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At this crisis, Vendome was all himself. He set out from Talavera with his
troops, and pursued the retreating army of the Allies with a speed perhaps never
equaled, in such a season, and in such a country. He marched night and day. He
swam, at the head of his cavalry, the flooded stream of Henares, and, in a few
days, overtook Stanhope, who was at Brihuega with the left wing of the Allied
army. "Nobody with me," says the English general, imagined that they had any
foot within some days' march of us and our misfortune is owing to the incredible
diligence which their army made." Stanhope had but just time to send off a
messenger to the centre of the army, which was some leagues from Brihuega,
before Vendome was upon him. The town was invested on every side. The walls were
battered with cannon. A mine was sprung under one of the gates. The English kept
up a terrible fire till their powder was spent. They then fought desperately
with the bayonet against overwhelming odds. They burned the houses which the
assailants had taken. But all was to no purpose. The British general saw that
resistance could produce only a useless carnage. He concluded a capitulation;
and his gallant little army became prisoners of war on honorable terms.
Scarcely had Vendome signed the capitulation, when he learned that Staremberg
was marching to the relief of Stanhope. Preparations were instantly made for a
general action. On the day following that on which the English had delivered up
their arms, was fought the obstinate and bloody fight of Villa Viciosa.
Staremberg remained master of the field. Vendome reaped all the fruits of the
battle. The Allies spiked their cannon, and retired towards Arragon. But even in
Arragon they found no place to rest. Vendome was behind them. The guerilla
parties were around them. They fled to Catalonia; but Catalonia was invaded by a
French army from Roussillon. At length the Austrian general, with six thousand
harassed and dispirited men, the remains of a great and victorious army, took
refuge in Barcelona, almost the only place in Spain which still recognized the
authority of Charles.
Philip was now much safer at Madrid than his grandfather at Paris. All hope of
conquering Spain in Spain was at an end. But in other quarters the House of
Bourbon was reduced to the last extremity. The French armies had undergone a
series of defeats in Germany, in Italy, and in the Netherlands. An immense
force, flushed with victory, and commanded by the greatest generals of the age,
was on the borders of France. Lewis had been forced to humble himself before the
conquerors. He had even offered to abandon the cause of his grandson; and his
offer had been rejected. But a great turn in affairs was approaching.
The English administration which had commenced the war against the House of
Bourbon was an administration composed of Tories. But the war was a Whig war. It
was the favorite scheme of William, the Whig King. Lewis had provoked it by
recognizing, as sovereign of England, a prince peculiarly hateful to the Whigs.
It had placed England in a position of marked hostility to that power from which
alone the Pretender could expect efficient succor. It had joined England in the
closest union to a Protestant and republican State, to a State which had
assisted in bringing about the Revolution, and which was willing to guarantee
the execution of the Act of Settlement. Marlborough and Godolphin found that
they were more zealously supported by their old opponents than by their old
associates. Those ministers who were zealous for the war were gradually
converted to Whiggism. The rest dropped off, and were succeeded by Whigs. Cowper
became Chancellor. Sunderland, in spite of the very just antipathy of Anne, was
made Secretary of State. On the death of the Prince of Denmark a more extensive
change took place. Wharton became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Somers,
President of the Council. At length the administration was wholly in the hands
of the Low Church party.
In the year 1710 a violent change took place. The Queen had always been a Tory
at heart. Her religious feelings were all on the side of the Established Church.
Her family feelings pleaded in favor of her exiled brother. Her selfish feelings
disposed her to favor the zealots of prerogative. The affection which she felt
for the Duchess of Marlborough was the great security of the Whigs. That
affection had at length turned to deadly aversion. While the great party which
had long swayed the destinies of Europe was undermined by bedchamber women at
St. James's, a violent storm gathered in the country. A foolish parson had
preached a foolish sermon against the principles of the Revolution. The wisest
members of the Government were for letting the man alone. But Godolphin,
inflamed with all the zeal of a new-made Whig, and exasperated by a nickname
which was applied to him in this unfortunate discourse, insisted that the
preacher should be impeached. The exhortations of the mild and sagacious Somers
were disregarded. The impeachment was brought; the doctor was convicted; and the
accusers were ruined. The clergy came to the rescue of the persecuted clergyman.
