combined under any circumstances, we could have had to do no more when the event arrived.

The Spectator tells us that when Sir Roger de Coverley got up to speak at the assizes, he did so rather with a view of maintaining his consequence in the county than because he had anything to say. Looking back upon the war of the Spanish succession through the vista of a century and three quarters, the good which it did for this country seems to have been very much of the same kind. It revived our consequence in Europe, which had sunk to a low ebb since the days of Cromwell, and had not regained its old position by the Peace of Ryswick. Thenceforth England became enrolled for better or worse with the great military Powers; and though Bolingbroke tried to nip it in the bud, the system survived his efforts, and flourished to a green old age. Whether the same result might not have been attained at less cost, and by a totally different method, is another question. But it was attained. The victories of Marlborough, like the victories of Wellington, raised the influence and reputation of England to such a height, that the alarm of foreign invasion was banished from an Englishman's dreams for half a century. From another point of view, as we have already observed, the war was a necessity: for the exigencies of the Revolution had involved us in the policy of William, and William had involved us with allies from whom we could not honourably disengage ourselves. But the war was never a defensive war, like the war we waged against Napoleon, nor undertaken to protect English interests like the war we waged against Nicholas. Of the prospects of the struggle, it is remarkable that Marlborough, from the outset, took a highly favourable view, notwithstanding Steenkirk and Landen. "The French will find," he said to Bolingbroke, "that they have no longer green levies to contend with." William, in fact, had made the army which the Duke. afterwards led to victory. He had naturally encountered those disasters which can hardly be avoided during the process of making raw troops into ripe ones. But now the process was complete. The veterans of Namur had been disbanded after the Peace of Ryswick. But they flocked to the standard of Marlborough when the drum beat, and more than justified the confidence which he felt in the result.

As a curious example of party feeling, we may note that in the first address to the Queen which congratulated her on Marlborough's successes, the Whigs objected to the words, "signally retrieved" the honour of the British arms, as if it was a reflection on King William, and moved that the word "maintained" be substituted in place of them. The original words, however, were retained by the voices of a large majority. It is not our intention

to recapitulate the events of this war, nor even to go at much length into the terms of the treaty which concluded it. The military genius of Marlborough has never, to our knowledge, been disputed, nor are we aware that he has been taxed with a single strategical mistake. The political genius of Bolingbroke is now universally acknowledged, nor is it necessary to say much more in defence of the Treaty of Utrecht, than in defence of the battles which preceded it. A little more it may be necessary to say, but that only for the sake of disentangling the threads of the controversy, and bringing the salient points before our readers into as clear relief as possible.

The final cause of the two Partition treaties to which William III. had pledged us was the prevention of a union between the whole Spanish monarchy and any other first-class power. The immediate object of the grand alliance which followed was to prevent such a union taking place between Spain and France. Now, if while fighting for the immediate purpose of the alliance, we should find ourselves not only forgetting, but actually defeating the original purpose of the treaties, would not any one of the contracting parties be justified in holding back, and demanding some good reason for this total revolution of policy? Yet this is exactly what occurred. At the outbreak of the war the Duke of Anjou was nearer in the line of succession to the French crown than the Archduke Charles to the imperial. But, as years passed by, their relative positions changed. In 1705, Charles became heir-presumptive. In 1706, Louis offered terms of peace on the basis of the articles of the grand alliance, offering to the allies "that equitable and reasonable satisfaction to his Imperial Majesty for his pretension to the Spanish succession," for which the first article of that treaty had stipulated that is to say, being ready to adopt the principle of the Partition treaties, to agree that his grandson should be contented with a part only, instead of the whole of the dominions of Charles II., and offering at the same time the strongest possible guarantees against the union of even this fragment of it with his own dominions. His overtures were refused; as still better terms were refused twice afterwards, in 1709 and 1710. Here, then, at least we were forgetting the original object, for the sake of which the war began. In 1711, the Archduke Charles, from being heir-presumptive, became actual Emperor, and still war was to be prosecuted to place him on the throne of Spain. Here, then, we were absolutely defeating the purpose for which the allied Powers had contracted the Partition treaties. We were placing ourselves in the ridiculous position of persevering in order to achieve what we had started in order to prevent; and of hazarding a union of the whole Spanish monarchy with Austria, even when the union of half the Spanish monarchy with France was no longer to be feared. The absurdity of this

position was too glaring to be defended. And accordingly the advocates of the war had to find some other colourable pretext which should throw this aspect of it into the background, and clothe it with a different complexion. This was found in the necessity of taking advantage of this opportunity to "humble the power of France." The natural question which is suggested by these words is, what should we have gained by humbling France any further that we did not gain as it was? We know very well that the Treaty of Utrecht was more favourable to Louis than the terms he had himself offered at the Congress of Gertruydenberg; while, according to Bolingbroke, it was only the pertinacious refusal of the allies to join in the peace, when war had become totally unreasonable, which prevented us from getting as good terms on the second occasion as on the first. After all, the broad question is, whether France was sufficiently humiliated not to glut the vengeance of Austria and Holland, but to secure the liberties of Europe. Let the history of the Continent for the next eighty years answer that question. But even if she was not, England, we contend, was entitled to retire from the contest when its original object was attained. It is the evil of all wars that they have a tendency to overflow the limits originally imposed upon them. We saw this tendency in the Crimean War, when, after we had secured Turkey and destroyed Sebastopol, the cry arose for "humbling the power of Russia. In justice to the French Emperor, we must say we think he was quite right not to listen to this cry. And the cry against Louis was, if anything, still more unreasonable.

