still boast, of the glorious figure we made, whilst we reduced ourselves, by their councils, and under their administrations, to be the bubbles of our pensioners, that is of our allies;* and whilst we measured our efforts in war, and the continuation of them, without any regard to the interest and abilities of our own country, without a just and sober regard, such an one as contemplates objects in their true light and sees them in their true magnitude, to the general system of power in Europe; and, in short, with a principal regard merely to particular interests at home and abroad. I say at home and abroad; because it is not less true, that they have sacrificed the wealth of their country to the forming and maintaining a party at home, than that they have done so to the forming and maintaining beyond all pretences of necessity, alliances abroad. These general assertions may be easily justified without having recourse to private anecdotes, as your lordship will find when you consider the whole series of our conduct in the two wars; in that which preceded, and that which succeeded immediately the beginning of the present century, but above all the last of them. In the administrations that preceded the Revolution, trade had flourished, and our nation had grown opulent: but the general interest of Europe had been too much neglected by us; and slavery, under the umbrage of prerogative, had been well-nigh established among us. In those that have followed, taxes upon taxes, and debts upon debts have been perpetually accumulated, till a small number of families have grown into immense wealth, and national beggary has been brought upon us; under the specious pretences of supporting a common cause against France, reducing her exorbitant power, and poising that of Europe more equally in the public balance: laudable designs no doubt, as far as they were real, but such as, being converted into mere pretences, have been productive of much evil; some of which we feel and have long felt, and some will extend its consequences to our latest posterity. The reign of prerogative was short and the evils and the dangers, to which we were exposed by it, ended with it. But the reign of false and squandering policy has lasted long, it lasts still, and will finally complete our ruin. Beggary has been the consequence of slavery in some countries: slavery will be probably the consequence of beggary in ours; and if it is so, we know at whose door to lay it. If we had finished the war in one thousand seven hundred and six, we should have reconciled, like a wise people, our foreign and our domestic interests as nearly as possible: we should have secured the former sufficiently, and not have sacrificed the latter as entirely as we did by the prosecution of the war afterwards. You will not be able to see without astonishment, how the charge of the war increased yearly upon us from the beginning of it; nor how immense a sum we paid in the course of it to supply the deficiencies of our confederates. Your astonishment, and indignation too, will increase, when you come to compare the progress that was made from the year one thousand seven hundred and six exclusively, with the expense of more than thirty millions, I do not exaggerate, though I write upon memory, that this progress cost us, to the year one thousand seven hundred and eleven inclusively. Upon this view, your lordship will be persuaded that it was high time to take the resolution of making peace, when the queen thought fit to change her ministry, towards the end of the year one thousand seven hundred and ten. It was high time indeed to save our country from absolute insolvency and bankruptcy, by putting an end to a scheme of conduct, which the prejudices of a party, the whimsey of some particular men, the private interest of more, and the ambition and avarice of our allies, who had been invited as it were to a scramble by the preliminaries of one thousand seven hundred and nine, alone maintained. The persons, therefore, who came into power at this time, hearkened, and they did well to hearken, to the first overtures

* The Dutch and the emperor.

**

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HALF HOURS OF ENGLISH HISTORY.

that were male them. The disposition of their enemies invited them to do so, but that of their friensis, and that of a party at home who had nursed, and been nursed by the war, might have deterred them from it; for the difficulties and dangers, to which they must be exposed in carrying forward this great work, could escape none of them. In a letter to a friend it may be allowed me to say, that they did not escape me: and that I foresaw, as contingent but not improbable events, a good part of what has happened to me since. Though it was a duty therefore that we owed to our country, to deliver her from the necessity of bearing any longer so unequal a part in so unnecessary a war, yet was there some degree of merit in performing it. I think so strongly in this manner, I am so incorrigible, my lord, that if I could be placed in the same circumstances again, I would take the same Age and experience might enable me to act with resolution, and act the same part. more ability, and greater skill; but all I have suffered since the death of the queen should not hinder me from acting. Notwithstanding this, I shall not be surprised if you think that the peace of Utrecht was not answerable to the success of the war, nor to the efforts made in it. I think so myself, and have always owned, even Since we had committed a when it was making and made, that I thought so. successful folly, we ought to have reaped more advantage from it than we did: and, whether we had left Philip, or placed another prince on the throne of Spain, we ought to have reduced the power of France, and to have strengthened her neighbours, much more than we did. We ought to have reduced her power for generations to come, and not to have contented ourselves with a momentary reduction of it. France was exhausted to a great degree of men and money, and her government had no credit: but they, who took this for a sufficient reduction of her power, looked but a little way before them, and reasoned too superficially. Several such there were however; for as it has been said, that there is no extravagancy which some philosopher or other has not maintained, so your experience, young as you are, must have shown you, that there is no absurd extreme, into which our party-politicians of Great Britain are not prone to fall, concerning the state and conduct of public affairs. But if France was exhausted so were we, and Famine rendered her condition much more miserable than so were the Dutch. But as soon as this accident, ours, at one time, in appearance and in reality too.

