CHAP. XI. 1714. 3. of the dan threatened France had As the principles and passions which animated the contending parties were thus opposite, proportionately great was the peril to the cause alike of religious freedom and of European independence, if the coalition had not Magnitude proved successful. That no danger was to be apprehended ger which to these from its triumph has been decisively proved by Europe, if the event; the Allies were victorious, and both of them proved suchave been preserved. But very different would have cessful. been the results, if a power, animated by the ambition, guided by the fanaticism, and directed by the ability, of the cabinet of Louis XIV., had gained the ascendancy in Europe. Beyond all question, a universal despotic dominion would have been established over the bodies, a cruel spiritual thraldom over the minds, of men. France and Spain united under Bourbon princes, and in a close family alliance-the Empire of Charlemagne with that of Charles V.-the power which revoked the Edict of Nantes, and perpetrated the massacre of St Bartholomew, with that which banished the Moriscoes, and established the Inquisition-would have proved irresistible, and beyond example destructive to the best interests. of mankind. which might ed the tri France. The Protestants might have been driven, like the pagan heathens of old by the son of Pepin, beyond the Results Elbe; the Stuart race, and with them Romish ascen- have followdancy, might have been re-established in England; the umph of fire lighted by Latimer and Ridley might have been extinguished in blood; and the energy breathed by religious freedom into the Anglo-Saxon race might have expired. The destinies of the world would have been changed. Europe, instead of a variety of independent states, whose mutual hostility kept alive courage, while their national rivalry stimulated talent, would have sunk VOL. II. X СНАР. into the slumber attendant on universal dominion. The colonial empire of England would have withered away 1714. and perished, as that of Spain has done in the grasp of the Inquisition. The Anglo-Saxon race would have been arrested in its mission to overspread the earth and subdue it. The centralised despotism of the Roman Empire would have been renewed on continental Europe; the chains of Romish tyranny, and with them the general infidelity of France before the Revolution, would have extinguished or perverted thought in the British Islands. There, too, the event has proved the justice of these anticipations. France, during the eighteenth century, has taught us in what state our minds would have been, had Marlborough been overthrown; the infidelity of Voltaire, to what a state of anarchy our religious opinions would have been reduced; the despotism of Napoleon, at its close, to what tyranny our persons would have been subjected. 5. sides on po tions on The opposite principles which animated the contendOpposite ing parties were very similar to those which a century litical ques- after ranged Europe against France, in the wars of the which the French Revolution; the great conflict of the eighteenth ranged, si- century was but an extension, to the political and social what after- relations of men, of the religious divisions which discurred. tracted the seventeenth. But in one respect the anta parties were milar to wards oc gonists were on the opposite sides. In so far as they were banded together against the ambition of France, the coalition of 1689 was guided by the same principles as that of 1793-the armies of Eugene struck for the same cause as those of the Archduke Charles. But in so far as they contended for a moral principle, their relative position was in a great measure reversed-England, in the wars of William and Anne, was on the side of civil and religious freedom; she stood foremost in the contest for liberty of thought and the free choice of worship; she was herself the first and greatest of revolutionary powers. France supported the despotism of the Romish faith, and that system of unity in civil government which aimed at extending chains as strong over the temporal concerns of men. The industry of towns, the wealth of commerce, arrayed a numerous but motley array of many nations around the banner of St George; the strength of feudal attachment, the loyalty of chivalrous devotion, brought the strength of a gallant people round the oriflamme of St Denis. CHAP. XI. 1714. 6. mentally and France cases ranged sides. Yet, though apparently on opposite, the forces of the coalition and of France were in reality ranged on the Yet fundasame sides in the War of the Succession as in that of the the Allies French Revolution. In both, religion and freedom were were in both the principles on which the Allies rested, and unity of on the same government and military glory were the moving springs of effort in France. The iron rule of the Convention, the despotism of Napoleon, were essentially identical with the government of Louis XIV., though wielded by different hands and in a different name. National independence, religious duty, breathed in the proclamations of Alexander not less than in the daily services amidst the tents of Marlborough. It matters not by whom despots are elected, provided they are despots and support power. The absolute nature of a contest is not to be judged of merely by the war-cries which the parties raise, or the banners under which their forces are nominally enrolled. The true test is to be found in the practical tendency and social results of the institutions for which its partisans contend. The cause of real freedom is often advanced by the victories gained by a CHAP. XI. 1714. monarch's armies; the march of practical despotism is never so accelerated as by the triumph of republican bayonets. William III. was the head of a revolutionary dynasty, but he established the government of Great Britain on a far more aristocratic basis during the succeeding century than it had ever before attained. Louis XIV. was the leader of a crusade of the faithful against the Protestant party, but he bequeathed a century of irreligion to France, which ended in the overthrow of its government. The Committee of Public Salvation, wielding the forces of the Revolution, established a centralised military despotism in France far exceeding anything dreamt of by Richelieu or Louvois, and which has never since been shaken off in that country. The spread of political power, the popularisation of social institutions, have never been so rapid in Great Britain as during the thirty years which immediately succeeded the glorious termination of the anti-revolutionary war. But from this ranging of the contending parties, in Important name at least, on opposite sides, and the important fact the parties of the legitimate dynasty having been displaced by a revolutionary monarch on the throne of England, there the times of arose a most important difference between the respective parties who opposed the war commencing in 1679, and that which began in 1793. The war which terminated with the treaty of Ryswick was waged by William, himself the Louis Philippe of the younger branch of the Stuart dynasty; that of the Succession was headed by Anne, his successor on the revolutionary throne. It was carried on for the freedom of conscience and liberty of worship, and supported by the whole strength of the Whig aristocracy, and the whole vehemence of the Protestant fervour. Hence the enemies of the war, the 7. difference in by whom the war was opposed in Marlbo rough and of Napoleon. Opposition to the Government, naturally espoused the CHAP. XI. 1714. opposite Great Bri Political parties, and the alliances of cabinets in 8. Europe, had been long actuated and regulated by these State of the principles, which had in an especial manner become parties in predominant since the terrible conflict of the Great tain since Rebellion in England. All the foreign alliances of Rebellion. Charles II. had in secret been suggested by jealousy the Great |