1695-1700.] SCOTCH COLONY AT DARIEN. 223 beyond the passing smoke. The House of Lords addressed him in terms of strong condemnation of the proceedings of the colonists at Darien, and of approbation of the means adopted by the colonial governor to discourage and injure them. William, in his reply, declared that "he cannot but have a great concern and tenderness for his kingdom of Scotland, and a desire to advance their welfare and prosperity; and is very sensibly touched with the loss his subjects of that kingdom have sustained by their late unhappy expeditions, in order to a settlement at Darien. His majesty does apprehend that difficulties may too often arise with respect to the different interests of trade between his two kingdoms, unless some way be found out to unite them more nearly and completely, and therefore his majesty takes this opportunity of putting the House of Peers in mind of what he recommended to his Parliament soon after his accession to the throne, that they would consider of an Union between the two kingdoms." Six or seven years passed over, during which the Darien affair was a constant source of irritation in Scotland against the English government and the English people. The East India Company had become prosperous beyond. expectation, in the amalgamation of the New Company with the Old. The more prosperous that great association, the more jealous and angry were the Scots, who believed that their Company, unless ruined by the tyranny of king William, might have opened the whole commerce of the East to their favoured nation. In the negotiations for the Union in 1706, the Scots Commissioners clung firmly to the principle that the charters, rights, and privileges of the African and Indian Company should be maintained. The English Commissioners as firmly resolved, that the condition of free intercourse, which was the basis of the Union, should not result in "a perfect laying open the East India trade, or at least erecting a new East India Company in Britain."* A compromise was effected, in a manner which smoothed many of the difficulties which the Darien affair presented to the establishment of cordiality between Scotland and England. The Lords Commissioners for England,-" being sensible that the misfortunes of that Company have been the occasion of misunderstandings and unkindnesses between the two kingdoms, and thinking it above all things desirable that upon the union of the kingdoms the subjects of both may be entirely united in affection,"-agreed to purchase the shares of the particular members of that Company. The stock "had been a dead weight upon many families; the sums paid were given over as utterly sunk and lost; and after all this, to find the whole money should come in again, with interest for the time, was a happy surprise to a great many families, and took off the edge of the opposition which some people would otherwise have made to the Union in general." + The patriotic aspirations of king William, in the largest sense of patriotism, for the removal of the difficulties with respect to "the different interests of trade in his two kingdoms," were slowly realised. A way was found out "to unite them more nearly and completely." In less than a quarter of a century the fatal rivalries were completely at an end. The merchants of Glasgow and the merchants of Liverpool traded upon equal terms. The two kingdoms, thus united, went forward in a career of · "History of the Union," p. 178. + Ibid., p. 180. 224 SCOTCH COLONY AT DARIEN. [1695-1700. prosperity beyond the hopes of the most ardent imagination. In a century and a-half, when Great Britain had planted new colonies in regions known only as the lands of savages; when the North American Plantations had amalgamated into a great republie; when the gold discoveries of California and Australia had given a new impulse to the commerce of the world ;—over that Isthmus of Panama where Scotland vainly attempted to establish a settlement amidst the hostility of the Spanish claimants of its territory, was constructed a railway, by which the great highways of North and South America were connected by the wonder-working powers of Science, devoted to the magnificent object of gradually making the human race one great family. Question of the Succession to the Crown of Spain-The Partition Treaties-Negotiations at LooCorrespondence of the king with his ministers-First Partition Treaty signed-The new Parliament-The troops disbanded-William's mortification-A rash resolve, and a calmer judgment-The Dutch guards dismissed-Penal law against Catholics-Portland and Albemarle-Admiral Rooke in the Baltic-Policy of Louis the Fourteenth. IN 1698, Charles II., the son of Philip IV., had been for thirty-four vears king of Spain and the Indies. He had become the head of that corrupt and decaying monarchy when a child of four years of age. His early life had been spent under the tutelage of his mother, and of his illegitimate brother, Don John of Austria. He had one glimpse of happiness in his affection for his young wife, the princess Louisa of Orleans, whom he soon lost. Under his second wife, a princess related to the emperor, he was governed as in his childish days. His body and mind were equally enfeebled. In June, 1698, Stanhope, the English ambassador, wrote from Madrid, "The name the doctors give to the disease of the king is alfereyn insensata, which sounds, in English, a stupid epilepsy." Charles had no issue. The question of the succession was very complicated. Louis XIV. had married Charles's eldest sister; but, upon their marriage, the Infanta of Spain, by a solemn contract, had renounced for herself and her successors all claim to the Spanish Crown. The emperor Leopold had married a younger sister, and she had made a similar renunciation. Her daughter had married the Elector of Bavaria, and their son, the electoral prince, was the inheritor of whatever claim his mother might have upon the Spanish Crown; for her renunciation was considered of none effect from not having been confirmed by the Cortes, as the renunciation of the elder sister had been. The emperor himself was a claimant to the succession in his own person, for he was the grandson of Philip III. of Spain, and first cousin to Charles II. Thus the legitimate heir, the dauphin of France, was barred by that renunciation of his mother which was considered valid. The next in order of inheritance, the electoral prince of Bavaria, had a less doubtful claim, for his mother's renunciation was held invalid. The emperor, who was farthest removed in blood, was not fettered by any contracts. 