of England. Notwithstanding the pressure of these circumstances, however, the minister persevered in his pacific course throughout the recess, laying great stress upon the necessity of obtaining the concurrence of the states-general, hitherto supine and vacillating; and he succeeded so far as to secure the emperor's consent to the articles of a secret convention, which would have terminated the war but for the insincerity of cardinal Fleury, whose fundamental principle at this period was to separate England from the states-general. It soon became evident that hostile preparations could no longer be delayed with safety; and Walpole gradually and with reluctance yielded to the conviction. Enormous sums were expended in the elections. Walpole is said to have contributed no less than 60,000%. out of his private fortune.* The issue was, on the whole, favourable to the ministry; but a few votes were lost. 1735. Parliament assembled on the 14th of January; and the king's speech alluded to the plan that had been formed as the basis of a general negotiation, suggesting, at the same time, the urgent necessity of maintaining a posture of defence. The opposition appeared in unusual strength, and several amendments were moved, and argued with ability in both houses; but the ministerial party defeated their opponents in the upper house with a majority of fifty, and in the lower with a majority of eighty. The business of the session was for the most part destitute of public interest, producing few debates, and none that affected the administration. The subsidiary treaty with Denmark was approved; and in the committee on the supply, not, however, without a severe struggle, 30,000 seamen were voted, and it was agreed that the army should be augmented to the number of 25,744 effective men. The king prorogued the session on the 15th of May, and went to Hanover, leaving the regency in the hands of the queen during his absence. A new source of disturbance occurred at this time on * Etough. 1735. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 215 the continent, which threatened to increase the difficulty of bringing about an arrangement amongst the European powers. It arose from a frivolous dispute about the privileges of the Portuguese minister resident at the court of Madrid. Some of that minister's servants, having been accused of assisting in the rescue of a malefactor, were arrested and carried to prison. This circumstance was treated as an infraction of the law of nations, and strong remonstrances were made against it. On the other side, the Spanish ambassador resident at Lisbon was instructed to demand satisfaction for the intemperance of the Portuguese minister, but instead of obtaining redress, nineteen of his servants were seized and imprisoned. There was at once a breach between the two The ministers severally returned home, and both countries prepared for instant hostilities. courts. In this extremity, Portugal, unable to cope with the superior power of Spain, applied for assistance to England —entangled on all sides, as the tories too truly asserted, in treaties and engagements. As England derived great commercial advantages from her alliance with Portugal, the demand was immediately complied with, and sir John Norris was sent to the Tagus with a powerful fleet. It must have seemed inexplicable to Austria that England should have refused to aid her on the ground that Great Britain was not concerned in the succession to the throne of Poland, and that she now came forward to assist Portugal in a quarrel about an ambassador's servants. But the inconsistency was in some measure diminished by the strict instructions that were given to sir John Norris not to act offensively against Spain, but simply to protect the trade of English subjects, and to defend the coast and commerce of Portugal. The demonstration was fortunately sufficient for all purposes; and Spain, although she complained bitterly of the partial conduct of England, agreed to a convention in July, which was soon afterwards followed by a treaty of peace. Throughout the whole of this period the negotiations were continued between England and the courts of Vienna, Paris, and Madrid. The great object of Walpole was to detach the allies, and to effect a separate pacification. It required consummate address, and inflexible resolution in resisting the appeals of the emperor, to enable him to effect this object. The duplicity of cardinal Fleury, and the jealousy of Spain, perpetually thwarted him in the progress of his plans, which were still further embarrassed by the rage and despair of the emperor, whose anxiety at last became so overwhelming, that apprehensions were gravely entertained lest the conflict might shake his reason. His reproaches against England were dictated under an impression that the dismemberment of his empire was inevitable; and even Prince Eugene was so convinced of the impossibility of preserving it, that he thought the wisest course would be to recall the imperial troops into the hereditary dominions, and leave the rest to France, unless the maritime powers promptly interposed. To such a height of frenzy was the Austrian cabinet worked, that count Sinzendorft exclaimed, that the refusal of England to fulfil her engagement was the death-warrant of the emperor. "No malefactor," he said, " was ever carried with so hard a doom to the gibbet.' He was for taking revenge on a comprehensive scale, beginning with the burning of Amsterdam. "There is and there shall be," said this impetuous counsellor, no separate negotiation. The only means left for the emperor is to set fire to the four corners of the world, and to perish, if he must perish, in the general conflagration." 66 66 Yet a separate negotiation was effected notwithstanding. The aim of the English minister was to make it the interest of France to co-operate in his efforts for the restoration of tranquillity, by candidly agreeing to such conditions as would justify cardinal Fleury in deserting Spain, and making a separate accommodation with the emperor. The only terms upon which France could be induced to enter into this arrangement were the exchange of Lorraine for Tuscany, to be proposed and executed by the interference of England. Having 1735. GENERAL PACIFICATION. 217 ascertained this to be the secret view of the French cabinet, the next step was to procure the consent of the emperor. The plan was accordingly laid before him, and his reply was distinguished by a tone of candour which conferred dignity upon his misfortunes. He declared himself grateful for the friendship of the king of England, and said, that although in a similar case he would not have withheld real succours, yet he was willing to believe that the disappointment, however fatal to himself and his family, was unavoidable; that he would pay all imaginable deference to the advice now communicated; but that, as the exchange did not wholly depend on himself, he would consult his council before he bound himself by a promise to agree to it. In the mean while hostilities were actually, though not avowedly, suspended on the Rhine, and the negotiations proceeded through a variety of obstacles. The ministers of Spain, irritated at the rumoured secession of France, did not hesitate to accuse that power of treachery, and don Patinho (a statesman of whom Fleury said that he always spoke as well as wrote in cipher), went so far as to propose that the French commerce with Spain should be by some overt means impeded and stopped. "Thus we shall," he observed, 66 venge ourselves upon the cardinal in the most easy and effectual manner, and kill him with a staff of cotton." Walpole took prompt advantage of these querulous humours, and by his adroit diplomacy effectually rendered the breach irreparable. re The result of these prolonged and complicated negotiations was the signature of preliminaries for a general pacification. So unexpected a triumph of statesman-like intrigue astonished even the sceptic Bolingbroke, who declared, that "if the English ministers had any hand in it, they were wiser than he thought them; and if not, they were much luckier than they deserved to be." The terms of the preliminaries were universally ad* Lord Hervey to Horace Walpole. |