirmed in

his resolution by learning that he was regarded by the usurper as a

dangerous neighbour. Lewis paid so much regard to Portland's complaints

as to intimate to Middleton a request, equivalent to a command, that

the Lords and gentlemen who formed the retinue of the banished King of

England would not come to Versailles on days on which the representative

of the actual King was expected there. But at other places there was

constant risk of an encounter which might have produced several duels,

if not an European war. James indeed, far from shunning such encounters,

seems to have taken a perverse pleasure in thwarting his benefactor's

wish to keep the peace, and in placing the Ambassador in embarrassing

situations. One day his Excellency, while drawing on his boots for a run

with the Dauphin's celebrated wolf pack, was informed that King James

meant to be of the party, and was forced to stay at home. Another day,

when his Excellency had set his heart on having some sport with the

royal staghounds, he was informed by the Grand Huntsman that King James

might probably come to the rendezvous without any notice. Melfort was

particularly active in laying traps for the young noblemen and gentlemen

of the Legation. The Prince of Wales was more than once placed in such a

situation that they could scarcely avoid passing close to him. Were they

to salute him? Were they to stand erect and covered while every body

else saluted him? No Englishman zealous for the Bill of Rights and

the Protestant religion would willingly do any thing which could

be construed into an act of homage to a Popish pretender. Yet no

goodnatured and generous man, however firm in his Whig principles,

would willingly offer any thing which could look like an affront to an

innocent and a most unfortunate child.

Meanwhile other matters of grave importance claimed Portland's

attention. There was one matter in particular about which the French

ministers anxiously expected him to say something, but about which he

observed strict silence. How to interpret that silence they scarcely

knew. They were certain only that it could not be the effect of

unconcern. They were well assured that the subject which he so carefully

avoided was never, during two waking hours together, out of his

thoughts or out of the thoughts of his master. Nay, there was not in all

Christendom a single politician, from the greatest ministers of state

down to the silliest newsmongers of coffeehouses, who really felt

that indifference which the prudent Ambassador of England affected. A

momentous event, which had during many years been constantly becoming

more and more probable, was now certain and near. Charles the Second of

Spain, the last descendant in the male line of the Emperor Charles the

Fifth, would soon die without posterity. Who would then be the heir to

his many kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, lordships, acquired in different

ways, held by different titles and subject to different laws? That was a

question about which jurists differed, and which it was not likely that

jurists would, even if they were unanimous, be suffered to decide. Among

the claimants were the mightiest sovereigns of the continent; there was

little chance that they would submit to any arbitration but that of the

sword; and it could not be hoped that, if they appealed to the sword,

other potentates who had no pretension to any part of the disputed

inheritance would long remain neutral. For there was in Western Europe

no government which did not feel that its own prosperity, dignity and

security might depend on the event of the contest.

It is true that the empire, which had, in the preceding century,

threatened both France and England with subjugation, had of late been

of hardly so much account as the Duchy of Savoy or the Electorate of

Brandenburg. But it by no means followed that the fate of that empire

was matter of indifference to the rest of the world. The paralytic

helplessness and drowsiness of the body once so formidable could not

be imputed to any deficiency of the natural elements of power. The

dominions of the Catholic King were in extent and in population superior

to those of Lewis and of William united. Spain alone, without a single

dependency, ought to have been a kingdom of the first rank; and Spain

was but the nucleus of the Spanish monarchy. The outlying provinces

of that monarchy in Europe would have sufficed to make three highly

respectable states of the second order. One such state might have

been formed in the Netherlands. It would have been a wide expanse of

cornfield, orchard and meadow, intersected by navigable rivers and

canals. At short intervals, in that thickly peopled and carefully tilled

region, rose stately old towns, encircled by strong fortifications,

embellished by fine cathedrals and senate-houses, and renowned either

as seats of learning or as seats of mechanical industry. A second

flourishing principality might have been created between the Alps and

the Po, out of that well watered garden of olives and mulberry trees

which spreads many miles on every side of the great white temple of

Milan. Yet neither the Netherlands nor the Milanese could, in physical

advantages, vie with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a land which

nature had taken pleasure in enriching and adorning, a land which would

have been paradise, if tyranny and superstition had not, during many

ages, lavished all their noxious influences on the bay of Campania, the

plain of Enna, and the sunny banks of Galesus.

In America the Spanish territories spread from the Equator northward

and southward through all the signs of the Zodiac far into the temperate

zone. Thence came gold and silver to be coined in all the mints, and

curiously wrought in all the jewellers' shops, of Europe and Asia.

Thence came the finest tobacco, the finest chocolate, the finest indigo,

the finest cochineal, the hides of innumerable wild oxen, quinquina,

coffee, sugar. Either the viceroyalty of Mexico or the viceroyalty of

Peru would, as an independent state with ports open to all the world,

have been an important member of the great community of nations.

And yet the aggregate, made up of so many parts, each of which

separately might have been powerful and highly considered, was impotent

to a degree which moved at once pity and laughter. Already one most

remarkable experiment had been tried on this strange empire. A small

fragment, hardly a three hundredth part of the whole in extent, hardly

a thirtieth part of the whole in population, had been detached from the

rest, had from that moment begun to display a new energy and to enjoy

a new prosperity, and was now, after the lapse of a hundred and twenty

years, far more feared and reverenced than the huge mass of which it had

once been an obscure corner. What a contrast between the Holland which

Alva had oppressed and plundered, and the Holland from which William

had sailed to deliver England! And who, with such an example before him,

would venture to foretell what changes might be at hand, if the most

languid and torpid of monarchies should be dissolved, and if every one

of the members which had composed it should enter on an independent

existence?