that had distressed the French and frightened Louis XIV. to the utmost degree, and the immediate consequences of it were over, it was obvious to observe, though few made the observation, that whilst we were unable to raise in a year, by some millions at least, the expenses of the year, the French were willing and able to bear the imposition of the tenth over and above all the other taxes that had been laid upon them. This observation had the weight it deserved; and sure it deserved to have some among those who made it, at the time spoken of, and who did not think that the war was to be continued as long as a parliament could be prevailed on to vote money. But supposing it to have deserved none, supposing the power of France to have been reduced as low as you please, with respect to her inward state; yet still I affirm, that such a reduction could not be permanent, and was not Whoever knows the nature of her government, the temper of therefore sufficient. her people, and the natural advantages she has in commerce over all the nations that surround her, knows that an arbitrary government, and the temper of her people enable her on particular occasions to throw off a load of debt much more easily, and with consequences much less to be feared, than any of her neighbours can that although in the general course of things, trade be cramped, and industry vexed by this arbitrary government, yet neither one nor the other is oppressed; and the temper of the people, and the natural advantages of the country, are such, that how great soever her distress be at any point of time, twenty years of tranquillity

suffice to re-establish her affairs, and to enrich her again at the expense of all the nations of Europe. If any one doubts of this, let him consider the condition in which this kingdom was left by Louis XIV.; the strange pranks the late duke of Orleans played, during his regency and administration, with the whole system of public revenue, and private property; and then let him tell himself, that the revenues of France, the tenth taken off, exceed all the expenses of her government by many millions of livres already, and will exceed them by many more in another

year.

Upon the whole matter, my lord, the low and exhausted state to which France was reduced, by the last great war, was but a momentary reduction of her power : and whatever real and more lasting reduction the treaty of Utrecht brought about in some instances, it was not sufficient. The power of France would not have appeared as great as it did, when England and Holland armed themselves and armed all Germany against her, if she had lain as open to the invasions of her enemies, as her enemies lay to hers. Her inward strength was great; but the strength of those frontiers which Louis XIV. was almost forty years in forming, and which the folly of all his neighbours in their turns suffered him to form, made this strength as formidable as it became. The true reduction of the exorbitant power of France (I take no notice of chimerical projects about changing her government), consisted therefore in disarming her frontiers, and fortifying the barriers against her, by the cession and demolition of many more places than she yielded up at Utrecht; but not of more than she might have been obliged to sacrifice to her own immediate relief, and to the future security of her neighbours. That she was not obliged to make these sacrifices, I affirm was owing solely to those who opposed the peace and I am willing to put my whole credit with your lordship, and the whole merits of a cause that has been so much contested, on this issue. I say a cause that has been so much contested; for in truth, I think it is no longer a doubt anywhere, except in British pamphlets, whether the conduct of those who neither declined treating, as was done in one thousand seven hundred and six; nor pretended to treat without a design of concluding, as was done in one thousand seven hundred and nine and ten, but carried the great work of the peace forward to its consummation; or the conduct of those who opposed this work in every step of its progress, saved the power of France from a greater and a sufficient reduction at the treaty of Utrecht. The very ministers, who were employed in this fatal opposition, are obliged to confess this truth. How should they deny it? Those of Vienna may complain that the emperor had not the entire Spanish monarchy, or those of Holland that the states were not made masters directly and indirectly of the whole Low countries. But neither they, nor any one else that has any sense of shame about him, can deny that the late queen, though she was resolved to retreat because she was resolved to finish the war, yet was to the utmost degree desirous to treat in a perfect union with her allies, and to procure them all the reasonable terms they could expect: and much better than those they reduced themselves to the necessity of accepting by endeavouring to wrest the negotiation out of her hands. The disunion of t allies gave France the advantages she improved. The sole question is, who cat this disunion? and that will be easily decided by every impartial man, who infor himself carefully of the public anecdotes of that time. If the private anecdotes we to be laid open as well as those, and I think it almost time they should, the who. monstrous scene would appear, and shock the eye of every honest man. I do no intend to descend into many particulars at this time: but whenever I, or any other person as well informed as I, shall descend into a full deduction of such particulars, it will become undeniably evident, that the most violent opposi carried on by the Germans and the Dutch in league with a par

