have an article so framed as to make it evident that was his only drift and intent. He insisted, therefore, very strongly for three days, that his Majesty should in this treaty guarantee the Treaty of Utrecht, the 6th article of which treaty contains every thing which relates to the succession of the Crown of France."* It might easily be shown how much embarrassment and danger would have resulted to the new Government of England, had they been unwarily drawn in to accept this insidious proposal, and to guarantee the whole treaty so shamefully concluded by their predecessors. Stanhope accordingly met this request with a positive refusal. "The Abbé, finding me thus peremptory, talked of going away immediately, which threat I bore very patiently; but, thinking better of it, he brought himself to be satisfied, if an article should be inserted to guarantee the 4th, 5th, and 6th articles of the Treaty of Utrecht between France and England, and the 31st between France and Holland; the two former of which relate only to the succession of England, and the two latter contain every thing which concerns that of France, and the renunciations upon which it is founded." This scheme not being liable to the same objections as the former, Stanhope drew up an article accordingly, and laid it before the King, who approved of it, and desired him to endeavour to bring Dubois to consent to it, "which, however," adds Stanhope, "it has cost me three days' wrangling to do."

As to the Jacobite cause, the Abbé made no difficulties, but offered three expedients, by which the Pretender would be sent beyond the Alps, either before or immediately after the ratification of the treaty. Reserving the option of one of these, and leaving the article of Mardyke to be determined in England, the preliminaries were conditionally signed by Stanhope and Dubois, and immediately forwarded both to London and to the Hague, it having been intended from the first that the treaty should, if possible, be a triple one, so as to include the Dutch; and they, on their part, eagerly entering into these views, and seeing the wisdom of closely adhering to the policy of England.t

On receiving the preliminaries, Lord Townshend and Mr. Methuen, who acted as Secretary of State during Stanhope's absence, expressed entire satisfaction, and only doubted whether the Regent would ever consent to demolish Mardyke in the manner required. Their first interview with M. Iberville, who was sent over from France to conclude that article with them, confirmed their apprehensions; "it being very plain," writes Mr. Poyntz, "by the course of the negotiation with him, that though the draining of the waters is made the pretence, yet the maintaining a depth sufficient to admit men-of-war and

• Despatch from Secretary Stanhope to Lord Townshend, dated Aug. 24, 1716, and printed in Coxe's Walpole, vol. ii. p. 68-72. It contains a full account of the whole negotiation at Hanover. See also the Mémoires de Sevelinges, vol. i. p. 213–221.

† Lord Townshend even complained of their being too anxious to treat-"that for ward disposition which appears in too many there for negotiating with France." Mr. Poyntz to Secretary Stanhope, Sept. 8, 1716, O S. Coxe's Walpole.

Mr. Poyntz's despatch to Secretary Stanhope, Aug. 21, 1716, O. S., printed in Coxe's Walpole.

privateers is the real aim of the French."* But three days more entirely changed the scene. "My Lord Townshend and Mr. Methuen make no doubt but you will be very much surprised to hear so soon after what I had the honour to write to you in my last, that M. Iberville has given in a paper, by which he consents to ruin the FASCINAGES, and to reduce the sluice to the breadth of sixteen feet, which, in the opinion of the most skilful of our sea officers, as well as engineers, will more effectually exclude ships of war and privateers than what was first proposed in the paper annexed to his Majesty's project. They impute this alteration in the conduct of the Regent, partly to the perplexed state of his own affairs, and partly to his having a better opinion of his Majesty's than heretofore. . . But, be the cause what it will, they think they have the justest cause to felicitate his Majesty on the conclusion of a treaty with France, as an event not more glorious in itself than advantageous in its consequences." Thus, then, every obstacle to the French alliance seemed to be most happily removed, and nothing wanting to the treaty but its final ratification.

