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CHAP.

VII.

1709.

19.

False accusation against Marlborough of

vented the peace.

the army to England, and the payment of the arrears due to all the foreign troops; so that, to use his own words, "they might have no pretext to refuse marching, when ordered home agreeably to the treaties."

Although Marlborough had thus exerted himself to the utmost to bring about a general peace, and laboured alike to moderate the pretensions of the English ministry, and to conquer the repugnance of the French king, yet so virulent is the spirit of party, and so utterly regardless of truth in the charges which it advances, that no accusation has been so perseveringly fastened on Marlborough, or so generally believed, as that of having exerted himself to break the negotiations which he was labouring assiduously to bring to a successful issue. He was overruled, however, by the ministry at home, who concluded the celebrated barrier treaty with the Dutch, which Marlborough refused to sign, and which was accordingly signed by Townsend alone, without his concurrence ! And it is now decisively proved, by the publication of his private correspondence with Lord Godolphin, that he disapproved of the severe articles insisted upon by the Allies and his own cabinet; and that, if the uncontrolled management of the negotiation had been committed to him, it would have been brought to a favourable issue on terms highly advantageous to England, and which 1700 Coxe, would have prevented the treaty of Utrecht from forming a stain on its annals.1 *

1 Coxe, iv. 404-406. Marlborough to Godolphin,

June 10,

iv. 405.

When the refusal of the French king to accept the ulti

"I have as much mistrust for the sincerity of France as anybody living can have; but I will own to you that, in my opinion, if France had delivered the towns promised by the plenipotentiaries, and demolished Dunkirk and the other towns mentioned, they must have been at our discretion; so that if they had played tricks, so much the worse for themselves."-Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, June 10, 1709; Coxe, iv. 405.

VII.

1709.

20.

of the States

General on

the rupture

of the ne

gotiations.

matum of the Allies was received at the Hague, the States- CHAP. General assembled, and passed a resolution in the following terms, which embodied the unanimous opinions of the Allied cabinets on the occasion :-" As the refusal on the Resolution part of France to accept the preliminaries had been foreseen, the ministers of the Emperor and of Her Britannic Majesty have determined that they could not admit of any alteration, especially on the essential and most contested articles, which concern the security of the Grand Alliance in general, and that of each of the states of which it is composed in particular. The deputies have maturely considered the matter, and are of opinion that they cannot recede from the demand of a barrier for the Duke of Savoy; that the pretensions regarding the two dispossessed Electors could lead to no other result but that of sowing dissension among the Allies; that the refusal on the part of the French king of the thirty-sixth article, which obliges him, within the space of two months, to execute what he undertakes, would annul all the rest, which would become useless without that; that if France engaged merely not to send any succours to the Duke of Anjou, the Allies would be under the necessity of continuing the war in Spain, and the other countries which acknowledged the authority of that Prince, while they would be bound to remain in inactivity in the Low Countries, the theatre of their great success; that the war for the reduction of Spain might be subject to various changes, during which France alone would be at peace, which would directly tion des traverse the end proposed in listening to the overtures raux, June of its sovereign.1 From all these considerations the Hist. de deputies have unanimously arrived at the conclusion 41, 42. that the changes proposed by the French king cannot

1 Resolu

Etats-Géné

7, 1709.

Marlb. iii.

CHAP.

VII.

1709.

21.

be admitted; and that, as the enemy has receded so far, after having made such advances towards a general peace, it has become indispensable to combat them with vigour and firmness, in order to constrain them to close with the proposals which have been made to them by the Allied powers.'

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On considering the respective merits of the great Reflections debate, and the rupture of a negotiation fraught with ture of this such incalculable consequences on the future fate of negotiation. Europe, it must be evident to every impartial observer

that it broke off not on any minor or inconsiderable point, but on the grand question involved in the whole quarrel, and for the solution of which the war had been undertaken. It was the interest of the Spanish succession which broke off the negotiation. The proposal

of Louis that there should be a suspension of hostilities elsewhere, but the Allies should be left to carry on the war in Spain, in order to dispossess the Duke of Anjou, was directly calculated to stop hostilities in the quarter where France was endangered, and let them continue their course in that where she had the advantage. A single defeat, the reduction of two or three strong places, might bring the Allies to Paris, and enable them to dictate a humiliating peace in the halls of Versailles : years of doubtful, costly, and harassing warfare would hardly put them in possession of the throne of Madrid. The counter propositions of Louis, therefore, went to relieve him of the danger which threatened him, and at the same time secure the advantages which he had won during the war; and Marlborough and the other plenipotentiaries would have deserted their duty if they had counselled the adoption of terms which defeated the whole objects of the war.

