have been painful to any temper, was intolerable to the pride of Spain. Scarcely could the mob be restrained from a general massacre of the French at Madrid. The King and Queen expressed their resentment in most passionate terms*, declaring that they would never be reconciled till the Duke de Bourbon came to their Court and implored their pardon on his knees. To Mr. William Stanhope, the English Minister, they announced their intention to place, in future, their whole trust and confidence in his Master, and allow no mediation but his in their negotiations. But as soon as it appeared that King George refused on this account to break his connection with France, their Spanish Majesties turned their resentment against him also. They dissolved the Congress of Cambray by recalling their Plenipotentiaries, and instructed Ripperda to abandon all the contested points with the Court of Vienna, and form, if possible, a close alliance against France and England. Nor was the Emperor disinclined to accept these overtures. He had thought himself wronged by the terms of the Quadruple Allies; and though he acquiesced in the first, had never forgiven the latter. Of France he was afraid; of Hanover, jealous; and he had recently embroiled himself with England and Holland by establishing at Ostend an East India Company, which was considered as contrary to the treaty of Westphalia, and which, at all events, was keenly resented by the maritime powers. Under these impressions, Ripperda found few difficulties in his negotiations, and on the last of April and first of May, signed three treaties at Vienna, confirming the articles of the Quadruple Alliance, but proceeding to form a close concert of measures. By these the King of Spain sanctioned the Ostend Company, and allowed it the same privileges as to the most favoured nations. He ceased *The Queen exclaimed to the French Envoy," All the Bourbons "are a race of devils !" then, suddenly recollecting that her husband was of that House, she turned to him and added, "except your Majesty!". - Account of Ripperda; and Coxe's Memoirs of Spain, vol. iii. p. 111. 66 † Only a year before (April 26. 1724), the King had made a solemn representation against this Company. See Dumont, Suppl. Corps Diplom. vol. viii. part ii. p. 85. to insist on a point he had long demanded-the exclusive mastership of the Golden Fleece. He no longer claimed that Spanish troops should garrison the fortresses of Tuscany. He acknowledged the Emperor's right to Naples, Sicily, the Milanese, and Netherlands; and guaranteed what was termed the Pragmatic Sanction, namely, the succession of the hereditary states of Austria in the female line. This was a point for which Charles was most solicitous, having only daughters in his family, and its guarantee was a vast concession on the part of Philip, who might otherwise on the Emperor's death have put forth a just, or at least a plausible, claim on his Flemish and Italian dominions. Both Sovereigns engaged to support each other, should either be attacked; Charles to bring into the field 20,000 foot and 10,000 horse; Philip, only 20,000 troops, but 15 ships of war. * The world beheld, with astonishment, two Princes, whose rival pretensions had for so many years distracted Europe with divisions and deluged it with blood, now suddenly bound together by the closest ties of alliance, and combining against those very powers which had hitherto befriended and aided one part or the other. But the large concessions made by Philip, ill compensated by a new renunciation of the Spanish Crown from Charles, raised an immediate suspicion that there must be other secret articles to the advantage of the Court of Madrid; and, in fact, hopes had been held out to it of a project most dangerous to the balance of power a marriage between the young Archduchess, the heiress of the Austrian States, and one of the Infants of Spain. These were only hopes; but it was speedily shown, by many concurrent proofs, and afterwards confirmed by the confession of Ripperda and others, that at the same time with the public treaty, a private agreement had been concluded, according to which the allies of Vienna were to demand first Gibraltar, and then Minorca, for Spain; and, in case of refusal, to combine for the restitution of these by force, and for the enthronement of the Pretender in England. A motive of religion was also * Dumont, Suppl. Corps Diplom. vol. viii. part ii. p. 114. The Emperor's contingent is augmented by 10,000 in Coxe's Walpole. -- mingled in the latter project; and either the accomplishment or the alarm of it might, as the Emperor hoped, obtain his great object at this time the guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction by the French and English nations." In this case," said Walpole, many years afterwards, "it was not his late Majesty's Ministers here who "informed him; it was he that informed them of the "transaction; he had his information at Hanover, and "it was so good that he could not be deceived; I know 66 as well, and am as certain that there were such "articles, as those very persons who drew up the 66 articles." ""* Russia also showed a strong inclination to engage in the same confederacy. On the death of Peter the Great his widow, Catherine, had been acknowledged as Empress, and pursued his plans with scarcely an inferior spirit. She had inherited his rancour against England; and having married her daughter to the Duke of Holstein, became eager to recover Sleswick, which Denmark had formerly wrested from that Duchy. "For myself,” she said, "I could be content with clothes to keep me warm, and with bread to eat; but I am determined to see justice done to my son-in-law; and, for his sake, I "would not scruple to put myself at the head of an "army; "t- and accordingly she issued orders for soldiers and ships to be equipped. Large sums were transmitted from Madrid to St. Petersburg, larger still to Vienna; in fact, it is said, that this last Court received no less than 1,300,000 pistoles in fourteen months. 66 Such formidable preparations called for a counterconfederacy 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 3rd 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 * Speech, March 29. 1734. Parl. Hist. vol. ix. p. 598. 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 tri"umphant on the shoulders of England," writes Chesterfield. "It was a treaty, the tendency of which is dis"covered 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, 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. 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 counter-alliance was likely to prove, as it did prove, the best means of averting the danger, and preserving peace to England and to Europe? But 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 1725. RIVALRY OF WALPOLE AND TOWNSHEND. 83 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 3rd of September was, in fact, only for the defence of England and of English objects, Gibraltar, 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 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. 66 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 approved of the main principles of the Treaty, but he remonstrated against the large sums required to 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 |