228 THE PARTITION TREATIES. [1698 We can readily understand how, with this complication of interests, the question of the Spanish succession influenced the political combinations of Europe. We can also understand the deep anxiety which William felt, when he saw what an opening would be presented by the death of the king of Spain to the realization of the most ambitious projects of France. This was no chimerical dread, in which William stood apart from the people he governed. His most anxious hours had been given to discussions with Tallard, the French ambassador, of the terms of a treaty which would reconcile these conflicting claims. But in May, 1698, Tallard wrote to Louis that the English nation "consider the partition of the succession of the king of Spain as something in which they must take a part * * * * They conceive that their commerce and its interests are at stake, and that it would be ruined if your Majesty were in possession of the Indies and Cadiz * * * * You may rely upon it that they would resolve on a war, if it were suggested to them that your Majesty desires to render yourself master of the countries which I have just named, and if the king of Spain were to die before a treaty had been made." Although William readily went into negotiations with France for a Partition Treaty, he had a deep conviction that the question of succession would not be decided by diplomacy. He said to Tallard, "that it was much to be feared that it would be necessary to have recourse to the sword before it could be settled." He desired peace, he added; he was old and worn out; he should be very glad to enjoy repose. But France was alone to be feared, and he could be guided by no other rule than the interests of the kingdoms which he governed.t The scheme of a partition of the vast dominions of the crown of Spain unquestionably originated with the Court of France. It had been hinted to Heinsius by the French ambassadors, before the beginning of 1698. It was formally proposed to Portland soon after his arrival in Paris, as “a thing of the greatest importance, and which demanded the greatest secresy." The truth of history is not substantially violated by the humourist, who has so capitally described the compact between Lewis Baboon, John Bull, and Nic Frog: "My worthy friends, quoth Louis, henceforth let us live neighbourly. I am as peaceable and quiet as a lamb of my own temper, but it has been my misfortune to live among quarrelsome neighbours. There is but one thing can make us fall out, and that is the inheritance of Lord Strutt's estate. I am content, for peace sake, to waive my right, and submit to any expedient to prevent a lawsuit. I think an equal division will be the fairest way." ‡ John Bull, then represented by "a little long-nosed thin man," thought Louis an honest fellow who would stand by his bargain. It would be scarcely worth while here to pursue the story of treaties that were broken through like cobwebs, if the negotiations only exhibited the folly and danger of that diplomacy which attempts to settle the destinies of peoples by regard alone to the interests of crowns. "It was the fashion to do such things," says the satirist.§ The fashion, unhappily, is not quite obsolete. But there was one essential difference between the Partition Treaties which William negotiated with Louis, and later Treaties, in which the word Partition is another term for robbery :-" an equal division " had no reference to the especial Grimblot, vol. i. p. 508. Arbuthnot, "History of John Bull," part ii., chap. vi. +Ibid., p. 365. SIbid. 1698.] NEGOTIATIONS AT LOO. 227 advantage of England or the States General, beyond their protection against the first imminent danger of a vast addition to the power of France, or the secondary danger of a similar addition to the power of Austria. William, as king of England and as Stadtholder, negotiated these treaties upon purely defensive principles. "I have had the honour," says Defoe, "to hear his majesty speak of these things at large; and I appeal to all those noble persons now living, who were near the king at that time, who I believe often heard him express himself with great caution as to the giving too much to the empire, as equally dangerous to the public peace with giving it to France."* The Partition Treaties are associated with the subsequent policy of Europe; and they require a little more consideration to understand the objects with which William entered upon them, than is necessary to pronounce that "a more infamous proceeding is not recorded in history."+ "His As the summer of 1698 was approaching, the king contemplated his usual journey to Holland. Tallard wrote to Louis that this intention gave much uneasiness to the nation. The French ambassador saw clearly the difficulties with which William was surrounded: "The king of England is very far from being master here. . . . So much is certain, that the situation of the king is still very precarious, and that the moment which has given repose to all the world has been but the beginning of troubles to this prince." William went to the country where he was venerated: countenance was expressive of the joy which he felt at going to Holland. He took no pains whatever to conceal it from the English; and, to say the truth, they speak very openly about it." § Tallard was invited to follow the king, and the negotiations were resumed at Loo. On the 24th of August, they were arrived at such maturity, that Portland was authorized by the king to write to Mr. Secretary Vernon, to impart to him the proposed conditions of a treaty: "You may speak to my Lord Chancellor about it, to whom the king himself writes by this post, that he would likewise talk about it with those he thinks he may trust with the secret, which it is of the highest importance to keep with the utmost care." In the letter of the king to Somers he refers to the fact that the Chancellor had been previously apprised by him of the inclination that had been expressed by the court of France "to come to an agreement with us concerning the succession of the king of Spain." Since that time count Tallard had made certain propositions which Portland had communicated to Vernon, for the purpose of Somers deciding to whom else they should be imparted, " to the end," says the king, “that I might know your opinion upon so important an affair, and which requires the greatest secresy." William then adds, "If it be fit this negotiation should be carried on, there is no time to be lost, and you will send me the full powers, under the great seal, with the names in blank, to treat with count Tallard." Vernon, the Secretary of State, in reply to Portland, rejoices that there is a prospect of avoiding a war when we are in so ill a condition at present for entering into it again. At this present time, August 20, Orford, one of the ministers, wrote to Shrewsbury: "Here is no news, but that we daily expect to hear the king of Spain is dead. What "Review," quoted in Wilson, vol. iii. p. 230. + Alison's "Life of Marlborough," p. 29. Grimblot, vol. i. p. 466. |