1712 ST. JOHN'S MISSIÓN TÓ PARIS. 203 XI. to the pretensions of the Duke of Savoy and the Elector of CHAP. Bavaria, and to conclude an extension of the armistice pending the negotiations for peace. On August 22, O.S., he was back in London, having signed an armistice for four months. Oxford, meanwhile, had been undermining his rival's position at court. Soon after his return Bolingbroke was informed that as the correspondence with France really belonged to Lord Dartmouth's department, it would in future revert to him. It was a twofold mortification. It blocked the prospect of a further step in the peerage as a reward for the negotiation of a successful peace, and it implied that Dartmouth would obtain an earldom on the same ground as that on which he had hoped for one. During his absence Oxford had taken care to fill the queen's ear with rumours of his conduct. His intimacy with the ladies of the French court was misliked. He had attended the opera when the pretender was present, and had not shewn due respect for the queen by withdrawal. Gossip even whispered-though it would seem without foundation-that the two had had a private meeting. The death of Godolphin on September 15 disclosed the queen's feeling. Six garters were vacant. Oxford received one. Bolingbroke was passed over. "This," as Oxford pithily put it, " created a new disturbance." The leading whigs were urgent for the presence of the elector in London. The position of affairs, they thought, was highly dangerous. During the last eighteen months, under the inspiration of St. John, there had been numerous “reforms” in the high commands of the army. Webb, the hero of Wynendaele, a Jacobite, was made commander of the land forces in Great Britain on June 11, 1712, and Bolingbroke's confidant, Sir William Wyndham, secretary at war. Whig naval officers were being dismissed and a squadron was being fitted out on pretext of the complications in the north. What was needed was a rallying point for the well-affected to the succession. But the elector was not to be moved from his attitude of caution. The whigs, he answered, must rely on their own exertions and be prepared. When the crisis arrived, he would not fail them. Oxford, while composing protestations to the electress and elector, was mindful of the possibility 1 Portland MSS., iv., 656, XI. CHAP. of Jacobite success. During the negotiations, Bolingbroke tells us, “the pretender was made (by Oxford) through the French minister to expect that measures should be taken for his restoration as soon as peace had rendered them practicable”. Undoubtedly this was the impression Oxford wished to convey to the sanguine minds of the exiles, but he committed himself to no direct negotiation, leaving Gaultier to report his conversations at his discretion. Of these the earliest in which Oxford was alleged to have expressed favourable intentions towards the pretender occurred about the middle of March, 1713. From that time Oxford amused James with promises of payment of his mother's dowry, in return for which he obtained his orders that the Jacobites should support the ministry at the elections of 1713. There is no ground for supposing that he ever seriously contemplated assisting a restoration. Bolingbroke, indeed, testifies to the contrary, but there was, nevertheless, an ulterior possibility of which he had to take account. The queen had declared to the Dukes of Buckingham and Hamilton, both men of Jacobite sympathies, that she could do nothing for the pretender unless he changed his religion. To a man of Oxford's temperament it seemed not improbable that this condition would be complied with. It was within the power of the ministry, after Bolingbroke's return from Paris in August, 1712, to conclude a separate peace, but the French were obviously spinning delays, and public opinion in England was becoming irritated. Dartmouth, conscious of incapacity, had restored the negotiations into Bolingbroke's hands. At Paris, Prior had been left in charge. He was at once the secretary's faithful friend and an agent under his control. Nevertheless the prejudices of Anne against his humble origin excluded him from the dignity of an embassy. The Duke of Hamilton was therefore accredited in November, 1712, as ambassador extraordinary to bring the business to an end. He was a favourite with the queen, who had honoured him with both the Thistle and the Garter, and his selection gratified the Jacobites. While his preparations were being made 1 Berwick to James, March 28, 1713, Stuart Papers, i,, Introd., p. xlv., and ibid., p. 260. 2 Erasmus Lewis to the Earl of Oxford, October 13, 14, Portland MSS., v., 234. 1713 SIGNATURE OF THE TREATY. 205 XI. he was killed in Hyde Park on November 15, in a duel with CHAP. Lord Mohun, an active whig. An outburst of party fury followed this event. General Maccartney, who had been cashiered by the ministry, had acted as Mohun's second, and was accused of having stabbed the duke after he had fallen. The result of his trial on his return from exile in 1716, proved that Maccartney was innocent of the charge, but in the then prevalent heat of party passion he thought it prudent to flee the country. Shrewsbury was at once nominated in Hamilton's place. The armistice had been prolonged. Month after month slipped by. Parliament had been eleven times prorogued. At last in February, 1713, even the patience of Bolingbroke with his French friends was at an end. An ultimatum was drawn up by the secretary, laying down in precise terms the demands insisted on by the queen relative to the outstanding questions-the fishing rights off Nova Scotia, the monopoly claimed on behalf of Portugal of the navigation of the Amazon, and the addition of Tournay to the Dutch barrier. Failing these, a plain threat was held out that war would be resumed in the spring. The consequences of this firmness were immediately evident. The French negotiators abandoned further delay and on March 31 - April 11, 1713, a series of treaties was signed at Utrecht. These were a treaty of peace and a treaty of commerce between England and France and treaties for Holland, Portugal, Prussia, and Savoy. The slave trade treaty called the Asiento had been signed a few days before at Madrid, though the formal treaty with Spain was not completed till July 2-13. With the exception of the empire, it was said, peace was restored among the European powers. But this exception, which included the Elector of Hanover and other German princes, involved the surrender of the principle of the solidarity of the Grand Alliance. By the treaty of Utrecht between England and France, the King of France acknowledged the right and title of the queen; pledged himself to accept the succession in the house of Hanover, to exclude the pretender from France, and to abstain from giving him any assistance. He further solemnly accepted the renunciation by Philip V. of his claims to succession in France and by the French princes of the blood of their claims on the crown of Spain, these renunciations being set out in the text of the XI. CHAP. treaty; the special privileges of French traders in Spain and the Spanish Indies were surrendered; the fortifications of Dunkirk were to be razed; Hudson's Bay, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, saving certain fishing rights, were ceded to Great Britain as well as the island of St. Christopher. A treaty of commerce was signed on the same day. By the treaty with Spain the retention of Minorca and Gibraltar was conceded, and Sicily was erected into a kingdom for the Duke of Savoy. The whigs complained that at the moment of victory the conquering power had accepted worse terms than France had conceded at Gertruydenberg and that Bolingbroke, eager to ingratiate himself with the French, had surrendered the interests of our allies, Holland and the empire. It may be that the substantial advantages of peace, and especially the acquisitions from Spain, outweighed the problematical gains of a continuance of successful war; but it is difficult to dispute that the means by which they were secured were a blot on the national honour. Two complementary sacrifices of public pledges were exacted of us-the abandonment of the cause of the French protestants, still suffering persecution, and of our faithful allies the Catalans. The queen's speech, at the opening of the session on April 9, 1713, announced the peace. That the nation, as a whole, welcomed it, is incontestable. "In the churches the bells, in the streets the bonfires, and in the windows the illuminations, proclaimed the joy of the people." 1 But the treaty of commerce provoked bitter controversies among the trading classes. This treaty, by its eighth article, secured to the subjects of Great Britain and France reciprocally the most-favoured - nation treatment. By the ninth it provided that in the event of a statute being passed within two months of the execution of the treaty, conceding the most-favoured-nation treatment to French goods, France would revert to the more liberal tariff prevailing in 1664. A large step was thereby contemplated in the direction of freedom of trade. the manufacturing interests revolted. industry, had received a vigorous impetus from the influx of the French Huguenots. The manufacturers were supported by the Against such proposals These, especially the silk 1 P. Shakerley, M.P., to the Mayor of Chester, Westminster, April 4, 1713, MSS. of Corporation of Chester, p. 395, Hist. MSS. Comm,, 8th Rep., App. XI. 1713 THE COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE. 207 whigs, hostile by tradition to any measure likely to promote har- CHAP. monious policy between the two countries, and by the economists, who demonstrated that commercial relations with France had always been proved disadvantageous to England by an adverse balance of trade. Petitions against the treaty rained upon parliament. Somers in the lords and General Stanhope in the commons led the opposition. The champion of the measure was Arthur Moore, then a commissioner of trade, who was credited with being its real parent; but it was supported in debate by Wyndham, Hanmer, and other leaders of the tory party. At the instance of Oxford, De Foe entered the field with a paper published thrice a week, of which the first number appeared on May 26, while the treaty was still under discussion in parliament. Its title was Mercator, or Commerce Retrieved. A rival was presently issued, under the name of The British Merchant, or Commerce Preserved, said to have been subsidised by Halifax and Stanhope. Insistence was laid by politicians and traders alike upon the Methuen treaty with Portugal. To infringe that treaty by concessions in favour of French wines, would be to throw away a rising market and to break faith with a loyal ally, while the English manufactures of silk and woollen would be left defenceless to the competition at home of the underpaid labour of France. Sir Thomas Hanmer was at this time, in the opinion of Swift, "the most considerable man in the house of commons". He it was who had drawn up the famous "Representation," justifying the conduct of the tories towards Marlborough and the allies. He was intimate with Ormonde, and upon a visit to Paris in the previous November had been courted by Berwick and the Jacobites. From a politician with such connexions a ministry suspected of leanings towards the pretender anticipated no opposition. But Hanmer's closer acquaintance with the Jacobites had produced unlooked-for results. He returned from France convinced of the necessity of the act of settlement, and sharing with the whigs a dislike of the Francophil policy of Bolingbroke. In the commons he controlled forty to fifty votes, recruited chiefly from those members of the October club who were not Jacobites. In the course of the final 1 The Duke of Berwick to the Pretender, November 11-20, 1712, Stuart Papers, i., 251. |