To such a dissolution that monarchy was peculiarly liable. The King, and

the King alone, held it together. The populations which acknowledged him

as their chief either knew nothing of each other, or regarded each other

with positive aversion. The Biscayan was in no sense the countryman of

the Valencian, nor the Lombard of the Biscayan, nor the Fleeting of

the Lombard, nor the Sicilian of the Fleeting. The Arragonese had never

ceased to pine for their lost independence. Within the memory of many

persons still living the Catalans had risen in rebellion, had entreated

Lewis the Thirteenth of France to become their ruler with the old title

of Count of Barcelona, and had actually sworn fealty to him. Before the

Catalans had been quieted, the Neapolitans had taken arms, had abjured

their foreign master, had proclaimed their city a republic, and had

elected a Loge. In the New World the small caste of born Spaniards which

had the exclusive enjoyment of power and dignity was hated by Creoles

and Indians, Mestizos and Quadroons. The Mexicans especially had turned

their eyes on a chief who bore the name and had inherited the blood

of the unhappy Montezuma. Thus it seemed that the empire against which

Elizabeth and Henry the Fourth had been scarcely able to contend would

not improbably fall to pieces of itself, and that the first violent

shock from without would scatter the ill-cemented parts of the huge

fabric in all directions.

But, though such a dissolution had no terrors for the Catalonian or

the Fleming, for the Lombard or the Calabrian, for the Mexican or the

Peruvian, the thought of it was torture and madness to the Castilian.

Castile enjoyed the supremacy in that great assemblage of races and

languages. Castile sent out governors to Brussels, Milan, Naples,

Mexico, Lima. To Castile came the annual galleons laden with the

treasures of America. In Castile was ostentatiously displayed and

lavishly spent great fortunes made in remote provinces by oppression

and corruption. In Castile were the King and his Court. There stood

the stately Escurial, once the centre of the politics of the world, the

place to which distant potentates looked, some with hope and gratitude,

some with dread and hatred, but none without anxiety and awe. The glory

of the house had indeed departed. It was long since couriers bearing

orders big with the fate of kings and commonwealths had ridden forth

from those gloomy portals. Military renown, maritime ascendency, the

policy once reputed so profound, the wealth once deemed inexhaustible,

had passed away. An undisciplined army, a rotting fleet, an incapable

council, an empty treasury, were all that remained of that which had

been so great. Yet the proudest of nations could not bear to part even

with the name and the shadow of a supremacy which was no more. All, from

the grandee of the first class to the peasant, looked forward with dread

to the day when God should be pleased to take their king to himself.

Some of them might have a predilection for Germany; but such

predilections were subordinate to a stronger feeling. The paramount

object was the integrity of the empire of which Castile was the head;

and the prince who should appear to be most likely to preserve that

integrity unviolated would have the best right to the allegiance of

every true Castilian.

No man of sense, however, out of Castile, when he considered the nature

of the inheritance and the situation of the claimants, could doubt

that a partition was inevitable. Among those claimants three stood

preeminent, the Dauphin, the Emperor Leopold, and the Electoral Prince

of Bavaria.

If the question had been simply one of pedigree, the right of the

Dauphin would have been incontestable. Lewis the Fourteeenth had married

the Infanta Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip the Fourth and

sister of Charles the Second. Her eldest son, the Dauphin, would

therefore, in the regular course of things, have been her brother's

successor. But she had, at the time of her marriage, renounced, for

herself and her posterity, all pretensions to the Spanish crown.

To that renunciation her husband had assented. It had been made an

article of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The Pope had been requested to

give his apostolical sanction to an arrangement so important to the

peace of Europe; and Lewis had sworn, by every thing that could bind a

gentleman, a king, and a Christian, by his honour, by his royal word, by

the canon of the Mass, by the Holy Gospels, by the Cross of Christ, that

he would hold the renunciation sacred. [11]

The claim of the Emperor was derived from his mother Mary Anne, daughter

of Philip the Third, and aunt of Charles the Second, and could not

therefore, if nearness of blood alone were to be regarded, come into

competition with the claim of the Dauphin. But the claim of the Emperor

was barred by no renunciation. The rival pretensions of the great Houses

of Bourbon and Habsburg furnished all Europe with an inexhaustible

subject of discussion. Plausible topics were not wanting to the

supporters of either cause. The partisans of the House of Austria dwelt

on the sacredness of treaties; the partisans of France on the sacredness

of birthright. How, it was asked on one side, can a Christian king have

the effrontery, the impiety, to insist on a claim which he has with such

solemnity renounced in the face of heaven and earth? How, it was asked

on the other side, can the fundamental laws of a monarchy be annulled by

any authority but that of the supreme legislature? The only body which

was competent to take away from the children of Maria Theresa their

hereditary rights was the Comes. The Comes had not ratified her

renunciation. That renunciation was therefore a nullity; and no

swearing, no signing, no sealing, could turn that nullity into a

reality.

