On the death of the prince his offices were quickly divided amongst the expectant Whigs. The Earl of Pembroke took his office of Lord High Admiral, resigning the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland and the Presidency of the Council. But he soon found the business of the Admiralty too arduous for him, and it was put into commission, the Chief Commissioner being Lord Orford, that mercenary Russell whom the Whigs had so long been endeavouring to restore to that post. The post of Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle was separated from that of Admiral to accommodate Lord Dorset. Lord Somers was again brought into the Cabinet as President of the Council. Even the witty and wicked Lord Wharton was promoted to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. As Marlborough and Godolphin had a great fear and distrust of Wharton, this astonished many, but was accounted for by those more in the secrets of Court by Wharton being in possession of an autograph letter of Godolphin's to the Court of St. Germains, by which that Minister, and probably Marlborough, too, was greatly in his power.

But though the Whig Junto, as it was called, were now apparently omnipotent in the Government, that was far from being the case. Harley and Mrs. Masham had the ear of the queen as much or more than ever. They were continually closeted with her, and laboured hard to disconcert all the measures of the Whigs; the fierce and implacable Duchess of Marlborough, raging with jealousy of the influence of Mrs. Masham, who had supplanted her, did perhaps still more than Harley himself, by her impolitic anger and insolence, to render the queen only the more desirous to be rid of the Marlborough pest. Nothing but the duke's continued victories made the countenance of the duchess at Court possible.

Dreadful as was the condition to which the fiendish ambition of Louis XIV. had reduced Flanders, Spain, the North of Italy, and many parts of Germany, that of his own country and subjects was still more deplorable. Trade, agriculture, everything had been shrivelled up by the perpetual demands of these incessant wars. The wealthy classes were become as poor as the rest; the middle classes were ruined; the common people were drained off to the army if men, and sank into beggary if women, children, or old people. All credit was at an end; the Treasury of the king was empty; and his chief banker, Bernard, was bankrupt, as were hundreds of the same class of men. The most violent and spasmodic exertions had been made to raise the supplies for the armies in the different fields, and still of late nothing had come but tidings after tidings of disastrous and murderous defeats. The farmers of the taxes were out in all parts of France endeavouring to extort those levies which the ordinary tax-gatherers had demanded and distrained for in vain. The people of France were under a perpetual visitation of these officers; and though they were ill prepared to pay once, had frequently to pay more than once, the same taxes being demanded by different officers, the regular tax-collector, or the agents of those to whom they were farmed out. The Ministers themselves, Chamillard, Pontchartrain, and others of the proud servants of the Grand Monarque, were compelled to make journeys through the provinces to raise money for the necessities of the State in any way that could be devised. Such was the terrible condition of France: the people starving, ruined, and hopeless, and yet the daily victims of an incessant visitation of tax-gatherers, who, whilst they failed to procure the necessary sums for the war, were actively plundering and embezzling on their own account. Nothing but the immeasurable pride of the haughty but now defeated king could cause him to hold out; and even this chance seemed scarcely left him, for the enemy was on the frontiers of France—had, in fact, already crossed them, and laid the country under contribution in Picardy, and another campaign might see them in full march on Paris.

The Duke of Marlborough had not, as usual, visited England at the end of the campaign in 1708, which did not terminate till actual winter. He continued at the Hague, his enemies said, merely to look after his own interests; for, by various modes which we have already mentioned, he was making immense sums by his command. But although we may be quite satisfied that Marlborough would never neglect his own interests, these interests equally, or perhaps more pressingly, demanded his presence in England. Harley and the Tories, he knew, were actively though secretly engaged in ruining his credit with the queen, and the conduct of his wife was not of a kind to counteract these efforts. But Marlborough's interests were inseparably linked to his reputation, and that reputation now demanded his most vigilant attention at the Hague. He saw the triumphant position of the Allies, and the miserable condition of France. It is asserted, therefore, that he and Prince Eugene had planned boldly to march, on the opening of the next campaign, into France, and carry the war to the gates of Paris. There is no more doubt that they could have done this than that the Allies did it in 1814, and again in 1815. The whole of the wars against France had been too timidly carried on. With the forces which were at William's command, the war might have been made offensive instead of defensive, and Louis have found his own territories subjected to the ravages which he had committed on those of the States and the German Empire. Now there was nothing to prevent the victorious arms of Marlborough from penetrating to the French capital and humbling the troubler of Europe, or to prevent the Allies from there dictating their own terms of peace. Nothing, indeed, but the subtle acts of Louis, and the timid policy of the Dutch.

And already Marlborough was aware that Louis, compelled to open his eyes to his critical situation, was beginning to tamper with the Dutch for a separate peace. Some of his own nearest kinsmen, and especially his grandson the Duke of Burgundy, had spoken very plainly to Louis. They had asked him whether he meant irretrievably to ruin France in order to establish his grandson on the throne of Spain. They had laid fully before him the wasted condition of France, and the rapidly-growing ascendency of the Allies. The pride of the old king was forced to stoop, and he consented to sue for peace. He could not, however, bring himself to seek this of the Allies all together, but from Holland, whom he hoped by his arts to detach from the Confederation. He despatched Bouillé, the President of the Council, to Holland, who met Buys and Vanderdussen, the Pensionaries of Amsterdam and Gouda, at Woerden, between Leyden and Utrecht, and Bouillé offered to make terms with the Dutch very advantageous to them. Vanderdussen and Buys replied that he must first of all put into their hands certain fortified towns necessary for the security of their frontier. To this Bouillé would not listen. The Dutch communicated the French proposals to their Allies, and told the French Minister that they could enter into no negotiations without them. Prince Eugene hastened from Vienna to the Hague, and he and Marlborough consulted on the propositions with Heinsius, Buys, and Vanderdussen; and it was unanimously decided that they could not be accepted.

It was now near the end of April, and the Allies saw that it would not do to allow Louis to amuse them with offers which came to nothing, when they should be marching towards his capital. Whilst, therefore, Bouillé despatched the news of the rejection of his offers to Versailles, Marlborough made a hasty journey to England, to take the opinion of his Government as to the terms of the treaty. The receipt of Bouillé's despatch at the French Court produced the utmost consternation. The king was fixed in his proud determination to offer no ampler terms; his Minister represented that it was impossible to carry on the war. There was no alternative, and at length Bouillé was instructed to amuse the Allies with the proposal to repurchase Lille and to yield up Tournay, till the Marquis de Torcy could arrive to his assistance. De Torcy, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, set off for the Hague, not openly as the French Plenipotentiary, but merely furnished with a courier's passport, and ran many risks of being seized on the way. At Brussels he had a narrow escape, but he reached the Hague late at night on the 6th of May. De Torcy now offered much more enlarged terms. Louis was willing to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk at the instance of the Allies; to engage to send the Pretender out of France, and also not to aid him in any attempt on the throne of Great Britain, provided that provision was made for his security and maintenance. He would give up Sicily, but would retain Naples—a country entirely gone out of his power for more than two years, and in possession of Austria. He even proposed that Philip should resign Spain and the Indies; but his allies, the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne, must be provided for, as they had sacrificed their own territories in his alliance. The main difficulties appeared to be the frontier towns of Lille, New Brisac, and Hermingen, in Flanders, De Torcy contending that the surrender of Ypres, Menin, Condé, and a few inferior fortresses, would be sufficient for frontier defences. As they would give up Spain, the only obstacle in the south appeared the demand on Naples. These terms would have been received with exultation by the Allies some time ago, but they were now in a different position, and their demands were proportionate.

LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE IN THE REIGN OF ANNE.

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