The country gentlemen came to the rescue of the clergy. A display of Tory
feelings, such as England had not witnessed since the closing years of Charles
the Second's reign, appalled the ministers and gave boldness to the Queen. She
turned out the Whigs, called Harley and St. John to power, and dissolved the
Parliament. The elections went strongly against the late Government. Stanhope,
who had in his absence, been put in nomination for Westminster, was defeated by
a Tory candidate. The new ministers, finding themselves masters of the new
Parliament, were induced by the strongest motives to conclude a peace with
France. The whole system of alliance in which the country was engaged was a Whig
system. The general by whom the English armies had constantly been led to
victory, and for whom it was impossible to find a substitute, was now whatever
he might formerly have been, a Whig general. If Marlborough were discarded it
was probable that some great disaster would follow. Yet if he were to retain his
command, every great action which he might perform would raise the credit of the
party in opposition.
A peace was therefore concluded between England and the Princes of the House of
Bourbon. Of that peace Lord Mahon speaks in terms of the severest reprehension.
He is, indeed, an excellent Whig of the time of the first Lord Stanhope. "I
cannot but pause for a moment," says he, "to observe how much the course of a
century has inverted the meaning of our party nicknames, how much a modern Tory
resembles a Whig of Queen Anne's reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne's reign a
modern Whig."
We grant one half of Lord Mahon's proposition: from the other half we altogether
dissent. We allow that a modern Tory resembles, in many things, a Whig of Queen
Anne's reign. It is natural that such should be the case. The worst things of
one age often resemble the best things of another. A modern shopkeeper's house
is as well furnished as the house of a considerable merchant in Anne's reign.
Very plain people now wear finer cloth than Beau Fielding or Beau Edgeworth
could have procured in Queen Anne's reign. We would rather trust to the
apothecary of a modern village than to the physician of a large town in Anne's
reign. A modern boarding-school miss could tell the most learned professor of
Anne's reign some things in geography, astronomy, and chemistry, which would
surprise him.
The science of government is an experimental science; and therefore it is, like
all other experimental sciences, a progressive science. Lord Mahon would have
been a very good Whig in the days of Harley. But Harley, whom Lord Mahon
censures so severely, was very Whiggish when compared even with Clarendon; and
Clarendon was quite a democrat when compared with Lord Burleigh. If Lord Mahon
lives, as we hope he will, fifty years longer, we have no doubt that, as he now
boasts of the resemblance which the Tories of our time bear to the Whigs of the
Revolution, he will then boast of the resemblance borne by the Tories of 1882 to
those immortal patriots, the Whigs of the Reform Bill.
Society, we believe, is constantly advancing in knowledge. The tail is now where
the head was some generations ago. But the head and the tail still keep their
distance. A nurse of this century is as wise as a justice of the quorum and
custalorum in Shallow's time. The wooden spoon of this year would puzzle a
senior wrangler of the reign of George the Second. A boy from the National
School reads and spells better than half the knights of the shire in the October
Club. But there is still as wide a difference as ever between justices and
nurses, senior wranglers and wooden spoons, members of Parliament and children
at charity schools. In the same way, though a Tory may now be very like what a
Whig was a hundred and twenty years ago, the Whig is as much in advance of the
Tory as ever. The stag, in the Treatise on the Bathos, who "feared his hind feet
would o'ertake the fore," was not more mistaken than Lord Mahon, if he thinks
that he has really come up with the Whigs. The absolute position of the parties
has been altered; the relative position remains unchanged. Through the whole of
that great movement, which began before these party-names existed, and which
will continue after they have become obsolete, through the whole of that great
movement of which the Charter of John, the institution of the House of Commons,
the extinction of Villanage, the separation from the see of Rome, the expulsion
of the Stuarts, the reform of the Representative System, are successive stages,
there have been, under some name or other, two sets of men, those who were
before their age, and those who were behind it, those who were the wisest among
their contemporaries, and those who gloried in being no wiser than their
great-grandfathers. It is dreadful to think, that, in due time, the last of
those who straggle in the rear of the great march will occupy the place now
occupied by the advanced guard. The Tory Parliament of 1710 would have passed
for a most liberal Parliament in the days of Elizabeth; and there are at present
few members of the Conservative Club who would not have been fully qualified to
sit with Halifax and Somers at the Kit-cat.
