as fhall have any influence on their common interefts and, confequently, their Moft Chriftian, Catholick, and Sicilian Majefties, will order all their refpective Minifters, that they endeavour, in the other courts of Europe, to maintain among themfelves the most perfect harmony and entire confidence, that every step taken in the name of either of the three Crowns, may tend to their glory and common advantages, and be a conftant pledge of the in timacy which their faid Majefties would for ever establish among them. ed Kat

XXVII. The delicate object of precedence in public acts, employments, and ceremonies, is often an obftacle to good harmony and the intimate confidence which ought to be fupported between the respective Minifters of France and Spain, becaufe fuch contentions, whatever method may be taken to stop them, indifpofe the mind. Thefe naturally arose when the two crowns belonged to Princes' `of two different Houses; but now, (and at all times hereafter) and as long as Providence has determined to maintain on the two thrones Sovereigns of the fame House, it is not agreeable, that there fhould fubfift between them a continual occafion for altercation and difcontent, their Most Christian and Catholiek Majefties have therefore. agreed, entirely, to remove that occafion, in determining, as an invariable rule to their Ministers, invefted with the fame character, in foreign courts, as well as in those of the family, (for fuch now certainly are thofe of Naples and Parma) that the Minifters of the chief monarch of the Houfe fhall always have the precedence in every act, em ployment, or ceremony whatever, which precedence thall be regarded as the confequence of the advantage of birth; and that, in all other courts, the Minifter, (whether of France or Spain) who fhall laft arrive, or whose refidence fhall be more recent, fhall give place to the Minister of the other crown, and of the fame character, who fhall have arrived first, or whose refidence fhall have been prior, fo that henceforth, in that refpect, there will be a certain and brotherly alternative, to which no other power can be fubject, nor fhall be admitted, seeing that this arrange, ment, which is equally a confequence of the prefent Family Compact, would ceafe, if the Princes of the fame

House

Houfe no longer filled the thrones of the two monarchies, and that then each crown would refume its rights or pretenfions to precedence. It is agreed also, that, if by accident the Minifters of the two crowns fhould arrive precifely at the fame time in any other court than that of the family, the Minister of the Sovereign Chief of the House fhall take place of the Minifter of the Sovereign who is a junior of the fame House.

XXVIII. The prefent treaty, or Family Compact, fhall be ratified, and the ratification exchanged, within the space of one month, or fooner if may be, to be reckoned from the day of the figning of the faid treaty.

In witnefs whereof, we, the underfigned Ministers Plenipotentiary for their Moft Chriftian and Catholick Majesties, by virtue of thofe full powers, which are literally and faithfully tranfcribed at the bottom of this treaty, have hereunto fixed our hands and feals. Given at Paris, August 15, 1761.

Signed,

The DUKE de CHOISEUL.

An HISTORICAL MEMORIAL of the Negociation of France and England, from the 26th of March, 1761, to the 20th of September of the fame Year, with the Vouchers Tranflated from the French Original, published at Paris by Authority.

H

IS Majefty [the French King] thinks it confiftent with his goodness and juftice to inform his fubjects of the endeavours he has ufed, and the facrifices he refolved to make, in order to reftore peace to his kingdom.

France, and the whole univerfe, will judge from a plain and faithful detail of the negociation which has been carried on between the Courts of Verfailles and London, which of the two Courts have been averfe to the re-establishment of public tranquillity, and have facrificed the common peace and welfare to their own ambition.

In order to form a clear and juft opinion with regard to the Negociation which has lately broken off between

France

France and England, it is neceffary to recollect the motives which occafioned the rupture between the two Crowns, and the particular circumftances which have involved a confiderable part of Europe in a war, which had at first America only for its object.

The limits of Acadia and Canada, which, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, were left to the difcuffion of commiffaries to be named by the two Potentates, have ferved England as a pretence for commencing hoftilities, and for taking two French fhips, the Alcide and the Lys; while, in the midst of peace, and under the fanction of the law of nations, the Duke of Mirepoix, the French Ambaffador, was treating at London in order to prevent a rupture, and to terminate thofe differences, which might have been eafily accommodated at Aix-la-Chapelle, and which, while the peace fubfifted, had met with the most unreafonable and extravagant opposition on the part of the English Commiffaries.

The unexpected violence offered on the part of the English neceffarily brought on the war: his Majefty found himself obliged, though with regret, to repel by force the indignity offered to France, and to prefer the honour of the nation to the tranquillity it enjoyed.