Which of these two mighty competitors had the better case may perhaps

be doubted. What could not be doubted was that neither would obtain the

prize without a struggle which would shake the world. Nor can we

justly blame either for refusing to give way to the other. For, on this

occasion, the chief motive which actuated them was, not greediness, but

the fear of degradation and ruin. Lewis, in resolving to put every thing

to hazard rather than suffer the power of the House of Austria to be

doubled; Leopold, in determining to put every thing to hazard rather

than suffer the power of the House of Bourbon to be doubled; merely

obeyed the law of self preservation. There was therefore one way, and

one alone, by which the great woe which seemed to be coming on Europe

could be averted. Was it possible that the dispute might be compromised?

Might not the two great rivals be induced to make to a third party

concessions such as neither could reasonably be expected to make to the

other?

The third party, to whom all who were anxious for the peace of

Christendom looked as their best hope, was a child of tender age,

Joseph, son of the Elector of Bavaria. His mother, the Electress Mary

Antoinette, was the only child of the Emperor Leopold by his first wife

Margaret, a younger sister of the Queen of Lewis the Fourteenth. Prince

Joseph was, therefore, nearer in blood to the Spanish throne than his

grandfather the Emperor, or than the sons whom the Emperor had by

his second wife. The Infanta Margaret had indeed, at the time of her

marriage, renounced her rights to the kingdom of her forefathers. But

the renunciation wanted many formalities which had been observed in

her sister's case, and might be considered as cancelled by the will

of Philip the Fourth, which had declared that, failing his issue male,

Margaret and her posterity would be entitled to inherit his Crown. The

partisans of France held that the Bavarian claim was better than the

Austrian claim; the partisans of Austria held that the Bavarian claim

was better than the French claim. But that which really constituted

the strength of the Bavarian claim was the weakness of the Bavarian

government. The Electoral Prince was the only candidate whose success

would alarm nobody; would not make it necessary for any power to raise

another regiment, to man another frigate, to have in store another

barrel of gunpowder. He was therefore the favourite candidate of prudent

and peaceable men in every country.

Thus all Europe was divided into the French, the Austrian, and the

Bavarian factions. The contests of these factions were daily renewed

in every place where men congregated, from Stockholm to Malta, and from

Lisbon to Smyrna. But the fiercest and most obstinate conflict was that

which raged in the palace of the Catholic King. Much depended on him.

For, though it was not pretended that he was competent to alter by his

sole authority the law which regulated the descent of the Crown, yet, in

a case in which the law was doubtful, it was probable that his subjects

might be disposed to accept the construction which he might put upon it,

and to support the claimant whom he might, either by a solemn adoption

or by will, designate as the rightful heir. It was also in the power of

the reigning sovereign to entrust all the most important offices in his

kingdom, the government of all the provinces subject to him in the Old

and in the New World, and the keys of all his fortresses and arsenals,

to persons zealous for the family which he was inclined to favour. It

was difficult to say to what extent the fate of whole nations might be

affected by the conduct of the officers who, at the time of his decease,

might command the garrisons of Barcelona, of Mons, and of Namur.

The prince on whom so much depended was the most miserable of human

beings. In old times he would have been exposed as soon as he came into

the world; and to expose him would have been a kindness. From his birth

a blight was on his body and on his mind. With difficulty his almost

imperceptible spark of life had been screened and fanned into a dim and

flickering flame. His childhood, except when he could be rocked and sung

into sickly sleep, was one long piteous wail. Until he was ten years

old his days were passed on the laps of women; and he has never once

suffered to stand on his ricketty legs. None of those tawny little

urchins, clad in rags stolen from scarecrows, whom Murillo loved to

paint begging or rolling in the sand, owed less to education than this

despotic ruler of thirty millions of subjects, The most important events

in the history of his own kingdom, the very names of provinces and

cities which were among his most valuable possessions, were unknown

to him. It may well be doubted whether he was aware that Sicily was an

island, that Christopher Columbus had discovered America, or that the

English were not Mahometans. In his youth, however, though too imbecile

for study or for business, he was not incapable of being amused. He

shot, hawked and hunted. He enjoyed with the delight of a true Spaniard

two delightful spectacles, a horse with its bowels gored out, and a

Jew writhing in the fire. The time came when the mightiest of instincts

ordinarily wakens from its repose. It was hoped that the young King

would not prove invincible to female attractions, and that he would

leave a Prince of Asturias to succeed him. A consort was found for

him in the royal family of France; and her beauty and grace gave him a

languid pleasure. He liked to adorn her with jewels, to see her dance,

and to tell her what sport he had had with his dogs and his falcons. But

it was soon whispered that she was a wife only in name. She died;

and her place was supplied by a German princess nearly allied to the

Imperial House. But the second marriage, like the first, proved

barren; and, long before the King had passed the prime of life, all

the politicians of Europe had begun to take it for granted in all their

calculations that he would be the last descendant, in the male line,

of Charles the Fifth. Meanwhile a sullen and abject melancholy took

possession of his soul. The diversions which had been the serious

employment of his youth became distasteful to him. He ceased to find

pleasure in his nets and boar spears, in the fandango and the bullfight.