Though, therefore, we admit that a modern Tory bears some resemblance to a Whig
of Queen Anne's reign, we can by no means admit that a Tory of Anne's reign
resembled a modern Whig. Have the modern Whigs passed laws for the purpose of
closing the entrance of the House of Commons against the new interests created
by trade? Do the modern Whigs hold the doctrine of divine right? Have the modern
Whigs labored to exclude all Dissenters from office and power? The modern Whigs
are, indeed, at the present moment, like the Tories of 1712, desirous of peace,
and of close union with France. But is there no difference between the France of
1712 and the France of 1832? Is France now the stronghold of the "Popish
tyranny" and the "arbitrary power" against which our ancestors fought and
prayed? Lord Mahon will find, we think, that his parallel is, in all essential
circumstances, as incorrect as that which Fluellen drew between Macedon and
Monmouth, or as that which an ingenious Tory lately discovered between
Archbishop Williams and Archbishop Vernon.
We agree with Lord Mahon in thinking highly of the Whigs of Queen Anne's reign.
But that part of their conduct which he selects for especial praise is precisely
the part which we think most objectionable. We revere them as the great
champions of political and of intellectual liberty. It is true that, when raised
to power, they were not exempt from the faults which power naturally engenders.
It is true that they were men born in the seventeenth century, and that they
were therefore ignorant of many truths which are familiar to the men of the
nineteenth century. But they were, what the reformers of the Church were before
them, and what the reformers of the House of Commons have been since, the
leaders of their species in a right direction. It is true that they did not
allow to political discussion that latitude which to us appears reasonable and
safe; but to them we owe the removal of the Censorship. It is true that they did
not carry the principle of religious liberty to its full extent; but to them we
owe the Toleration Act.
Though, however, we think that the Whigs of Anne's reign were, as a body, far
superior in wisdom and public virtue to their contemporaries the Tories, we by
no means hold ourselves bound to defend all the measures of our favorite party.
A life of action, if it is to be useful, must be a life of compromise. But
speculation admits of no compromise. A public man is often under the necessity
of consenting to measures which he dislikes, lest he should endanger the success
of measures which he thinks of vital importance. But the historian lies under no
such necessity. On the contrary, it is one of his most sacred duties to point
out clearly the errors of those whose general conduct he admires.
It seems to us, then, that, on the great question which divided England during
the last four years of Anne's reign, the Tories were in the right, and the Whigs
in the wrong. That question was, whether England ought to conclude peace without
exacting from Philip a resignation of the Spanish crown?
No parliamentary struggle, from the time of the Exclusion Bill to the time of
the Reform Bill, has been so violent as that which took place between the
authors of the Treaty of Utrecht and the War Party. The Commons were for peace;
the Lords were for vigorous hostilities. The Queen was compelled to choose which
of her two highest prerogatives she would exercise, whether she would create
Peers, or dissolve the Parliament.