The rigorous terms demanded, however, by the Allied cabinets, and the resolute conduct of the king of France in rejecting them, had an important effect upon the war, and called for more vigorous efforts on the part of the confederates than they had yet put forth, or were even now disposed to make. Louis made a touching appeal to the patriotic spirit of his people, in an eloquent circular which he addressed to the prelates and nobles of his realm. He there set forth the great sacrifices which he had offered to make to secure a general peace; showed how willing he had been to divest himself of all his conquests, and abandon all his dreams of ambition; and concluded by observing, that he was now compelled to continue the contest, because the Allies insisted upon his descending to the humiliation of joining his armies to theirs, for the purpose of dispossessing his own grandson.* The appeal was not made in vain to the spirit of a gallant nobility, and the patriotism of a brave people. It kindled a flame of general enthusiasm and loyalty. All ranks and parties vied with each other in contributing their property and personal service for the maintenance of the war; and the

"The hope of an approaching peace was so generally diffused through my kingdom, that I feel I owe it to the fidelity which my people have shown me during my whole reign, to put them in possession of the circumstances which have prevented them from now enjoying a blessing which I had endeavoured to procure for them. I would have accepted, to attain such an object, conditions inconsistent with the security of my frontier provinces; but the more I showed myself disposed to dissipate the jealousy which my enemies affected to feel of my power and my designs, the more did they rise in their demands, in so far that, multiplying one requisition upon another, and making use of the name at one time of the Duke of Savoy, at another of the pretended interest of the princes of the Empire, they have made manifest their determination not merely to increase, at the expense of my crown, the states immediately adjoining France, but to open to themselves avenues by which they might penetrate into the interior of my kingdom whenever they deemed it for their interest to renew the war. Even that in which I am now engaged,

CHAP.

VII.

1709.

22.

Noble ef

forts of

Louis to

save France.

CHAP.

VII.

1709.

campaign which opened under such disastrous auspices was commenced with a degree of energy and unanimity, on the part of the French people, which had never hitherto been evinced in the course of the contest. afterwards, in the wars of the Revolution, too, the

As

1 Capefigue, misfortunes of the state tended to the increase of its

Hist. de

vi. 42-46.

Hist. de Marlb. iii. 36, 37. Coxe, iv. 401.

Louis XIV. military forces. The stoppage of commerce, and shock to credit, threw numbers out of employment; and starving multitudes crowded to the frontier, to find that subsistence amidst the dangers of war which they could no longer find in the occupations of peace.1

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M. Dumont, one of the ablest historians of the Grand Alliance, has borne the following honourable testimony to the conduct of the French king and people on this occasion: "With truth it may be said, that never had the material resources of France been so manifested as they were on this occasion. After the battles of Hochstedt, of Ramilies, of Turin, and. of Oudenarde, the entire destruction of its maritime resources, the disastrous issue of the sieges of Turin and Barcelona, it appeared impossible it could be raised from its pro

and which I was so desirous to terminate, would not have ceased if I had consented to all the conditions which they sought to impose upon me; for they fixed at two months the time during which I was to be obliged on my part to execute the conditions of the treaty, and during that period they insisted upon laying me under an obligation to deliver to them the fortresses which they demanded in the Low Countries and in Alsace, and to raze those of which they demanded the demolition. They refused, on their part, to come under any other engagement but that of suspending all acts of hostility till the 1st August, reserving to themselves the right of then resuming their arms in the event of my grandson, the King of Spain, persisting in his resolution of defending the crown which God had given him, and to perish rather than abandon the faithful people who, during nine years, have recognised him as their lawful sovereign. Such a suspension, more dangerous than war itself, destroyed all hopes of peace more than it advanced them; for it rendered it necessary, not only to continue the same expenses for the support of the armies, but, on the termination of the suspension of hostilities, my enemies

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