Sometimes he shut himself up in an inner chamber from the eyes of his

courtiers. Sometimes he loitered alone, from sunrise to sunset, in the

dreary and rugged wilderness which surrounds the Escurial. The hours

which he did not waste in listless indolence were divided between

childish sports and childish devotions. He delighted in rare animals,

and still more in dwarfs. When neither strange beasts nor little men

could dispel the black thoughts which gathered in his mind, he repeated

Aves and Credos; he walked in processions; sometimes he starved himself;

sometimes he whipped himself. At length a complication of maladies

completed the ruin of all his faculties. His stomach failed; nor was

this strange; for in him the malformation of the jaw, characteristic of

his family, was so serious that he could not masticate his food; and

he was in the habit of swallowing ollas and sweetmeats in the state in

which they were set before him. While suffering from indigestion he

was attacked by ague. Every third day his convulsive tremblings, his

dejection, his fits of wandering, seemed to indicate the approach of

dissolution. His misery was increased by the knowledge that every body

was calculating how long he had to live, and wondering what would become

of his kingdoms when he should be dead. The stately dignitaries of

his household, the physicians who ministered to his diseased body, the

divines whose business was to soothe his not less diseased mind, the

very wife who should have been intent on those gentle offices by which

female tenderness can alleviate even the misery of hopeless decay, were

all thinking of the new world which was to commence with his death,

and would have been perfectly willing to see him in the hands of the

embalmer if they could have been certain that his successor would be

the prince whose interest they espoused. As yet the party of the Emperor

seemed to predominate. Charles had a faint sort of preference for the

House of Austria, which was his own house, and a faint sort of antipathy

to the House of Bourbon, with which he had been quarrelling, he did not

well know why, ever since he could remember. His Queen, whom he did not

love, but of whom he stood greatly in awe, was devoted to the interests

of her kinsman the Emperor; and with her was closely leagued the Count

of Melgar, Hereditary Admiral of Castile and Prime Minister.

Such was the state of the question of the Spanish succession at the time

when Portland had his first public audience at Versailles. The French

ministers were certain that he must be constantly thinking about that

question, and were therefore perplexed by his evident determination to

say nothing about it. They watched his lips in the hope that he would

at least let fall some unguarded word indicating the hopes or fears

entertained by the English and Dutch Governments. But Portland was not

a man out of whom much was to be got in that way. Nature and habit

cooperating had made him the best keeper of secrets in Europe. Lewis

therefore directed Pomponne and Torcy, two ministers of eminent ability,

who had, under himself, the chief direction of foreign affairs, to

introduce the subject which the discreet confidant of William seemed

studiously to avoid. Pomponne and Torcy accordingly repaired to

the English embassy; and there opened one of the most remarkable

negotiations recorded in the annals of European diplomacy.

The two French statesmen professed in their master's name the most

earnest desire, not only that the peace might remain unbroken, but

that there might be a close union between the Courts of Versailles and

Kensington. One event only seemed likely to raise new troubles. If the

Catholic King should die before it had been settled who should succeed

to his immense dominions, there was but too much reason to fear that the

nations, which were just beginning to breathe after an exhausting and

devastating struggle of nine years, would be again in arms. His Most

Christian Majesty was therefore desirous to employ the short interval

which might remain, in concerting with the King of England the means of

preserving the tranquillity of the world.

Portland made a courteous but guarded answer. He could not, he said,

presume to say exactly what William's sentiments were; but this he

knew, that it was not solely or chiefly by the sentiments of the King

of England that the policy of England on a great occasion would

be regulated. The islanders must and would have their government

administered according to certain maxims which they held sacred; and of

those maxims they held none more sacred than this, that every increase

of the power of France ought to be viewed with extreme jealousy.

Pomponne and Torcy answered that their master was most desirous to

avoid every thing which could excite the jealousy of which Portland had

spoken. But was it of France alone that a nation so enlightened as the

English must be jealous? Was it forgotten that the House of Austria had

once aspired to universal dominion? And would it be wise in the princes

and commonwealths of Europe to lend their aid for the purpose of

reconstructing the gigantic monarchy which, in the sixteenth century,

had seemed likely to overwhelm them all?

Portland answered that, on this subject, he must be understood to

express only the opinions of a private man. He had however now lived,

during some years, among the English, and believed himself to be pretty

well acquainted with their temper. They would not, he thought, be much

alarmed by any augmentation of power which the Emperor might obtain.

The sea was their element. Traffic by sea was the great source of their

wealth; ascendency on the sea the great object of their ambition. Of the

Emperor they had no fear. Extensive as was the area which he governed,

he had not a frigate on the water; and they cared nothing for his

Pandours and Croatians. But France had a great navy. The balance of

maritime power was what would be anxiously watched in London; and the

balance of maritime power would not be affected by an union between

Spain and Austria, but would be most seriously deranged by an union

between Spain and France.