The ties of party superseded the ties of neighborhood and of blood. The members
of the hostile factions would scarcely speak to each other, or bow to each
other. The women appeared at the theatres bearing the badges of their political
sect. The schism extended to the most remote counties of England. Talents, such
as had seldom before been displayed in political controversy, were enlisted in
the service of the hostile parties. On one side was Steele, gay, lively, drunk
with animal spirits and with factious animosity, and Addison, with his polished
satire, his inexhaustible fertility of fancy, and his graceful simplicity of
style. In the front of the opposite ranks appeared a darker and fiercer spirit,
the apostate politician, the ribald priest, the perjured lover, a heart burning
with hatred against the whole human race, a mind richly stored with images from
the dung-hill and the lazar-house. The ministers triumphed, and the peace was
concluded. Then came the reaction. A new sovereign ascended the throne. The
Whigs enjoyed the confidence of the King and of the Parliament. The unjust
severity with which the Tories had treated Marlborough and Walpole was more than
retaliated. Harley and Prior were thrown into prison; Bolingbroke and Ormond
were compelled to take refuge in a foreign land. The wounds inflicted in this
desperate conflict continued to rankle for many years. It was long before the
members of either party could discuss the question of the peace of Utrecht with
calmness and impartiality. That the Whig ministers had sold us to the Dutch;
that the Tory ministers had sold us to the French; that the war had been carried
on only to fill the pockets of Marlborough; that the peace had been concluded
only to facilitate the return of the Pretender; these imputations and many
others, utterly ungrounded, or grossly exaggerated, were hurled backward and
forward by the political disputants of the last century. In our time the
question may be discussed without irritation. We will state, as concisely as
possible, the reasons which have led us to the conclusion at which we have
arrived.
The dangers which were to be apprehended from the peace were two; first, the
danger that Philip might be induced, by feelings of private affection, to act in
strict concert with the elder branch of his house, to favor the French trade at
the expense of England, and to side with the French Government in future wars;
secondly, the danger that the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy might become
extinct, that Philip might become heir by blood to the French crown, and that
thus two great monarchies might be united under one sovereign.
The first danger appears to us altogether chimerical. Family affection has
seldom produced much effect on the policy of princes. The state of Europe at the
time of the peace of Utrecht proved that in politics the ties of interest are
much stronger than those of consanguinity or affinity. The Elector of Bavaria
had been driven from his dominions by his father-in-law; Victor Amadeus was in
arms against his sons-in-law; Anne was seated on a throne from which she had
assisted to push a most indulgent father. It is true that Philip had been
accustomed from childhood to regard his grandfather with profound veneration. It
was probable, therefore, that the influence of Lewis at Madrid would be very
great. But Lewis was more than seventy years old; he could not live long; his
heir was an infant in the cradle. There was surely no reason to think that the
policy of the King of Spain would be swayed by his regard for a nephew whom he
had never seen.
In fact, soon after the peace, the two branches of the House of Bourbon began to
quarrel. A close alliance was formed between Philip and Charles, lately
competitors for the Castilian crown. A Spanish princess, betrothed to the King
of France, was sent back in the most insulting manner to her native country; and
a decree was put forth by the Court of Madrid commanding every Frenchman to
leave Spain. It is true that, fifty years after the peace of Utrecht, an
alliance of peculiar strictness was formed between the French and Spanish
Governments. But both Governments were actuated on that occasion, not by
domestic affection, but by common interests and common enmities. Their compact,
though called the Family Compact, was as purely a political compact as the
league of Cambrai or the league of Pilnitz.
The second danger was that Philip might have succeeded to the crown of his
native country. This did not happen; but it might have happened; and at one time
it seemed very likely to happen. A sickly child alone stood between the King of
Spain and the heritage of Lewis the Fourteenth. Philip, it is true, solemnly
renounced his claim to the French crown. But the manner in which he had obtained
possession of the Spanish crown had proved the inefficacy of such renunciations.
The French lawyers declared Philip's renunciation null, as being inconsistent
with the fundamental law of the realm. The French people would probably have
sided with him whom they would have considered as the rightful heir. Saint
Simon, though much less zealous for hereditary monarchy than most of his
countrymen, and though strongly attached to the Regent, declared, in the
presence of that prince, that he never would support the claims of the House of
Orleans against those of the King of Spain. "If such," he said, "be my feelings,
what must be the feelings of others?" Bolingbroke, it is certain, was fully
convinced that the renunciation was worth no more than the paper on which it was
written, and demanded it only for the purpose of blinding the English Parliament
and people.
