It is worthy of note, and it ought to be a warning to all those who might be tempted to similar excesses of party violence, how slight, or rather how null, was the moral effect that they produced. No one appears to have thought the worse on that account of any of the persons so solemnly found Guilty. Walpole for example, who, disdaining to make any submission, remained a prisoner in the Tower until the close of the Session, received in his captivity visits of compliment and friendship from men of the highest note in England, such as Lord Somers and Lord Godolphin. The vote which declared him notoriously corrupt was so well understood as the mere fruit of Tory rancour, that it did not form the smallest objection or obstacle in his path as he rose to the highest dignities in the next ensuing reign.

In this Session there was passed an Act to protect the members of the Episcopal Church in Scotland from disturbance and interruption in their public service. It provided that they might be free to worship after their own manner, and that the Sheriff of the county should be bound to secure them from the insults of the rabble. Simple as the object seems, it excited great resentment among the Scottish Presbyterians; and the General Assembly declared itself astonished and afflicted at this monstrous measure.5

From London we pass back to Utrecht. There the French plenipotentiaries, gave in a Project of Treaty which greatly surprised those who as yet knew only the

5 Act 10 Anne c. 7, and Burton's | Church Bill, June 14, 1869, made History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 43. skilful use of this Scottish inciThe Bishop of Derry, addressing dent.

the House of Lords upon the Irish |

seven Preliminary Articles signed by Mesnager, and sent to Holland the year before. By this project Louis claimed both Lille and Tournay as an equivalent for the demolition of Dunkirk. To complete his own barrier in the Low Countries he demanded Aire and St. Venant, Bethune and Douay. The Queen's title was not to be acknowledged until the peace was signed. The Electors of Cologne and of Bavaria were to be re-established in their dominions. There was to be a mutual restoration of conquest between France and Savoy. Philip was to continue King of Spain and the Indies, but measures were to be concerted to hinder the Crowns of Spain and France from ever being united on the same head.

This project, being made known to the Dutch Ministers, was by their connivance published in the Dutch Gazettes, and through these found its way to England. There it stirred up no little indignation. Not the Whigs only but even many of the Tories exclaimed against it, declaring that such terms on the part of France were arrogant and insupportable after so many defeats. Lord Halifax seized the favourable moment, and on the 15th of February moved an Address to the Queen against this project in the House of Lords. Oxford, seeing how strong the current ran in that direction, did not venture. to divide, and so the motion passed. As Swift writes on this occasion to excuse the mishap, "The House of Lords is too strong in Whigs notwithstanding the new creations."

The Ministers, although a little disconcerted, trusted partly to the effect of time in cooling the first resentments, and partly to the persuasions of Abbé Gaultier, whom they despatched to Paris with a representation to his master, that the Queen had gone as far as was possible for her, and that if Louis desired peace he

must moderate his claims. But meanwhile the course of events at Versailles tended to raise other difficulties on the side of Spain. A grievous epidemic, the most malignant form of measles, swept away the flower of the Royal Family, and spread desolation around the hearth of the aged King. First on the 12th of February died Marie Adelaide of Savoy, the young and charming Dauphiness, better known by the title of Burgundy, which she bore till a few months back. Nine days later she was followed by her husband, the worthy pupil of Fénélon and the rising hope of France. They left two sons, the Dukes of Brittany and Anjou ; the former only five and the last only two years of age. Both fell ill of the same malady which had proved fatal to their parents, and the eldest expired on the 8th of March. Thus had three Dauphins of France gone to the grave in one year. The survivor, then become the heir-apparent, grew up to long life as Louis the Fifteenth, but was still a sickly infant whose life was for a time despaired of. Yet in the order of birth this one frail child was now the only bar between Philip of Spain and the throne of France. Under these altered circumstances it was doubtful whether Philip would consent to forego his eventual claim. There was much delay in his answer; there was plainly much hesitation in his mind; and until that essential point could be cleared up the entire treaty languished, and the conferences at Utrecht were suspended.

The Ministers in England had from the first protested, that if unable to conclude a peace on the terms which they desired, they would be found willing and ready to prosecute the war. Already was the Duke of Ormond named General in Flanders in succession to the Duke of Marlborough; and in the course of April he joined his

colleague Prince Eugene at Tournay. They had under their command a formidable army exceeding in its numbers 120,000 men, while Villars who confronted them had but 100,000; and these, from the necessities of the kingdom, ill appointed and ill supplied. With such superiority on the side of the Allies it was the desire of Eugene to resume the "grand project of Marlborough-invest at the same time both Le Quesnoy and Landrecies-overwhelm the French army -and march onwards into the heart of France. "I do not hesitate in declaring to you"-so he wrote a few weeks afterwards-" that it was entirely in our power to force the enemy to risk a battle to their disadvantage or repass the Somme."6 Ormond on his part, a man of honorable character though slender capacity, was ambitious of military fame, and like a good soldier told Eugene that he was ready to join in the attack.

Louis the Fourteenth had been at the outset almost overpowered by the anguish of his domestic losses; above all, the ultimely death of the Dauphiness, the favourite and frolicsome companion of himself and Madame de Maintenon in their cheerless old age. No sooner could he again apply to business, than he bent his mind to frame some plan of renunciation for King Philip which should satisfy the Court of St. James's. In the course of April came an explicit letter on this subject from Torcy to St. John. It was now proposed, that in the Treaty of Peace the contracting parties should still stipulate most expressly that the Crown of France should never, under any circumstances, be united to the Crown of Spain. Should the King of Spain become, by order of succession, the heir to France, he was to

• Letter to Marlborough, Camp at Hayn, June 9, 1712.

make an immediate option between the two. If he chose Spain, the Crown of France was to pass to the next male heir; and, in the far more probable case of his preferring France, he was not to be permitted to leave Spain to any son or descendant of his own. On the contrary, that throne should then immediately devolve on some foreign Prince, to be named in the Treaty of Peace, and such as could cause no umbrage or jealousy to any of the contracting parties. The King of Portugal, wholly unconnected with the House of Bourbon, was suggested as a person for whom this stipulation might be fitly made; and it was proposed that to this stipulation all the Powers of Europe should be Guarantees.

This project found no favor. It made no way with the English Ministers. St. John answered Torcy by a masterly despatch in the French language. "In either," he said, "of the cases which you put, what security can Europe have that the option which you promise will be really made? All the Powers you say should be Guarantees to this engagement; and no doubt such Guarantees might form a Grand Alliance to carry on war against the Prince who attempted to violate the conditions of the Treaty. But surely we ought to seek the means of averting, rather than the means of sustaining a new war. No expedient will give any real security unless the Prince, who is now in possession of Spain, will make his option at this very hour, and unless his option so made be an article in the Treaty of Peace."7

The despatch of Torcy to St. | 1712, are both published in the John, April 8, N. S., and the Bolingbroke Correspondence, vol. answer of St. John, April 6, O. S. | i. p. 448-456.