XIII. 1725. Such formidable preparations called for a counter CHAP. confederacy on the part of England. Horace Walpole obtained the accession of France; Prussia was secured by Townshend, through a guarantee of its claims on Juliers; and, on the 3d of September, was signed a defensive alliance between these three Powers, called, from the place of its signature, the Treaty of Hanover. A separate article referred to some cruelties lately practised on the Protestants at Thorn in Polish Prussia, and engaged to obtain satisfaction for them. The second and third undertook that, in case of any attack on one of the contracting parties, the others should furnish a certain quota in troops, or the value in ships or money; and, in case of need, should agree concerning further succours. These were nearly all the apparent stipulations; but their real drift was, moreover, to counter-balance the treaty of Vienna, - compel the Emperor to relinquish the Ostend Company, and withstand any attempts that might be made in behalf of the Pretender. Such was the celebrated treaty of Hanover, against which the opposition so often thundered during the administration of Walpole. "Thus "Hanover rode triumphant on the shoulders of 66 England," writes Chesterfield. "It was a treaty, "the tendency of which is discovered in the "name,” cries Chatham. But their judgment loses much of its weight, when we find it built on the assumption that there was, in fact, no secret agreement at Vienna. The proofs of that agreement, XIII. 1725. CHAP. depending mainly on private and confidential disclosures, could not, at the time, be made known ; and party spirit was eager to deny an injury which it would not resent. But we But we who can scarcely be unconvinced that there was such an agreement - who observe that the two Courts were rapidly marching to its execution, and that Spain had just taken the first public step by a peremptory demand of Gibraltar from the British Government - can we doubt that it was necessary to provide against this alarming combination, and that a counteralliance was likely to prove, as it did prove, the best means of averting the danger, and preserving peace to England and to Europe? Nor can it truly be said, that the treaty of Hanover was framed to promote Hanoverian objects. I do not deny, that the interests of Hanover had, in many instances, been unduly cherished, and had given rise to some of the difficulties out of which the treaty sprung. It was the acquisition of Bremen and Verden from Denmark which produced the seizure of Sleswick and the resentment of Russia, while the Emperor was no less offended at this spirit of aggrandisement, and at the refusal of George to pay the large fines required for investitures. Had it not been for Hanover, there might have been no confederacy at Vienna. But that confederacy once formed, and once pointed against England, from whatever cause, it was necessary for England to withstand it; and the treaty of the 3d of September was, in fact, only for the XIII. 1725. defence of England and of English objects, -Gi- CHAP. braltar, the Ostend Company, and the attempts of the Pretender, — in all which Hanover had not the least concern. So certain is this, that the King's German ministers were unanimous against it, complaining that the King was exposing his foreign states to the vengeance of the head of the Empire for the sake of the English trade. The King himself opposed the treaty on this ground, and it was with great difficulty that his consent was extorted by Townshend. And thus, while the opposition at home was clamorous against the treaty as too Hanoverian, the Germans, with more reason, denounced it as too English. The treaty of Hanover was, I think, the only Ministerial measure from 1721 to 1742, in which Walpole did not take the principal lead. A statesman so jealous of power, was not a little displeased to find this important transaction almost solely conducted by a colleague. He was determined, according to his own phrase, that the firm should be Walpole and Townshend, not Townshend and Walpole. To this period may probably be ascribed his first animosity against his brother minister; perhaps even the fixed intention to remove him at a fitting opportunity. He complained that Townshend had been "too precipitate;" meaning, no doubt, that there would have been sufficient time to receive his advice and directions, and surely his talents deserved it. All his remarks on this subject display his superior sagacity. He fully ap XIII. CHAP. proved of the main principles of the Treaty, but he remonstrated against the large sums required to 1725. gain Sweden; he would not lay an embargo on the Russian ships of war; he thought it a grievous omission not to have secured Portugal in the event of another war with Spain. Still more must he have disapproved a wild scheme which Townshend had formed and communicated to his brother Horace; to conquer the Austrian Netherlands, and divide them between England, Holland, and France.* Walpole was far too wise a statesman to allow the French, under any pretext, a footing in the Netherlands. He knew, as was emphatically said many years afterwards by an American minister in London, that " if ever France should ac"quire the dominion of Flanders, having at the "same time a good constitution, the consequence "of this island is gone."+ In December, the King began his journey to England; and landed at Rye after a most violent tempest, which exposed him to considerable danger. The engagements he had lately concluded produced the principal, indeed the only important, debates of the ensuing Session; their policy was severely arraigned by Pulteney, Shippen, and Lord Lechmere; but ably defended by Townshend and the two Walpoles, and supported by large * Lord Townshend to Horace Walpole, August 27. 1725. + Gouverneur Morris' Letters. To President Washington, August 30. 1790. |