Such being the justification of the end which the English ministry pursued, we are free to confess that the means by which they sought it, admit of less perfect vindication. As for leaving the Austrians and the Dutch to fight their quarrel by themselves, the ministry had no reason in the world to be ashamed of that. For neither of these two Powers had scrupled to consult their own private interests whenever it suited them to do so, at the expense of either England or each other. That, then, is not the point. The point is, whether that which England did in 1712 she ought not to have done in 1711. The Whig ministry of 1706-9-10, by acting with the allies in their refusal of Louis's proposals had, doubtless, seemed to sanction that enlarged scheme of hostilities to which we have already adverted. But engagements of this kind cannot in the nature of things be binding for ever. And, if the Queen's Government had seized the opportunity afforded by the Archduke's accession to the Empire (1711) of announcing her Majesty's determination to retire from a contest which was thenceforth to be waged in direct contradiction of its first principles, perhaps no fault could have been found. And this is what Lord Bolingbroke,

writing nearly thirty years afterwards, professes to think should have been done. He admits that the secret instructions sent out to the Duke of Ormond had a look "of double dealing;" and that when the Queen first commanded him to write the dispatch which contained these instructions he was "surprised and hurt." The dispatch is as follows:

"Her Majesty, my lord, has reason to believe that we shall come to an agreement upon the great article of the union of the two monarchies as soon as a courier sent from Versailles to Madrid can return; it is therefore the Queen's positive command to your Grace, that you avoid in engaging in any siege, or hazarding a battle, till you have further orders from Her Majesty. I am at the same time directed to let your Grace know that the Queen would have you disguise the receipt of this order, and Her Majesty thinks that you cannot want pretences for conducting yourself so as to answer her ends without owning that which might, at present, have an ill effect if it was publicly known." And, if we are to believe Lord Bolingbroke, he had nothing to do with it but the composition. He says that if there had been time he should have remonstrated with her Majesty on the subject. And he thinks there would have been "more frankness and more dignity" in speaking out to our allies during the preceding year. But still he will not allow that any substantial injury was done to any one by this transaction. And as to the injunctions to secrecy laid upon the English general, he is wholly silent. This is the one suspicious feature in the negotiation which it is difficult to explain away. By his own account Lord Bolingbroke disapproved of it. Yet he seems to have disapproved of it simply as a mistake in policy, and as in no way connected with any kind of moral considerations.

A kind of corollary to the Treaty of Utrecht was the Commercial Treaty which ministers proposed with France; and it is singular that the only part of these transactions which posterity has unanimously approved was the only one which the Opposition succeeded in defeating. We say unanimously, because we don't suppose there is any one at the present day who seriously doubts the good policy of Free Trade. Thirty-four years ago it was natural enough that Lord Stanhope should condemn the treaty as injurious to the English manufacturer; but we observe that in the present volume he passes it over in silence. Indeed, the only possible objection that could be raised to it was that it involved to some extent a breach of faith with Portugal. But even that charge can hardly be sustained; for the Methuen Treaty was made in 1703, and the French Treaty in 1713; so that Portugal had enjoyed ten years of the preference accorded to her; and it seems to be agreed that even where such preferences are really at the moment beneficial, "a fixed and not very distant term should be specified when the obligation should expire, and both parties be at liberty to continue or to abandon

the regulations agreed upon." But in this case it seems capable of proof that the Methuen Treaty was injurious to both Portugal and England.

"By binding ourselves to receive Portuguese wines for two-thirds of the duty payable on those of France, we, in effect, gave the Portuguese growers a monopoly of the British market, and thereby attracted too great a proportion of the capital of Portugal to the production of wine: while, on the other hand, we not only excluded one of the principal equivalents the French had to offer for our commodities, and proclaimed to the world that we considered it better to deal with two millions of beggarly customers than with thirty millions of rich ones, but we also provoked the retaliation of the French, who forthwith excluded most of our articles from their markets." 1

The Treaty with Portugal was at least as much a political manœuvre as the Treaty with France; while the latter had the merit of being founded on correct principles, and being far more conducive to the prosperity of English trade.

But neither in the conclusion of the Treaty which we have so far vindicated nor in the conduct of the war which needs no vindication, have we as yet referred to anything beyond the public policy and the military skill which respectively distinguished them. If we come to the motives of the two chief actors on the scene, we are confronted with far more difficult and far more interesting problems. Taller by the head and shoulders than all their contemporaries stand out among the men of this era the two magnificent figures of Bolingbroke and Marlborough. The grandeur of a great man, like the beauty of a handsome woman, seems, as it were, to lift the happy owner out of the sphere of ordinary obligations, and to invest him with privileges denied to ordinary mortals. He seems to be too high for us to judge, and to look down on his detractors from his eminence in the temple of fame with contemptuous or indignant glances. "Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days, or caused the dayspring to know his place?" Such is the effect produced on the imagination by those extraordinary beings who at intervals appear among men and struggle against it as we will, it is impossible ever to feel sure that we have completely escaped from its control, and the chances are, that even when we do, the violence of the effort which is necessary to accomplish the result projects us into the opposite extreme and a worse slavery than before.

Both the great men we have mentioned have been accused of crimes which in the abstract admit of no excuse. Yet both seem, as it were, to appeal to some higher court, and to demand, if the metaphor be allowable, to be tried by their peers. It is curious what different treatment they have experienced at the hands of posterity. The evidence against Bolingbroke raises only a strong suspicion; the evidence against Marlborough is on some points quite conclusive of

(1) McCulloch, “Com. Dict.,” 1412.