Yet, though it was at one time probable that the posterity of the Duke of
Burgundy would become extinct, and though it is almost certain that, if the
posterity of the Duke of Burgundy had become extinct, Philip would have
successfully preferred his claim to the crown of France, we still defend the
principle of the Treaty of Utrecht. In the first place, Charles had, soon after
the battle of Villa-Viciosa, inherited, by the death of his elder brother, all
the dominions of the House of Austria. Surely, if to these dominions he had
added the whole monarchy of Spain, the balance of power would have been
seriously endangered. The union of the Austrian dominions and Spain would not,
it is true, have been so alarming an event as the union of France and Spain. But
Charles was actually Emperor. Philip was not, and never might be, King of
France. The certainty of the less evil might well be set against the chance of
the greater evil.
But, in fact, we do not believe that Spain would long have remained under the
government either of an Emperor or of a King of France. The character of the
Spanish people was a better security to the nations of Europe than any will, any
instrument of renunciation, or any treaty. The same energy which the people of
Castile had put forth when Madrid was occupied by the Allied armies, they would
have again put forth as soon as it appeared that their country was about to
become a French province. Though they were no longer masters abroad, they were
by no means disposed to see foreigners set over them at home. If Philip had
attempted to govern Spain by mandates from Versailles, a second Grand Alliance
would easily have effected what the first had failed to accomplish. The Spanish
nation would have rallied against him as zealously as it had before rallied
round him. And of this he seems to have been fully aware. For many years the
favorite hope of his heart was that he might ascend the throne of his
grandfather; but he seems never to have thought it possible that he could reign
at once in the country of his adoption and in the country of his birth.
These were the dangers of the peace; and they seem to us to be of no very
formidable kind. Against these dangers are to be set off the evils of war and
the risk of failure. The evils of the war, the waste of life, the suspension of
trade, the expenditure of wealth, the accumulation of debt, require no
illustration. The chances of failure it is difficult at this distance of time to
calculate with accuracy. But we think that an estimate approximating to the
truth may, without much difficulty, be formed. The Allies had been victorious in
Germany, Italy, and Flanders. It was by no means improbable that they might
fight their way into the very heart of France. But at no time since the
commencement of the war had their prospects been so dark in that country which
was the very object of the struggle. In Spain they held only a few square
leagues. The temper of the great majority of the nation was decidedly hostile to
them. If they had persisted, if they had obtained success equal to their highest
expectations, if they had gained a series of victories as splendid as those of
Blenheim and Ramilies, if Paris had fallen, if Lewis had been a prisoner, we
still doubt whether they would have accomplished their object. They would still
have had to carry on interminable hostilities against the whole population of a
country which affords peculiar facilities to irregular warfare, and in which
invading armies suffer more from famine than from the sword.
We are, therefore, for the peace of Utrecht. We are indeed no admirers of the
statesmen who concluded that peace. Harley, we believe, was a solemn trifler,
St. John a brilliant knave. The great body of their followers consisted of the
country clergy and the country gentry; two classes of men who were then inferior
in intelligence to decent shopkeepers or farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas,
Parson Trulliber, Sir Wilful Witwould, Sir Francis Wronghead, Squire Western,
Squire Sullen, such were the people who composed the main strength of the Tory
party during the sixty years which followed the Revolution. It is true that the
means by which the Tories came into power in 1710 were most disreputable. It is
true that the manner in which they used their power was often unjust and cruel.
It is true that, in order to bring about their favorite project of peace, they
resorted to slander and deception, without the slightest scruple. It is true
that they passed off on the British nation a renunciation which they knew to be
invalid. It is true that they gave up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip,
in a manner inconsistent with humanity and national honor. But on the great
question of Peace or War, we cannot but think that, though their motives may
have been selfish and malevolent, their decision was beneficial to the State.
But we have already exceeded our limits. It remains only for us to bid Lord
Mahon heartily farewell, and to assure him that, whatever dislike we may feel
for his political opinions, we shall always meet him with pleasure on the
neutral ground of literature.
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