Pomponne and Torcy declared that every thing should be done to quiet the

apprehensions which Portland had described. It was not contemplated, it

was not wished, that France and Spain should be united. The Dauphin

and his eldest son the Duke of Burgundy would waive their rights. The

younger brothers of the Duke of Burgundy, Philip Duke of Anjou and

Charles Duke of Berry, were not named; but Portland perfectly understood

what was meant. There would, he said, be scarcely less alarm in England

if the Spanish dominions devolved on a grandson of His Most Christian

Majesty than if they were annexed to the French crown. The laudable

affection of the young princes for their country and their family,

and their profound respect for the great monarch from whom they were

descended, would inevitably determine their policy. The two kingdoms

would be one; the two navies would be one; and all other states would

be reduced to vassalage. England would rather see the Spanish monarchy

added to the Emperor's dominions than governed by one of the younger

French princes, who would, though nominally independent, be really

a viceroy of France. But in truth there was no risk that the Spanish

monarchy would be added to the Emperor's dominions. He and his eldest

son the Archduke Joseph would, no doubt, be as ready to waive their

rights as the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy could be; and thus

the Austrian claim to the disputed heritage would pass to the younger

Archduke Charles. A long discussion followed. At length Portland plainly

avowed, always merely as his own private opinion, what was the opinion

of every intelligent man who wished to preserve the peace of the world.

"France is afraid," he said, "of every thing which can increase the

power of the Emperor. All Europe is afraid of every thing which can

increase the power of France. Why not put an end to all these uneasy

feelings at once, by agreeing to place the Electoral Prince of Bavaria

on the throne of Spain?" To this suggestion no decisive answer was

returned. The conference ended; and a courier started for England with

a despatch informing William of what had passed, and soliciting further

instructions.

William, who was, as he had always been, his own Secretary for Foreign

Affairs, did not think it necessary to discuss the contents of this

despatch with any of his English ministers. The only person whom he

consulted was Heinsius. Portland received a kind letter warmly approving

all that he had said in the conference, and directing him to declare

that the English government sincerely wished to avert the calamities

which were but too likely to follow the death of the King of Spain,

and would therefore be prepared to take into serious consideration

any definite plan which His Most Christian Majesty might think fit to

suggest. "I will own to you," William wrote to his friend, "that I am so

unwilling to be again at war during the short time which I still have

to live, that I will omit nothing that I can honestly and with a safe

conscience do for the purpose of maintaining peace."

William's message was delivered by Portland to Lewis at a private

audience. In a few days Pomponne and Torcy were authorised to propose a

plan. They fully admitted that all neighbouring states were entitled

to demand the strongest security against the union of the French and

Spanish crowns. Such security should be given. The Spanish government

might be requested to choose between the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of

Berry. The youth who was selected would, at the utmost, be only fifteen

years old, and could not be supposed to have any very deeply rooted

national prejudices. He should be sent to Madrid without French

attendants, should be educated by Spaniards, should become a Spaniard.

It was absurd to imagine that such a prince would be a mere viceroy of

France. Apprehensions had been sometimes hinted that a Bourbon, seated

on the throne of Spain, might cede his dominions in the Netherlands to

the head of his family. It was undoubtedly important to England, and all

important to Holland, that those provinces should not become a part of

the French monarchy. All danger might be averted by making them over to

the Elector of Bavaria, who was now governing them as representative of

the Catholic King. The Dauphin would be perfectly willing to renounce

them for himself and for all his descendants. As to what concerned

trade, England and Holland had only to say what they desired, and every

thing in reason should be done to give them satisfaction.

As this plan was, in the main, the same which had been suggested by the

French ministers in the former conference, Portland did little more

than repeat what he had then said. As to the new scheme respecting the

Netherlands, he shrewdly propounded a dilemma which silenced Pomponne

and Torcy.

If renunciations were of any value, the Dauphin and his posterity were

excluded from the Spanish succession; and, if renunciations were of

no value, it was idle to offer England and Holland a renunciation as a

guarantee against a great danger.

The French Ministers withdrew to make their report to their master,

and soon returned to say that their proposals had been merely first

thoughts, that it was now the turn of King William to suggest something,

and that whatever he might suggest should receive the fullest and

fairest consideration.

And now the scene of the negotiation was shifted from Versailles

to Kensington. The Count of Tallard had just set out for England as

Ambassador. He was a fine gentleman; he was a brave soldier; and he was

as yet reputed a skilful general. In all the arts and graces which were

priced as qualifications for diplomatic missions of the highest class,

he had, among the brilliant aristocracy to which he belonged, no

superior and only one equal, the Marquess of Harcourt, who was entrusted

with the care of the interests of the House of Bourbon at Madrid.

Tallard carried with him instructions carefully framed in the French

Foreign Office. He was reminded that his situation would be widely

different from that of his predecessors who had resided in England

before the Revolution. Even his predecessors, however, had considered

it as their duty to study the temper, not only of the Court, but of the

nation. It would now be more than ever necessary to watch the movements

of the public mind. A man of note was not to be slighted merely because

he was out of place. Such a man, with a great name in the country and a

strong following in Parliament, might exercise as much influence on the

politics of England, and consequently of Europe, as any minister. The

Ambassador must therefore try to be on good terms with those who were

out as well as with those who were in. To this rule, however, there was

one exception which he must constantly bear in mind. With nonjurors and

persons suspected of plotting against the existing government he must

not appear to have any connection. They must not be admitted into his

house. The English people evidently wished to be at rest, and had

given the best proof of their pacific disposition by insisting on

the reduction of the army. The sure way to stir up jealousies and

animosities which were just sinking to sleep would be to make the French

embassy the head quarters of the Jacobite party. It would be wise in

Tallard to say and to charge his agents to say, on all fit occasions,

and particularly in societies where members of Parliament might be

present, that the Most Christian King had never been an enemy of the

liberties of England. His Majesty had indeed hoped that it might be

in his power to restore his cousin, but not without the assent of

the nation. In the original draft of the instructions was a curious

paragraph which, on second thoughts, it was determined to omit. The

Ambassador was directed to take proper opportunities of cautioning the

English against a standing army, as the only thing which could really

be fatal to their laws and liberties. This passage was suppressed, no

doubt, because it occurred to Pomponne and Torcy that, with whatever

approbation the English might listen to such language when uttered by a

demagogue of their own race, they might be very differently affected by

hearing it from a French diplomatist, and might think that there could

not be a better reason for arming, than that Lewis and his emissaries

earnestly wished them to disarm.

