admission of the ellipse or the popular idiom. These, it was justly remarked, might give power and richness to a language for native use; but not being interpreted by the rules of a scientific grammar, they could not prove their meaning to the stranger not accustomed to their colloquial use. That the world at large should transact its diplomatic business in the language of France, had in it a semblance of doing homage to that nation; and the haughty Court of King Louis did not discourage the inference. But on the other side, it might be said that France, having no national tongue, was reduced to the employment of the lingua Franca, the common property of the nations. Perhaps no other men did more to establish the employment of French as the language of diplomacy than Marlborough and Prince Eugene, the most formidable enemies of France.

For us the treaty was concluded on the 28th of April 1713, by our exchange of ratifications with France.1

The leading items of this momentous treaty are, in the first place, that there is to be perpetual peace and affection between France and Britain,—a condition fortified by such eloquent protestations of attachment and denunciations of discord, that if words could do it, the end of all wars between the two nations had been reached and duly recorded. More material as a guaranty of peace was the distinctness of the acknowledgment of the succession to the throne of Britain, as adjusted by the Succession and Abjuration

1 The fullest collection of documents about the treaty is 'Actes, Mémoires, et autres pièces authentiques concernant la Paix d'Utrecht.' 5 vols. Utrecht: 1714.

Acts. The Protestant line is indicated with the special distinctness of diplomatic French.1 The exclusion of "the Pretender" must be as absolute an abjuration at Versailles as it was made at St Stephen's. It would be unfair to the touch of chivalry that lighted up the dark spirit of the most Christian king, were we to doubt that this was among the bitterest elements in his cup of humiliations. And when he engages to drive the representative of the Stewarts out of his dominions, there is something grotesque in the touch of French politeness announcing that the poor youth whose departure is described as spontaneous, should not be permitted to return to France. 2

The stipulations that the crown of France and of Spain should never be permitted to alight on the same head were equally emphatic, but not of a nature to be so conclusive. Ere the King of France could question the parliamentary title of Queen Anne, something must have occurred in Britain opening the way to the attempt. There was a startling mortality in the

1 On the death of the queen without issue, "en faveur de la sérénissime Princesse Sophie, Douairière du Brunswick-Hanover, et ses héritières dans la ligne protestante d'Hanover. Et afin que cette succession demeure ferme et stable, le Roy très chrêtien reconnoist sincèrement et solennellement la dite succession à la royaume de la Grand Bretagne limite comme dessus, et déclare et promet en foy et parole du Roy, tant pour luy que pour ses héritiers et successeurs," &c.-Corps Universelle Diplomatique, viii. 340.

2 "Le Roy très crêtien promet qui luy et ses successeurs et héritiers apporteront tous leurs soins pour empêcher, que la personne qui du vivant du Roy Jacques II. avoit pris le titre de Prince de Galles, et au decès du diet Roy celuy du Roy du Grand Bretagne, et qui depuis peu est sorti volontairement du royaume de France pour demeurer ailleurs, ne puisse y rentrer, ni dans aucuns des provinces de ce royaume, en quelques tems ou sous quelque prétexte que se pouisse être."—Ibid., 348.

royal family of France; and if there should come a time when there was but one representative of King Louis, whether the representative of the house of Bourbon would take all, would depend on whether it was strong enough to keep all. Doctrines of divine right had already been whispered of a kind conclusive against any treaty turning aside the legitimate heir of the crown of France. The great civilian, Bignon, had put the rules with scientific precision, that the heir of France does not mount the throne by law or custom, but is born to fill it.

The territories known as Hudson Bay having been occupied by the French, were restored, the French settlers being allowed to remove from the soil with all their movable property. St Christopher, Nova Scotia, and the neighbouring settlements beyond the border of Canada, were ceded to Britain, and our country claimed and obtained a territory in America, vast in extent, inheriting a curious history, as the territory of the Hudson Bay Company. France reserved for her citizens the privilege of fishing in certain limits, drying their fish, and preparing them for the market, with due provision against their permanently squatting, and especially against the building of fortresses. There was a beneficent provision that the French occupants of Canada should not molest "the five nations" of the Indians attached to the British interest in America, or any others that might follow their example in accepting British protection.

The trading eye of Britain selected some spots in the Mediterranean suited for the protection of their commerce, and in British possession at the conclusion

of the war. Among these, the most conspicuous was the great barren rock known as Gibraltar. This claim, destined to be memorable in the wars of later times, seems to have scarcely excited notice; and we have seen how lightly the great Rock and its defences were esteemed when it passed into our hands. It was an acquisition of a kind that carried with it scarcely a vestige of the wrongs to oppressed races, or the other calamities that follow concessions of territory, as the result of war. Its retention by the Power that holds it was, in fact, a blessing to the world, with no farther abatement than a slight cloud on the pompous pride of the Spaniard. It may be called a condition in the destiny of fortresses, that they must always fall to the hand strongest in war where they stand ; so that, raised as they sometimes have been, by weak princes, as a security against oppressors, the strongest of the oppressors acquires and keeps the works for his own purposes. Gibraltar is naturally a sea-fort. It has fallen to the Power strongest at sea, and will, according to all previous experience, remain with this Power until our strength decays. If we have been ever watchful and stern in guarding our possession, we may fairly boast that no other State would have communicated its benefits, as a protected commercial port, so amply to the trading world at large. It was a converse of this acquisition that France had to level the fortifications of Dunkirk. This concession was extracted by tacit menaces. If the war continued, the great sea Power would take the fortifications-perhaps occupy them. Thus came to an end the nest of pirates, ever becoming more powerful and mischievous as the advance of British

and Dutch trade enhanced the stock-in-trade that enriched the privateer.

There remains one significant acquisition to Britain by the treaty-the contract called in Spanish the Assiento, being a privilege or monopoly for supplying the Spanish colonies in the western hemisphere with negro slaves. We may defer further notice of it until, towards the end of the reign, it took a shape destined to develop a strange eventful history.

There was much reproach laid on our part in the treaty for what was called "the desertion of the Catalans," of certain inhabitants of Catalonia, who were almost the only inhabitants of Spain who had adopted the cause of the Archduke. When King Philip was seated on his throne, the Catalans were rebels, supported in their rebellion by the presence of a hostile force. The remnant of the British army of Spain was in Catalonia, and when, in the autumn of 1712, this remnant embarked for Port Mahon, the Catalans maintained that they were treacherously deserted by those who had exacted from them allegiance to King Charles.

The "desertion of the Catalans" came under debate in the House of Lords on the 2d of April 1714, when the Lords Wharton and Sunderland represented that "the Crown of Great Britain, having drawn in the Catalans to declare for the house of Austria, and engaged to support them, those engagements ought to have been made good." Bolingbroke answered, in defence of the Government, "that the queen had used all her endeavours to procure to the Catalans the enjoyment of their ancient liberties and privileges; but that, after all, the engagements