His main act was the peace he secured to Europe. The Whigs railed at it then, and rail at it now; and Macaulay falls in with the lamentation of his party, and regrets that no better terms should have been made. But what can satisfy the ambition of England? The peace of Paris, in 1763, stipulated that Canada, with the Island of St. John, and Cape Breton, and all that part of Louisiana which lies east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, should be ceded to Great Britain, and that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed; that Spain should relinquish her claim to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland, should permit the English to cut mahogany on the shores of Honduras Bay, and cede Florida and Minorca to Great Britain. In return for these things, the French were permitted to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland, and the Islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Belleisle, and St. Lucia were restored to them, and Cuba was restored to Spain.
The Peace of Paris. peace of Paris, in 1763, constitutes an epoch; and we hence turn to survey the condition of France since the death of Louis XIV., and also other continental powers.
References.—Archdeacon Coxe's History of the Pelham Administration. Thackeray's Life of Lord Chatham. Macaulay's Essay on Chatham. Horace Walpole's Reminiscences. Smyth's Lectures on Modern History. Jesse's Memoirs of the Pretenders. Graham's History of the United States, an exceedingly valuable work, but not sufficiently known. Lord Mahon's, Smollett's, Tyndal's, and Belsham's, are the standard histories of England, at this period; also, the continuation of Mackintosh, and the Pictorial History, are valuable. See also the Marchmont Papers, Ray's History of the Rebellion, Horace Walpole's Memoirs of George II., Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, and Doddington's Diary.[(Back to Contents)]
CHAPTER XXII.
LOUIS XV.
The reign of Louis XV. was one of the longest on record extending from 1715 to 1774—the greater part of the eighteenth century. But he was a child, only five years of age, on the death of his great grandfather, Louis XIV.; and, even after he came to his majority, he was ruled by his ministers and his mistresses. He was not, like Louis XIV., the life and the centre of all great movements in his country. He was an automaton, a pageant; not because the constitution imposed checks on his power, but because he was weak and vacillating. He, therefore, performing no great part in history, is only to be alluded to, and attention should be mainly directed to his ministers.
During the minority of the king, the reins of government were held by the Duke of Orleans, as Regency of the Duke of Orleans. regent, and who, in case of the king's death, would be the next king, being grand-nephew of Louis XIV. The administration of the Duke of Orleans is nearly contemporaneous with that of Sir Robert Walpole. The most pressing subject which demanded the attention of the regent, was that of the finances. The late king had left a debt of one thousand millions of livres—an enormous sum in that age. To get rid of this burden, the Duke of St. Simon proposed a bankruptcy. "This," said he, "would fall chiefly on the commercial and moneyed classes, who were not to be feared or pitied; and would, moreover, be not only a relief to the state, but a salutary warning to the ignoble classes not to lend their money." This speech illustrates the feelings and opinions of the aristocratic class in France, at that time. But the minister of finance would not run the risk of incurring the popular odium which such a measure would have produced, and he proposed calling together the States General. The regent duke, however, would not hear of that measure, and yet did not feel inclined to follow fully the advice of St. Simon. He therefore compromised the matter, and resolved to rob the national creditor. He established a commission to verify the bills of the public creditors, and, if their accounts did not prove satisfactory, to cancel them entirely. Three hundred and fifty millions of livres—equal, probably, to three hundred millions of dollars in this age—were thus swept away. But it was resolved not only to refuse to pay just debts, but to make people repay the gains which they had made. Those who had loaned money to the state, or had farmed the revenues, were flung into prison, and threatened with confiscation of their goods, and even death,—treated as Jews were treated in the Dark Ages,—unless they redeemed themselves by purchasing a pardon. Never before did men suffer such a penalty for having befriended an embarrassed state. To this injustice and cruelty the magistracy winked. But, in addition to this, the coin was debased to such an extent, that seventy-two millions of livres were thus added to the treasury. Yet even these gains were not enough to satisfy a profligate government. There still continued a constant pressure. The national debt had increased even to fifteen hundred millions of livres, or almost seventy millions sterling—equivalent to what would now be equal to at least one thousand millions of dollars.
To get rid of this debt, the regent listened to the schemes of the celebrated John Law. John Law, a Scotch adventurer and financier, who had established a bank, had grown rich, and was reputed to be a wonderful political economist.
Law proposed, in substance, to increase the paper currency of the country, and thus supersede the necessity for the use of the precious metals.