Tallard was instructed to gain, if possible, some members of the House

of Commons. Every thing, he was told, was now subjected to the

scrutiny of that assembly; accounts of the public income, of the public

expenditure, of the army, of the navy, were regularly laid on the table;

and it would not be difficult to find persons who would supply the

French legation with copious information on all these subjects.

The question of the Spanish succession was to be mentioned to William at

a private audience. Tallard was fully informed of all that had passed in

the conferences which the French ministers had held with Portland; and

was furnished with all the arguments that the ingenuity of publicists

could devise in favour of the claim of the Dauphin.

The French embassy made as magnificent an appearance m England as the

English embassy had made in France. The mansion of the Duke of Ormond,

one of the finest houses in Saint James's Square, was taken for Tallard.

On the day of the public entry, all the streets from Tower Hill to Pall

Mall were crowded with gazers who admired the painting and gilding of

his Excellency's carriages, the surpassing beauty of his horses, and

the multitude of his running footmen, dressed in gorgeous liveries

of scarlet and gold lace. The Ambassador was graciously received at

Kensington, and was invited to accompany William to Newmarket, where

the largest and most splendid Spring Meeting ever known was about to

assemble. The attraction must be supposed to have been great; for the

risks of the journey were not trifling. The peace had, all over Europe,

and nowhere more than in England, turned crowds of old soldiers into

marauders. [12] Several aristocratical equipages had been attacked even

in Hyde Park. Every newspaper contained stories of travellers stripped,

bound and flung into ditches. One day the Bristol mail was robbed;

another day the Dover coach; then the Norwich waggon. On Hounslow Heath

a company of horsemen, with masks on their faces, waited for the great

people who had been to pay their court to the King at Windsor. Lord

Ossulston escaped with the loss of two horses. The Duke of Saint Albans,

with the help of his servants, beat off the assailants. His brother the

Duke of Northumberland, less strongly guarded, fell into their hands.

They succeeded in stopping thirty or forty coaches, and rode off with

a great booty in guineas, watches and jewellery. Nowhere, however, does

the peal seem to have been so great as on the Newmarket road. There

indeed robbery was organised on a scale unparalleled in the kingdom

since the days of Robin Hood and Little John. A fraternity of

plunderers, thirty in number according to the lowest estimate, squatted,

near Waltham Cross, under the shades of Epping Forest, and built

themselves huts, from which they sallied forth with sword and pistol

to bid passengers stand. The King and Tallard were doubtless too

well attended to be in jeopardy. But, soon after they had passed the

dangerous spot, there was a fight on the highway attended with loss of

life. A warrant of the Lord Chief justice broke up the Maroon village

for a short time, but the dispersed thieves soon mustered again, and had

the impudence to bid defiance to the government in a cartel signed, it

was said, with their real names. The civil power was unable to deal with

this frightful evil. It was necessary that, during some time, cavalry

should patrol every evening on the roads near the boundary between

Middlesex and Essex.

The state of those roads, however, though contemporaries described it as

dangerous beyond all example, did not deter men of rank and fashion

from making the joyous pilgrimages to Newmarket. Half the Dukes in the

kingdom were there. Most of the chief ministers of state swelled the

crowd; nor was the opposition unrepresented. Montague stole two or three

days from the Treasury, and Orford from the Admiralty. Godolphin was

there, looking after his horses and his bets, and probably went away a

richer man than he came. But racing was only one of the many amusements

of that festive season. On fine mornings there was hunting. For those

who preferred hawking choice falcons had been brought from Holland.

On rainy days the cockpit was encircled by stars and blue ribands. On

Sundays William went to church in state, and the most eminent divines of

the neighbouring University of Cambridge preached before him. He omitted

no opportunity of showing marked civility to Tallard. The Ambassador

informed his Court that his place at table was next to the royal arm

chair, and that his health had been most graciously drunk by the King.

All this time, both at Kensington and Newmarket, the Spanish question

was the subject of constant and earnest discussion. To trace all the

windings of the negotiation would be tedious. The general course which

it took may easily be described. The object of William was to place the

Electoral Prince of Bavaria on the Spanish throne. To obtain the consent

of Lewis to such an arrangement seemed all but impossible; but William

manoeuvred with rare skill. Though he frankly acknowledged that he

preferred the Electoral Prince to any other candidate, he professed.

himself desirous to meet, as far as he honourably or safely could, the

wishes of the French King. There were conditions on which England and

Holland might perhaps consent, though not without reluctance, that a

son of the Dauphin should reign at Madrid, and should be master of the

treasures of the New World. Those conditions were that the Milanese and

the Two Sicilies should belong to the Archduke Charles, that the Elector

of Bavaria should have the Spanish Netherlands, that Lewis should give

up some fortified towns in Artois for the purpose of strengthening the

barrier which protected the United Provinces, and that some important

places both in the Mediterranean sea and in the Gulf of Mexico should

be made over to the English and Dutch for the security of trade. Minorca

and Havanna were mentioned as what might satisfy England.

