than those she had been promised, and so insufficient to compensate her for the long struggle she had undergone, that she may be justly regarded as one of the chief sufferers by the peace. No new fortresses were incorporated in her territory, but the Spanish Netherlands, as they had been possessed by Charles II., were to be ceded to the House of Austria, the Dutch maintaining the right of garrisoning the strong places so as to form a barrier against France. By this means the Dutch and Austrian power would combine to shelter Holland from French invasion; but the Dutch occupation of Austrian towns could hardly fail to produce discord between Austria and the Netherlands. Holland was compelled to restore Lille, Aire, Bethune, and St. Venant to France; Quesnoy, which was strategically of great importance, and which had been lost through the treacherous desertion of England, remained in French hands; Tournay would have almost certainly been surrendered had not St. John feared the indignation of English public opinion;' and although Holland procured a treaty of commerce with France, her statesmen complained bitterly that she was excluded from all share in the Assiento contract, and in the advantages which England obtained by her new stations in the Mediterranean. As the Emperor refused to accede to the Peace of Utrecht, the Spanish Netherlands were placed in Dutch hands till peace was finally concluded, and in this quarter, therefore, the war was at an end. The Spanish dominions in Italy, with the exception of Sicily and of a small portion of the Milanese, which passed to the Duke of Savoy, were ceded to the Emperor, and a military convention, signed just before the Peace of Utrecht, established the neutrality of Italy, while, by another similar convention, guaranteed by both England and France, the Emperor agreed to withdraw his troops from Catalonia and from the islands of Majorca and Ivica. He still refused to abandon his claims to the whole Spanish dominions, or to treat with Philip; and the German frontier on the side

1 See Bolingbroke's correspondence on the subject with Torcy.

of France was only determined after another campaign in which Villars captured in a few weeks both Landau and Fribourg. The Emperor then came to terms, and peace was signed, at Rastadt, on March 6 (N.S.), and confirmed by the treaty of Baden, in September, 1714. By this peace France restored to the Empire Brisach, Fribourg, and Kehl; engaged to destroy the fortresses she had built since the peace of Ryswick along the Rhine, and recognised the new electoral dignity in the House of Hanover, while the Emperor, on his side, consented to the re-establishment of the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne in the territory and dignities they had lost by the war. Alsace continued French, and Landau was for a time added to the French dominions. The Emperor refused to include the Spanish King in the treaty, but without any formal peace active hostilities ceased, and though the ambition of the House of Hapsburg was baffled, it was hoped that the great end of the allies was accomplished by the solemn and reiterated renunciation by Philip of all claim to the French throne.

France, which had been reduced to an almost hopeless condition, emerged from the struggle much weakened for a time by the exhaustion of the war, but scarcely injured by the peace. With the exception of a very few fortresses, her European territory was intact; her military prestige was in some degree restored by the victory of Denain and by the last campaign of Villars on the Rhine; and her ascendancy in Europe, which had proved a source of many dangers, was not permanently impaired. Spain had undergone the dismemberment she so greatly feared; but the severance of distant, ill-governed, and discontented provinces did not seriously diminish her strength. She retained the sovereign of her choice. She preserved the colonial possessions which were the great source of her wealth, and she was in some degree reinvigorated by the infusion of a foreign element into her government. Alone among the Spaniards the Catalans had real reason to regret the peace. They had clung to the cause of Charles with a desperate fidelity, and the Peace of Utrecht rang the death-knell of provincial

