tice and win the regard of a prince of France; and that thus the slender security provided even by the Treaty of Utrecht against the union of the two crowns on the same head might not be entirely destroyed? Was it that French princes had been proved by history to be so singularly repulsive in their manners, or ungainly in their appearance, that there was no risk of their attracting the notice of the heiress of Spain? We know not what the motive was which led this nation to interfere in breaking through the male succession as settled by the Treaty of Utrecht, and establishing the female line in its stead. We know only that the thing was done, and by ourselves. It is for the authors of the Quadruple Alliance of 1834 to explain its motives, and point out its advantages.

42. Answer to the

common argu

ment used in

behalf of the Quadruple Al

The common argument used on this head, viz., that the young queen, to whom the crown of Spain had been bequeathed by Ferdinand VII., had been acknowledged by the Cortes and constitutional authorities in Spain, and that we, a constitutional liance. monarchy, could not oppose a sovereign of the people's choice, is obviously devoid of foundation. The settlement of the crown of Spain on the male line, by the Treaty of Utrecht, was a public act guaranteed by all the powers of Europe, for purposes of general policy and the preservation of the balance of power. It was meant to guard against the precise danger which has since occurred, viz., the marriage of a Spanish princess, heiress presumptive to the throne, to a prince of France. Serious deliberations, a congress of all the powers which had signed the Treaty of Utrecht, were requisite, before the main security it provided against the dangers which had rendered the War of the Succession necessary was abandoned. But nothing of that sort was thought of. The thing was done at once, without either congress or deliberation, and in defiance of a solemn protest by Don Carlos, as the head of the male line, against such an invasion of his rights and those of his family. The northern powers of Europe have never yet recognized the female line in Spain. And yet the English

nation never seems to have been awakened to the impolicy, as well as bad faith, of these proceedings, till a Spanish princess, as the result to be naturally expected from such a splendid endowment of English creation, dropped into the arms of a prince of France.

43.

Our active interference to put down Don Carlos and the

still more un

But the matter does not rest here. It would be well for the honor and future fate of England if it did. We not only recognized the Queen of Spain in defiance of the Treaty of Utrecht, but we concluded male line was with France the Quadruple Alliance, to uphold justifiable. her and the Queen of Portugal on the throne, in opposition to the male and legitimate line in both countries. We followed this up by an armed intervention, to put down the Carlists and Royalists in the northern provinces. Lord John Hay was sent with the royal marines; General Evans was allowed to go with ten thousand volunteers, armed with Tower muskets, and in the scarlet uniform. Warlike stores, to the amount of £450,000, were sent to Queen Christina in the space of three years. We thus succeeded, after a dreadful civil war of four years' duration, in beating down the heroic mountaineers in the Basque provinces, and fixing a dynasty hateful to nine tenths of the Spanish nation on the throne of Madrid. Was this non-intervention ? Was this following up the principles of our Revolution, that every nation may choose its own dynasty? Did we not rather imitate the conduct of Louis XIV., who for twenty years strove to impose the Chevalier St. George and the Stuart line on an unwilling people? Can there be a doubt, that if the Spaniards and Portuguese had been let alone by France and England, the revolutionary dynasty of queens, with all its attendant dangers of French princes, would long since have been sunk to the earth in both parts of the Peninsula ? If not, why did we interfere, and nourish for four long years a frightful civil war on the Ebro? In concluding the Quadruple Alliance, and aiding the Spanish revolutionists to establish a queen upon the throne of Madrid, we forced a hated dynasty

upon an unwilling nation, as much as the allies did when, in 1815, they restored the Bourbons to the throne of France by the force of English and Prussian bayonets. And we acted not less in opposition to the principles of our own Revolution than to the national faith pledged at Utrecht, or the plainest national interests, demonstrated by the most important events of the subsequent period.

44.

What England should have done on the oc

What we should have done is quite plain. It was prescribed alike by national faith and public expedience. We should have done what Cardinal Mazarine did during the English, Mr. Pitt during the early casion." part of the French, Revolution. We should have interfered neither in favor of the one party nor the other; but, preserving a strict neutrality, recognized and continued the national treaties with that government which the nation ultimately adopted, as the one suited to the wishes, and protective of the interests, of the majority of its inhabitants. If driven by necessity to interfere, it should have been in support of that line of descent which our own security and the interests of Europe required, and the faith of treaties guaranteed, rather than of that which endangered the former and violated the latter. We did none of these things. We interfered by the weight of diplomacy and the force of arms to force a hateful democratic regime upon a people whose hearts were essentially monarchical; and we succeeded in establishing a government at Madrid against the wishes of nine tenths of the people of the country.