Meanwhile the state of the King's relations with the northern powers was growing very critical. On coming to the Crown of England, his Majesty had by no means enlarged his views from the narrow bounds of the Electorate. His pride in his new dominions never at all diverted his thoughts, or slackened his zeal for merely Hanoverian objects. Amongst the foremost of these had always been the acquisition of the former bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, rich districts, which, at the peace of Westphalia, had been secularised and ceded to Sweden, and ever since possessed by that power. But the daring and chivalrous spirit of Charles the Twelfth, now King of Sweden, as at first it had led him forward to victory, so at last drew upon him the depredations of all his neighbours. Danes, Norwegians, Saxons, Prussians, Muscovites all gathered round to attack and despoil the fallen lion. Frederick the Fourth of Denmark especially had, in 1712, conquered Sleswick, Holstein, Bremen, and Verden; during which time Charles, having fled into Turkey after his defeat at Pultowa, remained obstinately fixed at Bender, and showed a romantic pride in withstanding both the orders of the Sultan and the dictates of common sense. At length, however, starting from his lethargy to the defence of his dominions, he set off, travelled incognito through Germany, and suddenly arrived at his town of Stralsund, in November, 1714, before it was known there that he had even quitted Bender. His return made the enemies of Sweden tremble for their prey; and Frederick of Denmark, hopeless of retaining all the conquests he had made, determined to sacrifice a share, in order to secure the rest. With this view, he, in July, 1715, ratified a treaty with George as Elector of Hanover, by which he agreed to put Bremen and Verden in possession of his Electoral

* Despatch to Secretary Stanhope, Sept. 8, 1716, O. S., printed in Coxe's Walpole. Mr. Poyntz to Secretary Stanhope, Sept. 11, 1716, O. S., Coxe's Walpole.

Highness, on condition that George should pay 150,000l., and join the coalition against Sweden. Accordingly, in the autumn of that year, a British squadron, under Sir John Norris, had been sent into. the Baltic, ostensibly to protect our trade from Swedish depredations, but with the real purpose of compelling Sweden to cede the provinces on the Weser, and accept a sum of money in compensation for them. Charles, however, was not dismayed-only the more exasperated by these proceedings; and far from yielding to George, entered eagerly, as we shall afterwards find, into the Jacobite cabals against him.

It is to be observed that Townshend, Walpole, Stanhope, and, in fact, all the ministers of George the First, entirely approved of his treaty with Denmark. Even after Townshend had left office in disgust, we find him, in a letter to Pensionary Slingeland, strongly urging his opinion that without any reference to the wishes of the King, and for the sake of England only, it was most desirable that Bremen and Verden should be wrested from Sweden and annexed to the Electorate.* He might plausibly show the ill use which Sweden had often made of these territories; her usual connection with France; the consequent influence of both these States on the politics of the Empire, and the importance of the Elbe and Weser being open to British commerce. On these grounds it is certain that England had an interest in the cession. But it is no less certain that this interest was small, contingent, and remote; and that if any other Prince than the Elector of Hanover had been King of England, the latter power would never have concluded such treaties, nor run such hazards for the aggrandisement of the former, with so slight a prospect of advantage to itself.

But the territories of Bremen and Verden were not the only points at issue: another storm seemed to be gathering in the North. The genius of Peter the Great had already begun to make his people, so lately unknown or despised, an object of jealousy to other European powers; and one of his chief and most dangerous designs was to obtain a footing in the Empire. For this purpose he was disposed to avail himself of his alliance with the Duke of Mecklenburg to whom he had given his niece in marriage, and of some differences which had sprung up in that country between the Duke and his subjects.t He unexpectedly poured a large body of troops into the Duchy, and, on some remonstrances from Denmark, publicly threatened that he would quarter a part of them in the Danish territories. Such daring schemes of aggrandisement could not fail to be warmly resented both by the Emperor and by the smaller German sovereigns; and George the First, being then at Hanover, was not among those least offended or alarmed. There was, moreover, great personal animosity

• See Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 87.

I glide lightly over the obscure domestic affairs of Mecklenburg. Those who wish for further details may consult Lamberty, vol. v. p. 47; and, for the subsequent negotia. tions, vol. x. p. 107, &c., and the Hardwicke State Papers, vol. ii. p. 558.

between him and the Czar, though with scarcely any ground for it;* but differences which have once arisen from trifling causes are generally found to be the stronger in proportion to the slightness of their origin. George sent his favourite counsellor, Bernsdorf, to Stanhope with a project "to crush the Czar immediately; to secure his ships, and even to seize his person, to be kept till his troops shall have evacuated Denmark and Germany." Stanhope went directly to the King, whom he found very anxious that such orders should be sent to Sir John Norris. But Stanhope would consent to no further instructions than that Sir John should join his remonstrances with those of the King of Denmark, thus very properly avoiding any decisive steps until the matter could be referred to the other Ministers in England. To Lord Townshend he himself wrote thus: "I shall check my own nature, which was ever inclined to bold strokes, till I can hear from you. But you will easily imagine how I shall daily be pressed to send orders to Sir John Norris. The truth is, I see O daylight through these affairs. We may easily master the Czar if we go briskly to work, and that this be thought a right measure. But how far Sweden may be thereby enabled to disturb us in Britain, you must judge. If the Czar be let alone, he will not only be master of Denmark, but, with the body of troops which he has still behind on the frontiers of Poland, may take quarters where he pleases in Germany. How far the King of Prussia is concerned with him we do not know, nor will that Prince explain himself. The King now wishes, and so does your humble servant, very heartily, that we had secured France. The Abbé (Dubois) talks to me as one would wish, and showed me part of a despatch from Marshal d'Huxelles this morning, whereby they promise that the minute our treaty is signed they will frankly tell us every thing they know touching the Jacobite projects from the beginning. I was, you know, very averse at first to this treaty; but I think truly, as matters now stand, we ought not to lose a minute in finishing it."