inable,

an

as soon as the first overtures were made to the queen; before she had so much as begun to treat and was therefore an opposition not to this or that plan of treaty, but in truth to all treaty; and especially to one wherein Great Britain took the lead, or was to have any particular advantage. That the Imperialists meant no treaty, unless a preliminary and impracticable condition of it was to set the crown of Spain on the emperor's head, will appear from this; that prince Eugene when he came into England, long after the death of Joseph and elevation of Charles, upon an errand most unworthy of so great a man, treated always on this supposition: and I remember with how much inward impatience I assisted at conferences held with him concerning quotas for renewing the war in Spain, in the very same room, at the Cockpit, where the queen's ministers had been told in plain terms, a little before, by those of other allies, "that their masters would not consent that the Imperial and Spanish crowns should unite on the same head." That the Dutch were not averse to all treaty, but meant none wherein Great Britain was to have any particular advantage, will appear from this; that their minister declared himself ready and authorised to stop the opposition made to the queen's measures, by presenting a memorial, wherein he would declare, "that his masters entered into them, and were resolved not to continue the war for the recovery of Spain, provided the queen would consent that they should garrison Gibraltar and Port Mahon jointly with us, and share equally the Assiento, the South Sea ship, and whatever should be granted by the Spaniards to the queen and her subjects." That the whigs engaged in this league with foreign powers against their country, as well as their queen, and with a phrenzy more unaccountable than that which made and maintained the solemn league and covenant formerly, will appear from this; that their attempts were directed not only to wrest the negotiations out of the queen's hands, but to oblige their country to carry on the war, on the same unequal foot that had cost her already about twenty millions more than she ought to have contributed to it. For they not only continued to abet the emperor, whose inability to supply his quota was confessed; but the Dutch likewise, after the states had refused to ratify the treaty their minister signed at London towards the end of the year one thousand seven hundred and eleven, and by which the queen united herself more closely than ever to them; engaging to pursue the war, to conclude the peace, and to guarantee it, when concluded, jointly with them; "provided they would keep the engagements they had taken with her, and the conditions of proportionate expense under which our nation had entered into the war." Upon such schemes as these was the opposition to the treaty of Utrecht carried on: and the means employed, and the means projected to be employed, were worthy of such schemes; open, direct, and indecent defiance of legal authority, secret conspiracies against the state, and base machinations against particular men, who had no other crime than that of endeavouring to conclude a war, under the authority of the queen, which a party in the nation endeavoured to prolong, against her authority. Had the good policy of concluding the war been doubtful, it was certainly as lawful for those, who thought it good, to advise it, as it had been for those, who thought it bad, to advise the contrary: and the decision of the sovereign on the throne ought to have terminated the contest. But he who had judged by the appearances of things on one side, at that time, would have been apt to think, that putting an end to the war, or to Magna Charta, was the same thing; that the queen on the throne had no right to govern independently of her successor; nor any of her subjects a right to administer the government under her, tho' called to it by her, except those whom she had thought fit to lay aside. Extravagant as these principles are, no other could justify the conduct held at that time by those who opposed the peace and as I said just now, that the phrenzy of this league was more unaccountable than that of the solemn

league and covenant, I might have added, that it was not very many degrees less criminal. Some of those, who charged the queen's ministers, after her death, with imaginary treasons, had been guilty during her life of real treasons: and I can compare the folly and violence of the spirit that prevailed at that time, both before the conclusion of the peace, and, under pretence of danger to the succession after it, to nothing more nearly than to the folly and violence of the spirit that seized the tories soon after the accession of George I. The latter indeed, which was provoked by unjust and impolitic persecution, broke out in open rebellion. The former might have done so, if the queen had lived a little longer.

ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE.

REV. G. R. GLEIG.

The Portuguese had been in the enjoyment of [the commerce with India] little short of a century, ere England made any decided attempt to interrupt or obtain a share in it. This is the more remarkable, that for some time previous to Vasco de Gama's expedition, an active spirit of enterprise had arisen in the country; which was excited to fresh and more hazardous undertakings by intelligence of that illustrious navigator's success. So early, indeed, as the year 1497, Cabot, with a small squadron, had explored the coast of America, from Labrador to Virginia. The merchants of Bristol soon afterwards opened a traffic with the Canary Isles, the merchants of Plymouth sent ships continually to the coasts of Guinea and Brazil; fishing vessels were dispatched to the Banks of Newfoundland for cod, and to Spitzbergen for whale-oil; while the trade with Russia was engrossed, that with the Mediterranean actively prosecuted, and so close an intercourse established with Germany and the central parts of Europe, as to create serious jealousy among the traders of the Hans Towns. Yet the people who could thus penetrate into so many and such distant parts of the world, abstained, with a degree of moderation not to be accounted for, from engaging in any direct traffic with the East, though it was the branch of commerce in which, like the other nations of Europe, they were above measure anxious to obtain a share.

The great motive which swayed our countrymen on this occasion was one which is not likely, under similar circumstances, to operate again; they imagined that the Portuguese, because they had discovered the route by the Cape of Good Hope, were exclusively entitled to make use of it. Instead, therefore, of following in the track of Gama and Albuquerque, their adventurous spirits applied themselves to the discovery of some new and equally direct line of communication between the coasts of Europe and of India. A merchant, named Robert Thorne, who had resided for some years at Seville, in Spain, where he acquired a particular knowledge of the intercourse which Portugal had opened with the East, was the first to assert the practicability of a north-west passage. This he did in the year 1527, when Henry VIII. filled the throne; but though two attempts were made during this, and not fewer than six in the succeeding reigns, they all, like those of more recent date, failed of success. A similar issue attended the efforts of sir Hugh Willoughby to pass into Asia by the north-east. A storm caught his little squadron when doubling Cape North, which separated the two vessels that composed it; driving the one upon a barren coast, where the crew, with the commander, perished, and the other into the harbour of Archangel, where it found shelter. Yet the idea was abandoned till the year 1580, when a second expedition having been fitted o