Against these terms Lewis exclaimed loudly. Nobody, he said, who knew

with how sensitive a jealousy the Spaniards watched every encroachment

on their colonial empire would believe that they would ever consent to

give up any part of that empire either to England or to Holland. The

demand which was made upon himself was altogether inadmissible. A

barrier was not less necessary to France than to Holland; and he never

would break the iron chain of frontier fastnesses which was the defence

of his own kingdom, even in order to purchase another kingdom for his

grandson. On that subject he begged that he might hear no more. The

proposition was one which he would not discuss, one to which he would

not listen.

As William, however, resolutely maintained that the terms which he had

offered, hard as they might seem, were the only terms on which England

and Holland could suffer a Bourbon to reign at Madrid, Lewis began

seriously to consider, whether it might not be on the whole for his

interest and that of his family rather to sell the Spanish crown dear

than to buy it dear. He therefore now offered to withdraw his opposition

to the Bavarian claim, provided a portion of the disputed inheritance

were assigned to him in consideration of his disinterestedness and

moderation. William was perfectly willing and even eager to treat

on this basis. The first demands of Lewis were, as might have been

expected, exorbitantly high. He asked for the kingdom of Navarre,

which would have made him little less than master of the whole Iberian

peninsula, and for the duchy of Luxemburg, which would have made him

more dangerous than ever to the United Provinces. On both points he

encountered a steady resistance. The impression which, throughout these

transactions, the firmness and good faith of William made on Tallard

is remarkable. At first the dexterous and keen witted Frenchman was

all suspicion. He imagined that there was an evasion in every phrase, a

hidden snare in every offer. But after a time he began to discover that

he had to do with a man far too wise to be false. "The King of England,"

he wrote, and it is impossible to doubt that he wrote what he thought,

"acts with good faith in every thing. His way of dealing is upright and

sincere." [13] "The King of England," he wrote a few days later, "has

hitherto acted with great sincerity; and I venture to say that, if he

once enters into a treaty, he will steadily adhere to it." But in the

same letter the Ambassador thought it necessary to hint to his

master that the diplomatic chicanery which might be useful in other

negotiations would be all thrown away here. "I must venture to observe

to Your Majesty that the King of England is very sharpsighted, that his

judgment is sound, and that, if we try to spin the negotiation out, he

will very soon perceive that we are trifling with him." [14]

During some time projects and counterprojects continued to pass and

repass between Kensington and Versailles. Something was conceded on both

sides; and when the session of Parliament ended there seemed to be fair

hopes of a settlement. And now the scene of the negotiation was again

changed. Having been shifted from France to England, it was shifted from

England to Holland. As soon as William had prorogued the Houses, he

was impatient to be again in his native land. He felt all the glee of a

schoolboy who is leaving harsh masters and quarrelsome comrades to pass

the Christmas holidays at a happy home. That stern and composed face

which had been the same in the pursuit at the Boyne and in the rout at

Landen, and of which the keenest politicians had in vain tried to read

the secrets, now wore an expression but too intelligible. The English

were not a little provoked by seeing their King so happy. Hitherto his

annual visits to the Continent had been not only pardoned but approved.

It was necessary that he should be at the head of his army. If he had

left his people, it had been in order to put his life in jeopardy for

their independence, their liberty, and their religion. But they had

hoped that, when peace had been restored, when no call of duty required

him to cross the sea, he would generally, during the summer and autumn,

reside in his fair palaces and parks on the banks of the Thames, or

travel from country seat to country seat, and from cathedral town to

cathedral town, making himself acquainted with every shire of his realm,

and giving his hand to be kissed by multitudes of squires, clergymen and

aldermen who were not likely ever to see him unless he came among them.

It now appeared that he was sick of the noble residences which had

descended to him from ancient princes; that he was sick even of those

mansions which the liberality of Parliament had enabled him to build and

embellish according to his own taste; that he was sick of Windsor, of

Richmond, and of Hampton; that he promised himself no enjoyment from a

progress through those flourishing and populous counties which he

had never seen, Yorkshire and Norfolk, Cheshire, Shropshire and

Worcestershire. While he was forced to be with us, he was weary of us,

pining for his home, counting the hours to the prorogation. As soon as

the passing of the last bill of supply had set him at liberty, he turned

his back on his English subjects; he hastened to his seat in Guelders,

where, during some months, he might be free from the annoyance of seeing

English faces and hearing English words; and he would with difficulty

tear himself away from his favourite spot when it became absolutely

necessary that he should again ask for English money.

Thus his subjects murmured; but, in spite of their murmurs, he set

off in high spirits. It had been arranged that Tallard should speedily

follow him, and that the discussion in which they had been engaged at

Kensington should be resumed at Loo.