If the court of London had no other defign than to establish the refpective poffeffions of the two Crowns in North America upon a firm footing, fhe would have endeavoured to obviate, as France has done, every incident which might engage the powers of the Continent of Europe to take a part in a war which is abfolutely foreign to them, and which, in fact, having no other object but what relates to the limits of Acadia and Canada could not laft long, and did not require the interpofition of any other power. But England had more extenfive views: the endeavoured to raise a general war against France, and hoped to renew the famous league which was formed against Lewis XIV. upon the acceffion of Philip V. to the throne of Spain; and to perfuade all the courts of Europe, that they were as much interested in the limits of Acadia as in the fucceffion of Charles II.

The conduct of France, in confequence of the firft hoftilities in 1755, was very different from that of England;

his Majefty pacified his neighbours, reftrained his allies, refufed the advantageous profpect of a war, which was propofed to him on the Continent, and gave all the powers to understand, that his fole ambition was to reftrain his enemies, the English, within due limits, and to maintain peace and juftice among the powers who ought to regard the differences refpecting America with the moft impartial neutrality.

The Court of London, to accomplish their ends, took advantage of his Majefty's equitable and pacific conduct, She knew that one of the allies of France might prove a lively obftacle to the establishment of peace and tranquil. lity, and made no doubt, but, in fecuring that ally, the fhould be able to make that Houfe, which was confidered as the antient rival of France, enter into all her views: but the Empress Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, animated by the fame principles of equity of which his Ma jefty gave fuch laudable proofs, refufed the propofals of England, and rather chofe to run the risk of an unjust war, which was the natural and foreseen confequence of the treaty figned at Whitehall between the Kings of England and Pruffia, than to engage in one contrary to the good faith of her Imperial Majesty.

His Majefty and the Emprefs-Queen, previous to the King of Pruffia's invafion of Saxony, entered into an alliance on the ift of May, 1756, which was purely defenfive. Their Majefties hoped, that their alliance would check the fire which was ready to kindle in Germany, and that it would prevent a war on the Continent of Europe. They were deceived in their expectations: the Court of London had armed the King of Pruffia: nothing could reftrain a Prince whofe paffion for war was unhappily violent; and he begun it at the end of the year 1756, by the invafion of Saxony and the attack of Bohemia.

From that time two diftinct wars fubfifted; one of France with England, and which at the beginning had nothing in common with the war in Germany; and the other which the King of Pruffia waged against the Emprefs-Queen, and in which the King of England was interefted as an ally of the King of Pruffia, and his Majefty, as guarantee of the treaty of Weftphalia, and, after his defenfive

defenfive treaty of the 1ft of May, as an ally of the Court of Vienna.

France was cautious, in the engagements fhe was conftrained to make with the confederate powers, not to blend the differences which disturbed the peace of America, with those which raifed a commotion in Europe. In truth, his Majefty having always made it his principal object to recal each potentate to terms of reconciliation, and to restore public tranquillity, he judged it improper to blend interests of fo diftant and complicated a nature as thofe of Europe and America would prove, were they to have been jointly treated of in a negociation for a general and final peace. His Majefty proceeded farther, and with an intent to prevent a direct land war in Europe, he propofed the neutrality of Hanover in the year 1757; the King of England, Elector of Hanover, refufed the propofition, and fent his fon the Duke of Cumberland, into his hereditary dominions in Germany, who, at the head of an army entirely compofed of Germans, was ordered to oppose the march of thofe forces which his Majefty, in purfuance of his engagements, fent to the affiftance of his allies who were attacked in their dominions, dyr*

The electoral army of Hanover furnished the campaign of 1757, with the capitulation of Clofter-feven. The Court of London thought proper to break that capitulation á few months after it had been concluded by the consent of the King of England's fon; the chief pretence alledged was, that the army which had capitulated belonged to the Elector, and that the fame army which, contrary to the right of nations and all military laws, re-entered into action, was, from that time to be confidered as a British army. From that moment, (and it is neceffary to attend to this circumftance) the army commanded by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick is become an English army: The Elector of Hanover, the Duke of Brunfwick, the Landgrave of Heffe, their forces and their countries, have been blended together in the caufe of England; fo that the hoftilities in Weftphalia and Lower Saxony have had, and still have, the fame object as the hoftilities in America, Afia, and Africa; that is to fay, the disputes.

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