[Footnote 70: See Swift's "Some Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs," and the note on p. 410 of vol. v. of present edition. [T.S.]
Cautious writers, in order to avoid offence or danger, and to preserve the respect even[71] due to foreign princes, do usually charge the wrong steps in a court altogether upon the persons employed; but I should have taken a securer method, and have been wholly silent in this point, if I had not then conceived some hope, that his Electoral Highness might possibly have been a stranger[72] to the Memorial of his resident: for, first, the manner of delivering it to the secretary of state was out of all form, and almost as extraordinary as the thing itself. Monsieur Bothmar having obtained an hour of Mr. Secretary St. John, talked much to him upon the subject of which that Memorial consists; and upon going away, desired he might leave a paper with the secretary, which he said contained the substance of what he had been discoursing. This paper Mr. St. John laid aside, among others of little consequence; and a few days[73] saw a Memorial in print,[74] which he found upon comparing to be the same with what Bothmar had left.
[Footnote 71: Edition of 1775 has "ever due." [W.S.J.]
[Footnote 72: P. Fitzgerald says "If I had not very good reason to believe that his Electoral Highness was altogether a stranger." [W.S.J.]
[Footnote 73: Edition of 1775 has "a few days after." [W.S.J.]
[Footnote 74: This was published as a broadside, with the title: "The Elector of Hanover's Memorial to the Queen of Great-Britain, relating to the Peace with France." It was dated 28th of Nov/9th of Dec., 1711. [W.S.J.]
During this short recess of Parliament, and upon the fifth day of January, Prince Eugene, of Savoy, landed in England. Before he left his ship he asked a person who came to meet him, whether the new lords were made, and what was their number? He was attended through the streets with a mighty rabble of people to St. James's, where Mr. Secretary St. John introduced him to the Queen, who received him with great civility. His arrival had been long expected, and the project of his journey had as long been formed here by the party leaders, in concert with Monsieur Buys, and Monsieur Bothmar, the Dutch and Hanover envoys. This prince brought over credentials from the Emperor, with offers to continue the war upon a new foot, very advantageous to Britain; part of which, by Her Majesty's commands, Mr. St. John soon after produced to the House of Commons; where they were rejected, not without some indignation, by a great majority. The Emperor's proposals, as far as they related to Spain, were communicated to the House in the words following.
"His Imperial Majesty judges, that forty thousand men will be sufficient for this service, and that the whole expense of the war in Spain, may amount to four millions of crowns, towards which His Imperial Majesty offers to make up the troops, which he has in that country, to thirty thousand men, and to take one million of crowns upon himself".
On the other side the House of Commons voted a third part of those four millions as a sufficient quota for Her Majesty toward that service, for it was supposed the Emperor ought to bear the greatest proportion in a point that so nearly concerned him, or at least, that Britain contributing one third, the other two might be paid by his Imperial Majesty and the States, as they could settle it between them.
The design of Prince Eugene's journey, was to raise a spirit in the Parliament and people for continuing the war, for nothing was thought impossible to a prince of such high reputation in arms, in great favour with the Emperor, and empowered to make such proposals from his master, as the ministry durst not reject. It appeared by an intercepted letter from Count Gallas, (formerly the Emperor's envoy here) that the prince was wholly left to his liberty of making what offers he pleased in the Emperor's name, for if the Parliament could once be brought to raise funds, and the war go on, the ministry here must be under a necessity of applying and expending those funds, and the Emperor could afterwards find twenty reasons and excuses, as he had hitherto done, for not furnishing his quota; therefore Prince Eugene, for some time, kept himself within generals, until being pressed to explain himself upon that particular of the war in Spain, which the house of Austria pretended to have most at heart, he made the offer above mentioned, as a most extraordinary effort, and so it was, considering how little they had ever done before, towards recovering that monarchy to themselves; but shameful as these proposals were, few believed the Emperor would observe them, or, indeed, that he ever intended to spare so many men, as would make up an army of thirty thousand men, to be employed in Spain.