Heinsius, whose cooperation was indispensable, would be there. Portland

too would lend his assistance. He had just returned. He had always

considered his mission as an extraordinary mission, of which the object

was to put the relations between the two great Western powers on a

proper footing after a long series of years during which England had

been sometimes the enemy, but never the equal friend, of France. His

task had been well performed; and he now came back, leaving behind

him the reputation of an excellent minister, firm yet cautious as to

substance, dignified yet conciliating in manner. His last audience at

Versailles was unusually long; and no third person was present. Nothing

could be more gracious than the language and demeanour of Lewis.

He condescended to trace a route for the embassy, and insisted that

Portland should make a circuit for the purpose of inspecting some of

the superb fortresses of the French Netherlands. At every one of those

fortresses the governors and engineers had orders to pay every attention

to the distinguished stranger. Salutes were everywhere fired to welcome

him. A guard of honour was everywhere in attendance on him. He stopped

during three days at Chantilly, and was entertained there by the Prince

of Condé with all that taste and magnificence for which Chantilly had

long been renowned. There were boar hunts in the morning and concerts in

the evening. Every gentleman of the legation had a gamekeeper specially

assigned to him. The guests, who, in their own island were accustomed

to give extravagant vails at every country house which they visited,

learned, with admiration, that His Highness's servants were strictly

forbidden to receive presents. At his luxurious table, by a refinement

of politeness, choice cider from the orchards round the Malvern Hills

made its appearance in company with the Champagne and the Burgundy.

Portland was welcomed by his master with all the kindness of old times.

But that kindness availed nothing. For Albemarle was still in the royal

household, and appeared to have been, during the last few months, making

progress in the royal favour. Portland was angry, and the more angry

because he could not but perceive that his enemies enjoyed his anger,

and that even his friends generally thought it unreasonable; nor did he

take any pains to conceal his vexation. But he was the very opposite

of the vulgar crowd of courtiers who fawn on a master while they betray

him. He neither disguised his ill humour, nor suffered it to interfere

with the discharge of his duties. He gave his prince sullen looks, short

answers, and faithful and strenuous services. His first wish, he said,

was to retire altogether from public life. But he was sensible that,

having borne a chief part in the negotiation on which the fate of Europe

depended, he might be of use at Loo; and, with devoted loyalty, though

with a sore heart and a gloomy brow, he prepared to attend William

thither.

Before the King departed he delegated his power to nine Lords Justices.

The public was well pleased to find that Sunderland was not among them.

Two new names appeared in the list. That of Montague could excite no

surprise. But that of Marlborough awakened many recollections and gave

occasion to many speculations. He had once enjoyed a large measure of

royal favour. He had then been dismissed, disgraced, imprisoned. The

Princess Anne, for refusing to discard his wife, had been turned out of

the palace, and deprived of the honours which had often been enjoyed

by persons less near to the throne. Ministers who were supposed to have

great influence in the closet had vainly tried to overcome the dislike

with which their master regarded the Churchills. It was not till he had

been some time reconciled to his sister in law that he ceased to regard

her two favourite servants as his enemies. So late as the year 1696

he had been heard to say, "If I had been a private gentleman, my Lord

Marlborough and I must have measured swords." All these things were now,

it seemed, forgotten. The Duke of Gloucester's household had just been

arranged. As he was not yet nine years old, and the civil list was

burdened with a heavy debt, fifteen thousand pounds was thought for

the present a sufficient provision. The child's literary education

was directed by Burnet, with the title of Preceptor. Marlborough was

appointed Governor; and the London Gazette announced his appointment,

not with official dryness, but in the fervid language of panegyric.

He was at the same time again sworn a member of the Privy Council from

which he had been expelled with ignominy; and he was honoured a few days

later with a still higher mark of the King's confidence, a seat at the

board of Regency.

Some persons imagined that they saw in this strange reconciliation

a sign that the influence of Portland was on the wane and that the

influence of Albemarle was growing. For Marlborough had been many years

at feud with Portland, and had even--a rare event indeed--been so much

irritated as to speak of Portland in coarse and ungentlemanlike

terms. With Albemarle, on the other hand, Marlborough had studiously

ingratiated himself by all the arts which a mind singularly observant

and sagacious could learn from a long experience in courts; and it is

possible that Albemarle may have removed some difficulties. It is hardly

necessary, however, to resort to that supposition for the purpose of

explaining why so wise a man as William forced himself, after some delay

caused by very just and natural resentment, to act wisely. His opinion

of Marlborough's character was probably unaltered. But he could not help

perceiving that Marlborough's situation was widely different from what

it had been a few years before. That very ambition, that very avarice,

which had, in former times, impelled him to betray two masters, were now

sufficient securities for his fidelity to the order of things which had

been established by the Bill of Rights. If that order of things could be

maintained inviolate, he could scarcely fail to be, in a few years, the

greatest and wealthiest subject in Europe. His military and political

talents might therefore now be used without any apprehension that they

would be turned against the government which used them. It is to be

remembered too that he derived his importance less from his military

and political talents, great as they were, than from the dominion which,

through the instrumentality of his wife, he exercised over the mind of

the Princess. While he was on good terms with the Court it was certain

that she would lend no countenance to any cabal which might attack

either the title or the prerogatives of her brother in law. Confident

that from this quarter, a quarter once the darkest and most stormy in

the whole political horizon, nothing but sunshine and calm was now to

be expected, William set out cheerfully on his expedition to his native

country.