45.

Just punishment

we have now re

ceived.

We now see the result. We have received our just punishment in beholding the consummation of the Montpensier alliance, and the dream of Louis XIV. and Napoleon realized, by the extension of French influence from the Scheldt to Gibraltar. At one blow we have undone the whole work of the wars of the Succession and Revolution. We have lost, by a single act, the fruit of the victories of Marlborough and the triumphs of Wellington. The barrier in the Netherlands, the counter

poise in the Peninsula, have been alike lost, or, rather, their weight has been added to the power of our enemies. England sees clearly enough now the erroneous policy in which her rulers have got themselves involved, and the manner in which they have played into the hands of our enemies; but she does not see as yet where the fault really lay, and of what we really ought to be ashamed. She is ashamed of having been deceived, but not of having been the deceiver. It is for the latter, however, she should really feel humiliation. To be duped in negotiation, or outdone in love, is no unusual occurrence; diplomatic cunning is frequently the resource of the weak against the strong, of the perfidious against the unsuspecting. To break treaties, oppress allies, and foment direful civil wars for the propagation of political opinions or supposed party advantages-these are the real offenses for which nations must answer, and which call down a righteous retribution upon their rulers and themselves.

46.

England has lost all title to complain of

any violation

of the Treaty of Utrecht.

By the course which England has of late years adopted in regard to Spain, she has deprived herself of all title to complain, even of any real violation of the Treaty of Utrecht by any other power. Having set the first example of violating its provisions, in the essential article of the succession to the throne, she can no longer, with effect, upbraid France for infringement of it in inferior particulars. But, in truth, Louis Philippe, in the Montpensier marriage, violated none of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht; whether he deviated from any promises made at the Chateau d'Eu is a matter of comparatively little importance, concerning which the statesmen of the two countries are at variance. There is no prohibition in the Treaty of Utrecht of the marriage of French princes with Spanish princesses, or vice versa; there is not a word said about such marriages at all. It was as unnecessary as it would have been ungracious; for when the succession to the crown of Madrid was strictly entailed on heirs male, no prince of the French blood, by marrying an Infanta of Spain, could endanger the peace of Eu

rope by succeeding, through her, to the throne. Accordingly, numerous instances have since occurred of such marriages, without their having excited any attention, or been ever deemed infringements of the Treaty of Utrecht.*

Great change

which the sub

stitution of the female line for

the male in

Spain made in

this respect on

the interests of

But when England joined with France in 1834 to alter the order of succession in Spain, and to force a dynas- 47. ty of queens, surrounded by Republican institutions, on an unwilling people, the case was entirely altered. The marriage of a prince of France with an Infanta of Spain became then a matter of the very highest importance; it threatened the other powers. precise danger which the War of the Succession was undertaken to avert; which the Treaty of Utrecht was concluded, though in an imperfect manner, to prevent. There is, indeed, in that treaty, the most express prohibition against the crowns of France and Spain being united on the same head; but that is neither the real danger to be dreaded, nor has England left herself any means of preventing it. It is the "Family Alliance" now concluded which is the real evil; and if the succession to the Spanish crown should open to the French king, in consequence of it, how could we, who, in defiance of the Treaty of Utrecht, have opened to the Infanta the succession

* Such marriages between French princes and Spanish princesses took place on the 21st of January, 1721, and the 25th of August, 1739; and on the 23d of January, 1745, the Dauphin of France married the princess who, but for the Treaty of Utrecht excluding the female line, would have been heiress of the crown of Spain. But on none of these occasions was it ever supposed any infringement of the Treaty of Utrecht had taken place, or any danger to the balance of power in Europe had occurred. Nay, Louis XV. was publicly, and with the knowledge of the whole of Europe, affianced, early in life, to the Infanta of Spain; the Spanish princess was brought and lived long at Versailles, in order to be initiated into the duties of French royalty; and the match was at length broken off, not from any remonstrance on the part of the English embassador or the diplomatic body in Europe, but because the princess being six years younger than the French king, who was nineteen years of age, his subjects were too impatient for his marriage -were too impatient to wait till it could with propriety be solemnized; and he married, in consequence, Maria Leckzinske, daughter of the King of Poland. See DE TOCQUEVILLE'S Hist. de Louis XV., i., p. 172.

M M