THE KING SETS OUT FOR HANOVER.
Immediately after the prorogation, the king appointed a regency and set out for Hanover, in order to complete the great scheme he had projected for electing a king of the Romans. Great Britain, in the meantime, produced no event of importance, or any transaction that deserves historical mention, except the ratification of two treaties of peace and commerce with the states of Tripoli and Tunis on the coast of Barbary, concluded by the British consuls in those cities, under the influence and auspices of an English squadron, commanded by commodore Keppel, son to the earl of Albemarle. The tide of luxury still flowed with an impetuous current, bearing down all the mounds of temperance and decorum; while fraud and profligacy struck out new channels, through which they eluded the restrictions of the law, and all the vigilance of civil policy. New arts of deception were invented, in order to ensnare and ruin the unwary; and some infamous practices in the way of commerce, were countenanced by persons of rank and importance in the commonwealth. A certain member of parliament was obliged to withdraw himself from his country, in consequence of a discovery, by which it appeared that he had contrived and executed schemes for destroying his own ships at sea, with a view to defraud the insurers.
In the course of this year the affairs of the continent did not undergo any material alteration. In France, the religious dispute concerning the doctrine of Jansen-ius still subsisted between the clergy and the parliament; and seemed to acquire additional fuel from the violence of the archbishop of Paris, a haughty turbulent prelate, whose pride and bigotry were sufficient to embroil one half of Christendom. The northern powers enjoyed a perfect tranquillity; the states-general of the United Provinces were engrossed by plans of national economy. Spain was intent upon extending her commerce, bringing her manufactures to perfection, and repressing the insolence of the Barbary corsairs. His Portuguese majesty endeavoured, by certain peremptory precautions, to check the exportation of gold coin from his dominions, and insisted upon inspecting the books of the British merchants settled at Lisbon; but they refused to comply with this demand, which was contrary to a treaty subsisting between the two crowns; and he thought proper to acquiesce in their refusal. He was much better employed in obtaining from the pope an abolition of the annual procession called the Auto-da-fe, one of the most horrid triumphs of spiritual tyranny. The peace of Italy was secured by a defensive treaty concluded at Madrid between the emperor, his catholic majesty, the king of the two Sicilies, and the duke of Parma; to which treaty the king of Sardinia afterwards acceded.