The contents of this letter gave no small uneasiness to the cabinet in England. Lord Townshend, in an "absolutely secret" answer to Stanhope, expresses his fear that the prosecution of the northern war would be their ruin, and his opinion that peace ought immediately, even at some sacrifice, to be made with Sweden. In his public despatch, and speaking in the name not only of the other Ministers, but of the Prince of Wales, he represents the ill effects of a rupture with the Czar, more especially the seizing of the British merchants and ships in Russia, and the prohibiting the supply of naval stores from thence to England. That Norris's squadron should winter in the Baltic is also strongly objected to, above all, at a time when England was threatened with an invasion from Sweden

See St. Simon, vol. xv. p. 75, ed. 1829. "Cette haine," he adds, "a duré toute leur vie et dans la plus vive aigreur."-"The Czar hates King George mortally," writes Mr. G. Gyllenborg to Count Gyllenborg, Nov. 1716. (Parl. Hist. vol. vii. p. 402.)

Letter to Lord Townshend, dated September 25, 1716, N. S., and printed in Coxe's Walpole.

and a rising from the Jacobites. "However," Townshend proceeds, "his Royal Highness, on the other hand, is no less deeply affected with a just sense of the imminent danger which these kingdoms, as well as the Empire, are exposed to from the behaviour of the Czar, who, it is plain, intends to make himself master of the whole coast of the Baltic. . ... On the whole, his Royal Highness is of opinion that his Majesty, if he thinks the King of Denmark able to go through with the project in question, may insinuate privately, and under the greatest secrecy, that he will not only acquiesce in his Danish Majesty's making this attempt, but that he will also support and assist him in the sequel of this affair when once this blow is given."

This modified proposal was by no means satisfactory to the King. He was chiefly intent on the continuance of his squadron in the Baltic; and Lord Townshend, knowing this to be his Majesty's wish, should at least have taken care to speak of it with temper. Yet, the following are the words of Poyntz, his private secretary, to Stanhope:-"My Lord perceives, by a letter from M. Robethon, that the King is likely to insist on Sir John Norris's squadron being left to winter in the Baltic; and he commands me to acquaint you, that it makes him lose all patience to see what ridiculous expedients they propose to his Majesty for extricating themselves out of their present difficulties, as if the leaving you eight men of war to be frozen up for six months would signify five grains towards giving a new turn to the affairs of the North."

Meanwhile, at Hanover the designs of Russia continued to be watched with great anxiety. "There is reason to believe," writes. Stanhope to Townshend, on the 16th of October, "that the Duke of Mecklenburg has signed a treaty with the Czar to give up his country to him in exchange for Livonia, and other tracts of country that way. Wismar, which is the strongest town and best fortified in Germany, is at present garrisoned by six battalions; two of the King's, two Danes, and two Prussians. It is probable the Czar will immediately invest that place, and God knows how far we may depend upon either of the auxiliary presidiaries, such is the stupidity and knavery of both those Courts. . . . . I believe it may not be impossible to put this northern business in such a light as may induce the Parliament not to look on it with indifference. If I mistake not, Cromwell, who understood very well the interest of England with respect to foreign powers, fitted out more than one fleet to the Baltic, with no other view than to secure that, in the treaties of peace to be made betwixt those northern potentates, a freedom of trade to the Baltic should be preserved to all nations. He frequently offered considerable sums of money to the King of Sweden for Bremen. . . . . It is certain, that if the Czar be let alone three years, he will be absolute master in those seas."

* Despatch, dated Sept. 25, 1716, O. S. This despatch is not marked private, and was therefore (see Coxe's Walpole, vol. ii. p. 56), to be laid before the King. No won der he complained of Lord Townshend's disrespectful tone.