liberties to which they were passionately attached. From the beginning of 1705 they had been the steady and faithful allies of England; they had again and again done eminent service in her cause; they had again and again received from her ministers and generals the most solemn assurances that they would never be abandoned. When England first opened a separate negotiation for peace she might easily have secured the Catalonian liberties by making their recognition an indispensable preliminary of peace; but, instead of this, the English ministers began by recognising the title of Philip, and contented themselves with a simple prayer that a general amnesty might be granted. When the convention was signed for the evacuation of Catalonia by the Imperial troops, the question of the provincial liberties was referred to the definite peace, the Queen and the French King promising at that time to interpose their good offices to secure them. The Emperor, who was bound to the Catalans by the strongest ties of gratitude and honour, could have easily obtained a guarantee of their fueros at the price of an acknowledgment of the title of Philip; but he was too proud and too selfish for such a sacrifice. The English, it is true, repeatedly urged the Spanish King to guarantee these privileges, and their ambassador, Lord Lexington, represented that the Queen thought herself obliged, by the strongest ties, those of conscience and honour,' to insist upon this point; but these were mere representations, supported by no action, and were therefore peremptorily refused. The English peace with Spain contained a clause granting the Catalans a general armistice, and also a promise that they should be placed in the same position as the Castilians, which gave them the right of holding employments and carrying on a direct trade with the West Indies, but it made no mention of their provincial privileges. The Peace of Rastadt was equally silent, for the dignity of the Emperor would not suffer him to enter into any negotiations with Philip. The unhappy people, abandoned by those whom they had so faithfully served, refused to accept the position offered them by treaty, and,

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much to the indignation of the English Government, they still continued in arms, struggling with a desperate courage against overwhelming odds. The King of Spain then called upon the Queen, as a guarantee of the treaty of evacuation, 'to order a squadron of her ships to reduce his subjects to their obedience, and thereby complete the tranquillity of Spain and of the Mediterranean commerce.' A fleet was actually despatched, which would probably have been employed against Barcelona, but for an urgent address of the House of Lords, and the whole moral weight of England was thrown into the scale against the insurgents. The conduct of the French was more decided. Though the French King had engaged himself with the Queen by the treaty of evacuation to use his good offices in the most effectual manner in favour of the Catalan liberties, he now sent an army to hasten the capture of Barcelona. The blockade of that noble city lasted for more than a year. The insurgents hung up over the high altar the Queen's solemn declaration to protect them. They continued the hopeless struggle till 14,000 bombs had been thrown into the city; till a great part of it had been reduced to ashes; till seven breaches had | been made; till 10,000 of the besieging army had been killed or wounded; and till famine had been added to the horrors of war. At last, on September 11, 1714, Barcelona was taken by storm. A frightful massacre took place in the streets. Many of the inhabitants were afterwards imprisoned or transported, and the old privileges of Catalonia were finally abolished.2

Such was the last scene of this disastrous war, and such were the leading articles of the treaties by which the balance and disposition of power in Europe were for a long period determined. France and Austria, whose competition for the dominions of Charles II. was the real cause of the war, would both have been more powerful had they never drawn the sword, : but simply accepted the treaty of partition. As far as England

1

was concerned, the peace was less blameable than the means by which it was obtained, and the foreign policy of the Tory party was hardly more deflected by dishonourable motives than that of their adversaries. Those, indeed, who can look undazzled through the blaze of military glory that illuminates the reign of Anne will find very little in English public life during that period deserving of respect. Party motives on both sides were supreme. They led one party to prolong a war, which was once unquestionably righteous, beyond all just and reasonable limits. They led the other party to make a peace which was desirable and almost necessary, in such a manner that it left a deep and lasting stain on the honour of the nation. To those who care to note the landmarks of moral history which occasionally appear amid the vicissitudes of politics, it may not be uninteresting to observe that among the few parts of the Peace of Utrecht which appear to have given unqualified and unanimous satisfaction at home was the Assiento contract, which made England the great slave-trader of the world. The last prelate who took a leading part in English politics affixed his signature to the treaty. A Te Deum, composed by Handel, was sung in thanksgiving in the churches. Theological passions had been recently more vehemently aroused, and theological controversies had for some years acquired a wider and more absorbing interest in England than in any period since the Commonwealth; but it does not yet appear to have occurred to any class that a national policy which made it its main object to encourage the kidnapping of tens of thousands of negroes, and their consignment to the most miserable slavery, might be at least as inconsistent with the spirit of the Christian religion as either the establishment of Presbyterianism or the toleration of prelacy in Scotland.

While the peace was still in process of negotiation, the two leaders of the Government were raised to the peerage, but with unequal honours; and the fact that St. John was only inade Viscount Bolingbroke, while Harley became Earl of Oxford, greatly strengthened the jealousy which had arisen between them.